I LIKE YOU
Quintessential Morrissey
'I Like You' is the 11th track on Morrissey's seventh studio album, You Are The Quarry (released May 2004). Morrissey is thought to have written this song (along with Boz Boorer) at some point between the year 2000 and its live debut on August 10, 2002 at the Rialto in Tucson, Arizona (the second concert of Morrissey’s World Tour 2002). The song’s debut occurred nearly two years prior to it formal release!
'I Like You' was first recorded on October 3, 2002 for Morrissey's appearance on Janice Long's1 BBC2 program. The musicians on this radio session were Boz Boorer (guitars), Alain Whyte (guitars), Gary Day (bass) and Dean Butterworth (drums).
Although the recording sessions for You Are The Quarry were split between Hook End Recording Studios in Berkshire in the autumn of 2003 and Conway Studios in Los Angeles in late 2003 or January 2004, the album credits reflect the song as having been recorded in Los Angeles in 2004 with producer Jerry Finn. The same musicians play on the album version of the song with the addition of Roger Manning (piano).
The general consensus amongst fans is that the radio session recording of 'I Like You' is musically superior to the studio album version, although not all share this opinion.
Something in you caused me to
Take a new tact with you
You were going through
Something I had just about scraped through
Why do you think I let you get away
With the things you say to me?
Could it be I like you?
It's so shameful of me
I like you
No one I ever knew
Or have spoken to resembles you
This is good or bad
All depending on my general mood
Why do you think I let you get away
With all the things you say to me?
Could it be I like you?
It's so shameful of me
I like you
Magistrates
Who spend their lives
Hiding their mistakes
They look at you and I
And envy makes them cry
Envy makes them cry
Forces of containment
They shove their fat faces into mine
You and I just smile
Because we're thinking the same lines
Why do you think I let you get away
With all the things you say to me?
Could it be I like you?
It's so shameful of me
I like you
You're not right in the head
And nor am I
And this is why
You're not right in the head
And nor am I
And this is why
This is why I like you
Only Morrissey could have written lyrics such as these, with their self-deprecating undercurrent, furtiveness, and (shared) eccentricity based declaration of affection ("You're not right in the head and nor am I and this is why I like you").
While it is not clear as to why Morrissey deems his affection for the subject as being 'shameful' (likewise, what specific “forces of containment” he and the subject are facing), he makes it clear that the subject is going through some event that he himself had “scraped through”, and which is causing him to reevaluate their relationship. The brief reference to "Magistrates who spend their lives hiding their mistakes" may possibly allude to Mike Joyce's royalties litigation against Morrissey and Johnny Marr, which dragged on for the better part of the 90's until it was ultimately concluded. Whoever the subject is, they certainly are a unique individual as Morrissey states that "No one I ever knew or have spoken to resembles you'.
There is some speculation that Morrissey himself is the subject of the song. Indeed, when performing the song during 2007s Greatest Hits Tour, Morrissey sometimes substituted "resembles me" for "resembles you".
