I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but here’s yet another great B-side from The Smiths. On this occasion, Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want appears as the B-side to their magnificent single William, It’s Really Nothing. Morrissey even said about Please, Please – “Hiding it away on a B-side was sinful” and “I feel sad about it now“.
Please, Please is a new addition to what is becoming a fairly extensive collection of The Smiths’ music in my Music Library Project. One of my favourite quotes about the band is: “The Smiths are the band from the ’80s – most anti-’80s.” They remain an enigmatic band to me for two main reasons:
Firstly, The Smiths feel like the gift that keeps on giving. Just when I think I’ve heard everything of value in their catalogue, another song seems to surface and it hits home. Today’s featured song is a good recent example of that.
Secondly, their music often feels like an acquired taste. It asks something of the listener – time, focus, and immersion – before its meaning really opens up. Many of their songs reward repeated listens, and each time, the appreciation and enjoyment seem to grow.
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want, in keeping with The Smiths’ usual approach, pairs Morrissey’s melancholic and slightly melodramatic vocals with Johnny Marr’s familiar, cutting guitar sound. Despite the downcast delivery, the subject matter is unusually hopeful for Morrissey, as he sings about having “good times for a change.” There is still an undercurrent of self-pity, reflecting on past misfortune, but this time he is pleading for a moment of happiness to last. The song is short, running at just 1:57, yet it gives it just enough time to make a subtle, yet affecting impression.
The following was abridged from the Wikipedia article below:
Johnny Marr wrote the music to “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” shortly after its eventual A-side, “William, It Was Really Nothing“. Marr commented, “Because that was such a fast, short, upbeat song, I wanted the B-side to be different, so I wrote ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’ on Saturday in a different time signature – in a waltz time as a contrast“. Marr has also noted that the music was an attempt to “capture the … spookiness and sense of yearning” in Del Shannon’s “The Answer to Everything“, a song his parents played for him as a child.
The band’s label, Rough Trade, initially was concerned about the song’s short length. Morrissey recalled, “When we first played it to Rough Trade, they kept asking, ‘Where’s the rest of the song?'” Morrissey, who characterized the song “a very brief punch in the face,” argued, “Lengthening the song would, to my mind, have simply been explaining the blindingly obvious“.
The song featured on the compilation albums Hatful of Hollow and Louder Than Bombs. The song was also included on the soundtrack album of the 1986 film Pretty in Pink and featured in the 1999 film Never Been Kissed. An instrumental cut of the cover from the Dream Academy was featured in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
[Verse 1]
Good times for a change
See, the luck I’ve had
Can make a good man turn bad
[Chorus]
So please, please, please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me, get what I want this time
[Verse 2]
Haven’t had a dream in a long time
See, the life I’ve had
Can make a good man bad
[Chorus]
So, for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows it would be the first time
Lord knows it would be the first time
References:
1. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
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