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About

Genius Annotation

“Never Had No One Ever” is the Smiths at their bleakest – like listening to the birth of a depression. Morrissey writes about having the nagging feeling of being an outsider his whole childhood in Manchester, and the troubles that come which bled into young adulthood.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

What did Johnny Marr say about this song?
Genius Answer

The atmosphere of that track pretty much sums up the whole album and what it was like recording it.

— Page 282, Mozipedia

What did The Smiths say about "Never Had No One Ever"?
Genius Answer

I can never divorce that song from the emotion that inspired it, which is totally personal. […] It’s me, being in my bedroom, living on a housing estate, on a dark night, surrounded by all that concrete and trying to find some beauty through Raw Power and [Iggy Pop guitarist] James Williamson. There’s a certain kind of gothic beauty in “I Need Somebody”. I wasn’t looking to cop a riff; I was looking to cop a feeling. The atmosphere of “Never Had No One Ever”, and pretty much the whole LP, for everything that can be said about the pressure I was under at the time as Johnny in The Smiths in ‘85, really that music could have come out of my bedroom when I was 16.

— Johnny Marr, Uncut, 2006

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