Suffer Little Children

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"Suffer Little Children" is a song by the British band, the Smiths, that was included on their eponymous debut album (1984). The song is about the Moors murders that took place on Saddleworth Moor in Lancashire on the outskirts of Greater Manchester from 1963 to 1965. Many of the victims were only a few years older than Smiths frontman Morrissey, and he has said that the murders left a deep impression on him as a child growing up in Manchester — one which he has never forgotten.

In 1987, Johnny Marr told The South Bank Show that this was the first lyric Morrissey gave him after agreeing to Marr's proposal that they should collaborate (as such, it can be considered the first Smiths song). The original demo contained a brief piano coda which, although removed from the finished recording, later became the basis for the 1985 B-side "Asleep". ^[1] They performed the song in public only once, at their first gig in October 1982^[1].

Contents 1 Public reaction to the song and controversy 2 Examination of the lyrics 3 Reference sources for the lyrics and final appraisal 4 References

[edit] Public reaction to the song and controversy

When the grandfather of one of the victims, John Kilbride, heard the song playing on a pub jukebox he became furious at what he felt was cynical profiteering from the horrific murders. He sought legal action to suppress the record, but later stopped after talking to Morrissey and realizing the sincerity of the lyrics. Morrissey also established a friendship with Ann and Alan West, the mother and stepfather of Moors victim, Lesley Ann Downey.

The song — the first ever written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr — was written with a vocalist such as Dusty Springfield in mind, before the band decided instead to record it themselves. It was originally released as a track on the band's debut album in February 1984, but did not cause a huge amount of controversy until it came out as the B-side of the single, "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", three months later. The Sun newspaper then started a campaign against the single, claiming it to be in bad taste. The campaign resulted in some shops refusing to stock the record.

The Sun's coverage also claimed that the sleeve artwork for the record showed a photograph of pools winner Viv Nicholson in a "Myra Hindley-type stance". Although the cover does indeed show a peroxide-blonde Nicholson standing in a northern backstreet in the 1960s, there is no proof that the band ever intended this to resemble Hindley.

[edit] Examination of the lyrics

^{[original research?]}

"Suffer Little Children" was performed only once live, at the Smiths' first gig at the Ritz in Manchester. The original title of the song was "Over the Moors".

In the lyrics, Morrissey assumes the different voices of actual persons — the murderers, the victims, and the survivors. The singer even imagines himself as a murder victim in the opening lines:

Over the moor, take me to the moor,

Dig a shallow grave

And I'll lay me down.

In the song's lyrics, three of the Moors victims are named: Lesley Ann Downey, John Kilbride and Edward Evans. Morrissey sings,

Lesley Ann, with your pretty white beads,

Oh John, you'll never be a man,

And you'll never see your home again.

Oh Manchester, so much to answer for...

Edward, see those alluring lights?

Tonight will be your very last night.

A woman said : "I know my son is dead,

I'll never rest my hands on his sacred head".

The lyrics also mention Myra Hindley by name and quote her statement to the police at the time of her arrest, which is arguably an admission of her involvement in the killings with her lover, Ian Brady:

Hindley wakes and Hindley says,

Hindley wakes, Hindley wakes, Hindley wakes, and says,

"Oh, whatever he has done, I have done".

Morrissey even assumes the collective voice of the murdered children themselves::

"Oh, find me ... find me, nothing more,

We are on a sullen misty moor.

We may be dead and we may be gone,

But we will be, we will be, we will be, right by your side.

Until the day you die,

This is no easy ride.

We will haunt you when you laugh,

Yes, you could say we're a team,

You might sleep...

You might sleep...

You might sleep...

But you will never dream."

[edit] Reference sources for the lyrics and final appraisal

The title of the song, "Suffer Little Children", is a phrase found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 19, verse 14, in which Jesus rebukes his disciples for turning away a group of children and says,

"Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

The song does not appear, however, to interpret the phrase in the biblical sense, with "suffer" meaning "permit". Instead, it seems to use the phrase, either mistakenly or deliberately, as a poetical inversion, meaning: "Little children suffer".

Morrissey's main source of inspiration for the lyrics was Welsh author Emlyn Williams' artful 1968 account of the Moors killings, Beyond Belief: A Chronicle of Murder and its Detection. In the book, one of the chapter headings is "Suffer Little Children", as is the phrase "Hindley Wakes". It seems that the playwrite-actor Williams had intended "Hindley Wakes" as a pun on Hindle Wakes, the title of an acclaimed 1912 stage play about prostitution in Lancashire, written by Mancunian playwright Stanley Houghton.

At the time of the song's writing (1982) only the three youngsters mentioned in the song had been officially recognized as victims of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. In December 1986, the pair confessed to having killed Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett as well. On July 1, 1987, Pauline Reade's body was recovered from the soil on Saddleworth Moor; however, Bennett's body has never been found. In light of these new facts, the song's lyrics have dated somewhat.

In some respects, "Suffer Little Children" is a song in the classic tradition of the elegiac folk ballad — a commemoration of the dead drawing on actual remembered events in the life of the singer and his community.

[edit] References