I’ve got a question…or several…that I’ve been kicking around since hearing the song “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish” many years ago. My sense is that our British Dopers and/or hardcore Smiths fans will be able to help me iron this out.
Why would the hero of the song be subjected to “eighteen months hard labour”?
“Guilded beams”? And what is meant by “that’s what tradition means”?
I’ve tried to be a savvy music fan, but I suspect there’s a cultural translation I’m not getting from this song. My interpretation is that the lyric refers to a request for oral gratification from a same-sex friend in a time frame (say, 1950s Britain) where the result could earn prison time or some similar penalty. For some reason, I hear it as the story of Alan Turing, who had to endure hormone treatments as a supposed “cure” for homosexuality. Admittedly, I’m almost positive I’m wrong in this reading of it…
A friend of mine has claimed that the three-word gesture is “I love you,” but if that’s the case, the rest of the lyric doesn’t make sense to me. Can someone help me get a lock on what the song might actually be about?
Please, feel free to elaborate on the lyric as much as possible, and thanks!
I assumed guild could= gild when you hear it , with gilded=covered in gold. Guild would be a traditional association of craftsman. However, looking it up in dictionary.com, guild is given as a variation of guild, and, the meanings are
To cover with or as if with a thin layer of gold.
To give an often deceptively attractive or improved appearance to.
IANABHSF but I always thought that song was about accidentally starting a relationship when you only meant to be affectionate and have fun. I take 3 word gesture as saying I love you when you don’t really mean it that way, and 18 months hard labour being the length you are stuck in the relationship that you never even should have started, but don’t have the guts to end. That’s your sentence which is the punishment for getting swept up in the moment. Probably I think that cause when I was a kid that’s about how long my relationships would last, and I only said I love you because you are supposed to. That’s what tradition means. If you have sex with someone, you should love them.
I think grabbing by the guilded beams is one of those lines that is a joke because it has a lot of meanings, most of which go over my head but basically means had sex, and tradition means, having sex because that’s what you do when you’re all alone with someone hot and caught up in the moment.
I don’t know what guilded beams means literally, but from the context of the song it makes me think of under a bridge or in a church. I don’t know if Morrissey is talking about having sex in the church though. But definitely the sneaky encounter that seems so exciting at first but is, in fact, not worth having a relationship about.