Pretty Girls Make Graves

Album: The Smiths (1984)
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  • Upon the sand, upon the bay
    "There is a quick and easy way" you say
    Before you illustrate
    I'd rather state
    I'm not the man you think I am
    I'm not the man you think I am

    And sorrow's native son
    He will not smile for anyone
    And pretty girls make graves

    Ooh-ooh-oh-ooh, ooh-ooh-oh-ooh-ooh

    End of the pier, end of the bay
    You tug my arm, and say
    "Give in to lust, give up to lust
    Oh, heaven knows we'll soon be dust"
    Oh, I'm not the man you think I am
    I'm not the man you think I am

    And sorrow's native son
    He will not rise for anyone
    And pretty girls make graves
    (Oh, really?)

    Ooh-ooh-oh-ooh, ooh-ooh-oh-ooh-ooh

    I could have been wild and I could have been free
    But nature played this trick on me
    She wants it now
    And she will not wait
    But she's too rough
    And I'm too delicate
    Then, on the sand
    Another man, he takes her hand
    A smile lights up her stupid face
    And well, it would
    I lost my faith in womanhood
    I lost my faith in womanhood
    I lost my faith

    Ooh-ooh-oh-ooh, ooh-ooh-oh-ooh-ooh
    Hand in glove
    The sun shines out of our behinds
    Ooh-oh, ooh-oh Writer/s: Johnny Marr, Steven Morrissey
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 3

  • Uri from BrazilI always understood that the other man who took her hand was the narrator himself; he gives it up to lust, but does not recognize himself while doing it, so he speaks of his act as one of another man's; since he betrayed both his idealized self and his idealized romance with a woman, and cannot understand his true (gay) self, he loses his faith in womanhood
  • Misougenous from ItalyIs evident that the songs talk about a celibate, just like Morrisey, who loses his promiscuous friend because she forget him to another stupid boy.
  • Neil from Birmingham, UkI don't buy it. This song is about the danger pretty girls that fancied you posed if you were gay. You have a difficult line to walk; you can't say no because she's pretty but you would rather do anything else. 'I'm not the man you think I am' and 'I could have been wild and I could have been free, but nature played it's trick on me.' That trick is surely the subverting of his sexual desires to men instead of women.
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