How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
Morrissey Pulls Back The Curtain
The seventh track on 2004’s You Are The Quarry studio album, ‘How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?’ is credited as having been recorded in Los Angeles in 2004, although the You Are The Quarry sessions were actually split between Sarm Hook End in Berkshire in the autumn of 2003 and then at Conway Studios in Los Angeles in late 2003, January 2004. Morrissey utilized Jerry Finn as producer, with Boz Boorer (guitar), Alain Whyte (guitar), Gary Day (bass), Dean Butterworth (drums) and Roger Manning (piano) as his musicians on the song.1
Listen to ‘How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?’ here:
It is the height of irony (and some would say ignorance, too) that the author presumes to understand what Morrissey means to express through a song aptly titled ‘How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?’. But as Sir Thomas More said to Cardinal Wolsey within a different context, there are precedents.
The song is decidedly honest and straightforward, but has the effect of eliciting strong and often divergent opinion amongst fans. Unfortunately, Morrissey appears to have made the error of casting his pearls before swine; words such as “plodding”, “bland” and “lazy” are liberally thrown around like ash flicked from a cigarette by some when the song is mentioned.
It is manifest that some of Morrissey’s songs are better than others; however, ‘How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?’ is unfairly pilloried. The discerning ear and open mind may be fortunate enough to see the trees notwithstanding the forest of negativity.
While Morrissey’s body of work from the Smiths to the present is a revealing testament of the man, ‘How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?’ offers a direct, uncluttered, and rather personal window into the ethos of Morrissey.
Lines such as “She told me she loved me/Which means she must be insane”, ”They said they respect me/Which means their judgment is crazy”, and ”He said he wants to befriend me/Which means he can't possibly know me” (followed by the admonition that “the future is passing you by”) speak clearly of someone possessing highly burnished self-awareness, which at times is both a blessing and a curse. The song illustrates this duality to a degree that is startling.
To put a fine point on the issue; that someone derided as “difficult” and single- minded to the point of being obstinate should pen such lines reveals an individual who is keenly aware not so much as how they’re perceived by others, but how they themselves are. Such an individual is unusual inasmuch as few have the courage to face their real selves, untainted by hubris or blinded by self-deceit, much less sing about it.
Introversion is often a burden to be carried all of ones days as we are inherently social beings. When those possessing this trait are also highly gifted in one or more arenas, they frequently lead lives that are largely solitary as those around them perceive them
