The Smiths Songs - Suffer Little Children Lyrics

The Smiths - Suffer Little Children

The Smiths - Suffer Little Children Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Smiths
Released: 1984

Suffer Little Children Lyrics

Over the moor, take me to the moor
Dig a shallow grave
And I'll lay me down

Over the moor, take me to the moor
Dig a shallow grave
And I'll lay me down

Lesley-Anne, 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"

Hindley wakes and Hindley says :
Hindley wakes, Hindley wakes, Hindley wakes, and says :
"Oh, wherever he has gone, I have gone"

But fresh lilaced moorland fields
Cannot hide the stolid stench of death
Fresh lilaced moorland fields
Cannot hide the stolid stench of death

Hindley wakes and says :
Hindley wakes, Hindley wakes, Hindley wakes, and says :
"Oh, whatever he has done, I have done"

But this is no easy ride
For a child cries :

"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 !
Oh, you might sleep
BUT YOU WILL NEVER DREAM !
You might sleep
BUT YOU WILL NEVER DREAM !"

Oh Manchester, so much to answer for
Oh Manchester, so much to answer for

Oh, find me, find me !
Find me !
I'll haunt you when you laugh
Oh, I'll haunt you when you laugh
You might sleep
BUT YOU WILL NEVER DREAM !
Oh...
Over the moors, I'm on the moor
Oh, over the moor
Oh, the child is on the moor

Writer/s: MORRISSEY, STEVEN PATRICK/MARR, JOHNNY
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Suffer Little Children

Between 1963 and 1965, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley abducted and murdered five children in and around Manchester, England. They buried several bodies on Saddleworth Moor, north of Manchester, resulting in the case becoming known as the Moors Murders. The tragedy had a great impact on The Smiths' front man, Morrissey, who was not only from the area, but the same age as some of the victims. He was inspired to write "Suffer Little Children" after reading Beyond Belief: A Chronicle of Murder and its Detection, a semi-fictionalized account of the Moors Murders by Emlyn Williams.

Relatives of the murder victims disapproved of this song and The Smiths album was subsequently banned from several UK stores. Morrissey insisted he did not mean to cause offense, however, and later befriended Ann West, the mother of the murder victim, Lesley Ann Downey, after he wrote to her explaining the song was in fact a tribute to the children.

The song title alludes to a phrase in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 19, verse 14, in which Jesus condemns his disciples for turning away a group of children: "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

This song was played live only once, at The Smiths' first ever gig at The Ritz in Manchester on October 4, 1982.

In 2009, Morrissey contributed a story called "The Bleak Moor Lies" to The Dark Monarch: Magic & Modernity in British Art - a collection of essays on the occult, compiled by the British art institution, Tate - about a group of friends who travel to Saddleworth Moor and encounter a ghost.

Courtney Love's band, Hole, have been known to cover this song live.

This song closes The Smiths' self-titled debut album, which propelled the band into the limelight in 1984. In 2003, the album was ranked at #481 on Rolling Stone magazine's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.