It’s the strangest thing that the first two songs here from Morrissey are from his solo career, but nothing from his time in the Smiths. My friend who lives close-by put me onto the Smiths which I wrote in the article recently Everyday is like Sunday. I soon ventured perusing Morrissey’s solo works and really liked today’s featured track – First of the Gang to Die.
We are the pretty petty thieves
And you’re standing on our streets
Where Hector was the
First of the gang with a gun in his hand
And the first to do time
The first of the gang to die, oh my
“Bullet in his gullet” – fantastic poetry, vivid shocking image. Love will finally break the core of our flesh.
This was the second single released from his 2004 album You Are the Quarry. This single stayed in the charts longer than any other Morrissey song. This song is steeped in the Noir-genre and just reeks of gang violence because of love. Only Morrissey could write: “You have never been in love until you’ve seen the sun rise behind the home for the blind.” We all know Morrissey likes gloomy-irony. I think ‘First of the Gang‘ it’s one of his best written songs in my humble estimation.
Morrissey is hugely popular in South America particularly Chile, Argentina and Central America in Mexico.
Someone wrote on Songmeanings:
Death is an allegory for marriage. Indeed, marriage is death of passion, death of emotion, death of individuality. The image of smashed human bone inspires fear and disgust, just like the thought of marriage does. But when you are able to see beauty in this horrendous picture (“you’ve seen the sunlight thrown”), you know you are really in love.
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
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