You can tell this is a Morrissey song just from the title. As always, revelling in his inability (or unwillingness) to mature with age, this 48-year-old is still kicking against the pricks with all the frustrated energy of an angst-ridden adolescent. There's something ridiculous about Mozza's self-pitying romantic yearning, but you can't help admiring his refusal to compromise with the short changes of everyday life.
That's How People Grow Up is all about how people only develop through experiencing disappointments and setbacks - except of course Mozza himself who seems to have a masochistic attachment to the unattainable: "I was wasting my time / Waiting for love / For the love that never comes from / Someone who does not exist". But if we ever did see the boy happy he might not have anything to write about.
Musically, this track - to be included in the forthcoming Greatest Hits album - is another assured slice of edgily melodic rock-pop, once again capably produced by Jerry Finn, with Morrissey in fine vocal form. Since his renaissance with You Are The Quarry in 2004, he has written some of the best songs of his entire career. He may sing ‘Let me live before I die' but he's certainly fulfilled his creative potential. Thank God he hasn't grown up yet.
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