"Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want"
The Smiths' Prayer For Grace
It is of small surprise that "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" is one of the Smiths' most recognizable songs—familiar not only to devoted fans but also to casual listeners. Its near-universal acclaim makes writing about it seem almost redundant. Yet, it is precisely this familiarity that warrants closer examination: how does a song so brief, so melancholic, and so understated manage to linger in the cultural imagination with such force?
Morrissey’s lyrical genius in “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” lies in the precision and restraint of his words — a softly sung plea, unforgettable in its brevity. Eschewing obscurity or lyrical cipher, he uses plainspoken language that is direct yet unmistakably poetic. There’s little need for interpretation; the meaning is as immediate as it is clear. The song is as concise as it is emotionally charged. At just 1 minute and 50 seconds, it brims with longing and quiet resignation, culminating in a restrained but raw cri de cœur for relief.
What’s most striking about the lyrics of the song is how they act as an emotional mirror, inviting listeners to project their own private longings onto its sparse, delicate frame. In this sense, it stands as one of the Smiths’ most universally relatable tracks. The song resonates not because it tells a specific story, but because it evokes fundamental human desires—love, belonging, acceptance, intimacy. Morrissey achieves something rare here: a song that speaks directly to the human condition without resorting to sentimentality, verbosity, or well-worn tropes.
The song also serves as a prime example of Johnny Marr’s musical intuitiveness, versatility, and creativity1. Within days of writing the music for "William, It Was Really Nothing" in June, 1984, he composed “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" as an intentional counterpoint to the former, which of course is a a brisk, jangly, upbeat song. As he later explained: “…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 [to William, It Was Really Nothing’]". Marr’s working title for his composition was "The Irish Waltz".
Johnny Marr performing “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” at the Paramount (Brooklyn, New York) on October 8, 2024 (from the author’s private collection):
The beauty of the song’s music lies in Johnny Marr’s melodic guitar work. His use of open chords and delicate picking—both simple and haunting—perfectly mirrors the lyrics’ quiet sense of longing. Rather than overwhelming the song with complexity, Marr allows space for emotion to breathe. His guitar becomes a second voice, echoing the same yearning that Morrissey sings, and together they create a sound that can fairly be described as transcendent.
Marr has remarked that the music for the song was an attempt to “capture the …spookiness and sense of yearning” he heard in Del Shannon’s2 “The Answer to Everything”3, a song his parents often played during his childhood.4 Listen to “The Answer to Everything” here to gain a better appreciation of Marr’s inspiration:
The Smiths recorded the song in July 1984 at Jam Studios in London with producer John Porter, whose arrangement is, for the most part, spare. A mandolin was added to the song in the recording studio, gently entering right after Morrissey’s final vocals. It plays a light, delicate pattern over Marr’s guitar, its soft, shimmering tone adding an unexpected layer of poignancy. The mandolin’s presence is brief but unforgettable, perfectly capturing the bittersweet mix of sadness and hope that defines the song.
Morrissey performing “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” at the United Palace Theater on October 21, 2023 (from the author’s private collection):
The song was released as the B-side to the Smiths’ “William, It Was Really Nothing” single (their sixth single) on August 24, 1984. The single reached number 17 on the UK Singles Chart, and number 1 on the UK Independent Singles Chart (also known as the “Indie Chart”).
The single’s B-side runout is etched with the phrase “ROMANTIC AND SQUARE IS HIP AND AWARE”—one of many cryptic messages the Smiths inscribed on their vinyl releases. These etchings were part of the band’s distinctive, often ironic self-mythologizing, blurring the line between sincerity and satire. In this case, the phrase seems to wink at the band’s own aesthetic: emotionally earnest yet coolly detached.
When asked by Melody Maker in the wake of the dissolution of the band if he thought "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" was the perfect Smiths song, Morrissey quipped:
"I think it was very close indeed, and hiding it away on a B-side was sinful. I feel sad about it now although we did include it on Hatful Of Hollow by way of semi-repentance. When we first played it to Rough Trade, they kept asking, "where's the rest of the song?" But to me, it's like a very brief punch in the face. Lengthening the song would, to my mind, have simply been explaining the blindingly obvious."5
Marr wrote “How Soon Is Now?”, “William, It Was Really Nothing” and “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” in the course of “…about four to five days when I was living in a flat in Earls Court […] I knew what I was doing with those tracks. The priority was to do 'Please Please Please' and 'William'. Then we needed the extra track [“How Soon Is Now?”] and just nailed that one."
- Johnny Marr, Record Collector, November 1992
Born Charles Weedon Westover (1934 – 1990), Del Shannon was an American musician, singer and songwriter.
Written by Burt Bacharach and Bob Hilliard, Shannon’s cover of the song appears on his second studio album, Hats Off to Del Shannon, which was released in May 1963.
Luerssen, John D. The Smiths FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Most Important British Band of the 1980s. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
Morrissey, Melody Maker, September 26, 1987
The music has the pace and feel of some of Ennio Morricone's emblematic themes. When the Mandolin comes in it's as if Telstar by The Tornadoes was re-scored by Morricone, the chord changes and melodic flow in the same musical space as the melodies in Giù la testa and C'era un volta il west. It's a beautiful song which at the end transforms Morrissey's bereft prayer into an embracing consummation.
Those 3 songs, William, How Soon is Now and Please, Please, Please are in my view The Smiths best songs, the perfect pop song, the pure rock groove and the hymnal ballad. The music and lyrics of all three telling all we need to know about desire versus need and the revelation of devotion to something beyond the material.