Sorry Doesn't Help

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

False humility: bowing and scraping, pretending to be subservient, lots of yes, sir and no, sir. But really goes home in a Mercedes and is a dick to the waitress at dinner.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

You think it's about a man's attempt to perform his own sex change on the cheap, then?

Tuck and tape? No, that's not what I was thinking.

 

[modrevolve]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

Isn't it Sorry Doesn't Help??

 

[Not Right in the Head]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

Ah, so in the sense that something was held back and then it springs out.
Like anger that you shouldn't bottle up. Say what you don't like and get it out of the way so that it doesn't build up and comes out like a hurricane later.

Worm's joking.

Isn't it Sorry Doesn't Help??

Dude, look who created this thread.

 

[Not Right in the Head]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

"Sorries pour out of you
All wide-eyed simple smiles
certain to see you through
like a QC full of fake humility
you say:
“Oh, please forgive…”
you say:
“Oh, live and let live…”
but sorry doesn’t help us
and sorry will not save us
and sorry will not bring my teen years back to me (any time soon)
Forced back, it springs right out"

Ah, so there is somebody who is all nice and overly apologetic, pretending that it doesn't matter, one should move on, but there is no point in doing the same, because what happened happened and the apology doesn't change what happened. If you pretended it didn't matter, even though it does to you, the anger builds up. Or if you denie your true feelings you get depressed. It is quite common to get depressed if you pretend that something is all right even though it isn't.

That is a remarkably astute assessment of those lines. I'm not even kidding.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

Well, I was trying to be a little more delicate, but I don't really need to.

"Forced back, it springs right back" brings to mind not only the lie which will inevitably "pop up," but also an erection, which could suggest that the song's lies are covering infidelity (cheating partner). But I'd hate to think it's about such a simple type of lie. Cheating's so common, anyone can do it. This should be about something much worse, something going all the way back to the beginning of the relationship (re: the "teen years".)

And Silke, I agree that your interpretation is very astute. But you can leave off the latter part of the definition you found, clever and shrewd is probably enough.

 

[Your Arsenal]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

I didn't really care for this song at first,
but I think I started really liking it yetserday, when the song really fit my mood. I blasted "Sorry Doesn't Help" in my car and I felt much better
Anyway, I think alot of Morrissey songs work that way. Don't really care for them until they fit into your life.

 

[justme]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

Anyway, I think alot of Morrissey songs work that way. Don't really care for them until they fit into your life.

Oh yes... I totally agree

 

[Barking]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

"Forced back, it springs right back" brings to mind not only the lie which will inevitably "pop up," but also an erection

 

[dunya]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

I like your interpretations Silke.

I was wondering, could it also be seen as a message to someone from years back. A schoolteacher who was rotten to the child, a relative, or ex-friend/lover, or workmate who betrayed or told lies about the narrator. Now years later the person wants to brush it away, say "sorry" glibly, "it's all in the past", "move on" without having to deal with the lasting consequences of their actions.
Seasoned (years later) Forced back, that is confronted with their misdeeds, they spring back with the same old excuses, lying, saying it wasn't like that, when it was.

The unreliable one wanting the narrator to absolve his/her guilt, but who would carry on doing the same anyway.

The narrator, for whom forgiveness is not an option, despite their refusal (to forgive) hurting them more than the liar.



Forgiveness does not benefit the perpetrator, it releases the victim.

 

[Not Right in the Head]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

I like your interpretations Silke.

I was wondering, could it also be seen as a message to someone from years back. A schoolteacher who was rotten to the child, a relative, or ex-friend/lover, or workmate who betrayed or told lies about the narrator. Now years later the person wants to brush it away, say "sorry" glibly, "it's all in the past", "move on" without having to deal with the lasting consequences of their actions.

How about a parent? This song pretty much sums up how I felt about my dad a few years after he left us.

 

[Worm]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

Teachers, parents, lawyers, ex-drummers, record moguls-- the list is endless. Maybe it's not about anyone in particular at all. To paraphrase a line in Christopher McQuarrie's The Way Of The Gun, "That's not resentment. That's a grudge with a universal adaptor".

 

[biru]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

(...)Lines like "You lie about the lies that you've told, which is the full extent of what being you is all about", blow me away. I don't know how he thinks of these things. (...)

That line is actually one of my biggest hates. "Which is the full extent of what being you is all about" is an extremely easy and ugly line to me.

 

[biru]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

Why is this an extremely ugly line to you?

Morrissey can pull fantastic lines and lyrics out of his sleeve but this one isn't fantastic to me. It reminds me of hate letters sent by classmates to each other in elementary school. It's just too easy when, what he actually means, could be turned into something beautiful.

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

Do you mean it is an resentment that can build up due to experiences in many possible situations?

I think he meant that it's phrased so that many people can apply it to their own lives.

 

[biru]

Re: Sorry doesnt help us

I am not familiar with hate letters in elementary school. What were these hate letters about? The only thing I experienced in primary school was that people were picked on others because they didn't fit the norm. It was quite a shock to me that there are people who do that. Never experienced anything like this until then, not in kindergarden. I listened to BBC2 during the day on February 11th, the day that Morrissey was going to give his concert in the evening, and they spoke about a research finding that it is better for children to be looked after in a nursery as opposed to grandparents. Somebody argued that children would learn to bully at kindergarden. From my experience it was kindergarden where children learned pro social behaviour and teachers in primary school didn't see it as their task to do that. And I learned in pedagogis at school that this is what kindergarden should be about, why it was established. That they learn there what they would not learn in their families. Nowadays I know that those children's behaviour in kindergarden said a lot about their parents. You get a lot of that behaviour among grown ups.

But I think the point in this song is different. There are people who spend most of their life telling lies. So much so that they find it normal to announce to the world that it is normal to lie, at least 200 times a day.

Also, one of the problems in the situation sung about is that the person pretends that what had happened didn't matter. Things would be a bit different if that person took the narrator a bit more seriously and the hurt that she/she did to him/her. It carries the message that the person who did the hurt thought he/she would get away with it. It is pretty common that people think that they can do just anything, say "sorry" and that's it then.

I know, but I didn't question that. The rest of the lyric is ok, I simply don't like the line "which is the full extent of what being you is all about". I have suffered bullying until highschool but that's not the point. That line I mentioned just isn't right for a song, in my opinion. It's not well put together and I don't feel it makes any sense with the rest of the lyrics (the way it is said, not what it means). Did I make myself clear? Because I really don't know... my english is not perfect.