Yea-Sayers:

"Probably the seminal Smiths single. Dead sad, dead funny."
- Dylan Jones, i-D, October 1987

"...I must be one of the small number of people who actually believe that The Smiths are not the saviours of Western Pop as we know it. Apart from 'This Charming Man', what difference have The Smiths made except to re-inforce how boring and ordinary groups can be these days? You have to do more than dish out a staple diet of Oscar Wilde, teenage angst, existentialism, and Sandie Shaw infatuations to see this boy crumble. The ambiguity of their lyrics might well be an applauding point but that's just a drop in the ocean compared to the straight faced dourness of most of their music. That said, 'Heaven Only Knows' [sic] cunningly re-dresses the balance. A jewel of a melody, a timeless arrangement, the sheer languid charm of Morrissey's vocal performance, the deeper suggestions of his words, the buried ideas, all add up to the proverbial shiver-down-the-spine. It's a record like this that makes me start to understand the love vested in them, even if the last time I saw Morrissey he had approximately half his front lawn hanging out of his back pocket. And if you're about to complain bitterly about the NME building them up to knock them down policy, forget it. I never promised them a rose garden."
- Unknown Critic, New Musical Express

Regarding 'Suffer Little Children': "Another Rough Trade...? Confirmed Smithshater though I be, credit where credit's due. A delicate and (dare I say it) tender ballad concerning the activities of everyone's favourite love-story couple. It's fascinating to hear how sensual Morrissey's voice can be when he's not torturing us with those horrible whooping noises he makes. Buy it for the B-side; the A-side sees Morrissey and his jangling friends complaining that they feel 'miserable tonight'."
- Unknown Critic

It's another Smiths single, isn't it? They're very good, I like their attitude and approach, but they always seem so apathetic that I don't really feel like giving them any sympathy. They turn apathy into a fine art.
This is a soft record, the sort of thing I can see Captain really liking. He loves soft, pleasant music. Maybe when I'm feeling really depressed and on the point of slitting my wrists, I'd find The Smiths very appealing, but now I'm happy they don't appeal to me quite so much.
Why is he miserable? He doesn't say why in the lyric. He's just depressed. Next time he gets in this frame of mind he ought to give me a ring and I'll cheer him up.
This record is well put together and nicely produced and everything, and I think The Smiths are on their way to making really good records, but this isn't it. They haven't quite got it right yet. One day The Smiths will make a record that I'll love. It will only sell one copy and that will be to me.
Morrissey has actually got a good voice, he's got a very wide range... but I'm always wary of singers who try to croon. He does try, though. This record is just very nice and its miserable at the same time - which is really, I suppose, what makes The Smiths unique.
- Rat Scabies, Melody Maker, May 26, 1984

Smiths-Speak:

"When I wrote an ineffectual line such as 'I was looking for a job/ And then I found a job/And Heaven knows I'm miserable now', that outraged people (which pleased me)."
- Morrissey, Jamming!, December, 1984

"There was all that fuss about 'Suffer Little Children' in the newspapers, all these comments and opinions from people who knew nothing about the group and nothing about music. I felt very sad and angry about that, so much just being headlines. Nobody had approached me and there were long, inflated comments, "Morrissey says this..." and "Morrissey wrote it for this reason...". All of it was totally untrue and I couldn't understand why nobody had asked me. At one point, someone from The Daily Mail rang up, giving me the chance to give my side of the story. Of course, they weren't interested that I got on famously with the parents of the victims. So, they wouldn't print the story. Well, that really upset me."
- Morrissey on the "Suffer Little Children" controversy, Jamming!, December, 1984

Did you anticipate the reaction to 'Suffer Little Children'?
"Yes, I did. Yes, I did anticipate it - and when it arrived, I wasn't ready for it in the least. I was quite confused. I was very distressed by that but I was only distressed because nobody would actually let me comment on it. It appeared in national newspaper the length and breadth of the country - Morrissey does this and Morrissey says that and Morrissey believes... and nobody asked me a thing. Nobody knew what I believed or why the lyrics were there. So that was the only distressing element. But I'm glad the record got attention, ultimately."
Were you alarmed at the way the sentiments of the song, the basic concept, the basic sympathies of the song were so disfigured?
"Well, this is the world we live in. It's not a reflection of me, it really reflects the absolute and barbaric attitudes of the daily press and so I don't really feel that I was in the dock, I feel that they were really. And in essence they were just really saying how narrow-minded and blunderous they were. Some of the reports in newspapers in Portsmouth and Hartlepool - all the places that really count - some of the reports were so full of hate, it was like I was one of the Moors Murderers, that I'd gone out and murdered these children. Some of them were so full of hate that one just had to do something, but not read them. It was incredible."
- Morrissey, Melody Maker, March 16, 1985

"Veiling the Moors Murders is wrong. We must bring it to the fore. If we don't overstate things, they'll continue to happen. We don't forget the atrocities of Hitler, do we? In the north, I was painted as a hideous Satanic monster, and the word was that I had upset Ann West [Lesley Anne's mother]. In fact, I had not, and have since become great friends with her. She is a formidable figure."
- Morrissey, Spin, 1986

"For me life was never easy, but it wasn't even acceptable until the release of 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'. I liked that record and good times seemed to happen to me then. I'll look back on them as pleasant days. But before then I'd never felt it. I was making records that though successful weren't really quite clicking with me. It was like I'd still had this hangover from the years of nothingness, of being on the dole, having to live in that horrible atmosphere of communicating with the DHSS, people saying why are you writing this absurd song. 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' seemed to me an enormous release... It had got to the point where I was this totally separate character from the group. I was never asked about them or the music. I'd feel there was always this desire to create a caricature of me - a repressed priest, insane pseudo axeman, or whatever... But with 'Heaven Knows...' everything fell into perspective. Previous to that I was just running around trying to keep everybody happy."
- Morrissey, NME, December 22/29, 1984

"I think 'Girl Afraid' simply implied that even within relationships, there's no real certainty and nobody knows how anybody feels. People feel that just simply because they're having this cemented communion with another person that the two of you will become whole, which is something I detested. I hate that, that implication. It's not true, anyway. Ultimately, you're on your own, whatever happens in life, however you go through life. You die on your own. You have to go to the dentist on your own. It's like all the serious things in life are things that you feel on your own."
- Morrissey, Melody Maker, March 16, 1985

"... we went to America to play Danceteria on New Year's Eve and Mike got ill so we couldn't do the rest of the gigs, and 'Heaven Knows' was written in a hotel room while me and Morrissey were waiting to go home. And I wrote the music for 'Girl Afraid' the day I got back, so really we were more concerned with what came next. I don't really like 'Heaven Knows'. Well, I like it but less than the others. I don't like the tune and the backing track. I don't like the rhythm or anything."
- Johnny Marr, Select, December 1993

"I completed it when we came back from America, having been to New York where we played that one gig at the Danceteria. I did that the moment I got back. I wrote it in New York with Morrissey, put it on tape when we got back and within a couple of weeks we moved to London."
- Johnny Marr, Record Collector, November/December 1992