Divine Symmetry I 10 I Morrissey’s “I Know Its Gonna Happen Someday” and “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide

I don’t especially like the music of Morrissey or his former band, the Smiths. On top of that, the guy seems like a jerk. It doesn’t help that he publicly feuded with Bowie. Morrissey fired off insults while Bowie responded with a tongue-in-cheek cover of this song, “I Know Its Gonna Happen Someday” (1993) plus, possibly, subtly digging Morrissey in the song, “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die” (2013).

With that in mind, I was listening to a recent episode of the excellent Bowie podcast, Album to Album (click here to link to the episode), in which host Arsalan Mohammad discussed songs from The Next Day with the also excellent Bowie analyst Leah Kardos, author of Blackstar Theory. The two discussed the theory that “You Feel So Lonely” was directed against Morrissey and made several direct references to Ziggy Stardust. Its not the first time I came across the theory (though despite Kardos explaining the connection to Ziggy here and in her book, I just don’t hear it and really have to stretch the lyrics to see the connection there, either).

The show, at one point, played a clip of Bowie saying of “I Know Its Gonna Happen” that he was either going to sue Morrissey or cover the song. This was meant to be a joke— he covered it. I have never especially liked Bowie’s cover, which appears on Black Tie White Noise, which makes it more surprising that, after finally deciding to settle in and listen to Morrissey’s version for similarities to “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide,” I actually liked his version much better.

So what are the similarities?

Well, the most obvious is an instrumental part near the end of the song. As Kardos explained elsewhere, the Morrissey song contains a similar chord progression as appears in “Suicide” (actually, I recall her referring to the chord progression as a “glam trope,” and it doesn’t sound unique to these two songs). Bowie left this part out of his cover, which surely meant…something.

Bowie seemed to also see Morrissey’s admonition, “Don’t lose faith” as being a ripoff of his, “You’re not alone” from “Suicide.” I’m…not so sure. Well, before trashing Bowie, Morrissey had made it clear that he was a fan, at least of early Bowie. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he was influenced by Bowie and probably Kardos, Mohammad and, ya know, David Bowie, were right that the one song influenced the other. But that happens all the time, doesn’t it? I don’t think, “I Know Its Gonna Happen” quite achieves the ripoff status of Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”

Beyond the musical reference and the similar urging to hang in there, I don’t really see a lot of other lyrical similarities. Bowie’s song characteristically mixes obtuse phrases (“don’t let the milk float ride your mind”) with a clearer depiction of someone struggling in a moment of existential crisis (thus, “You got your head all tangled up; But if I could only make you care”). Morrissey’s song is much more straightforward. None of the lines require much interpretation. The singer is telling someone waiting for something, that whatever the unidentified thing is, is “gonna happen someday” and not to lose faith. Both songs feature the singer trying to buck up a friend, but it isn’t even clear that the friends’ crises are of the same type. Bowie’s friend seems like he or she is literally contemplating suicide, while I imagine Morrissey is addressing an aspiring actor or singer doubting that his or her big break will ever come.

One final link— “I Know Its Gonna Happen” was produced by former Spiders from Mars guitarist Mick Ronson.

Well, many of these Divine Symmetry comparisons are between songs with tenuous connections at best. In this case, it seems everyone involved stipulates that there is a connection. So that’s interesting, but to me what’s perhaps more interesting is that sometimes the unintentional connection between seemingly more disparate songs can be even stronger (see last week’s entry comparing Franck Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me” to Bowie’s “Move On”).

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The video I’m attaching here is of Morrissey performing his song live. I am using this version to give you something to look at. If you want to hear the studio version of the song, which I think is slightly more relevant as a point of comparison to “Suicide,” click here.