Meaning of “What Difference Does It Make?” by The Smiths

“What Difference Does It Make?” is an interesting song. It is a song in which the vocalist goes about revealing to a close friend – presumably a fellow male and furthermore someone he has ‘stole(n) and… lied” for – a deep personal secret, believing that said buddy would keep it in confidence and coolness. 

But instead, that revelation ends up tearing them apart. In other words, the friend doesn’t take the news well and, by the looks of things, ends up shunning Morrissey.

The prevailing theory, which can be theoretically ascertained from the lyrics, is that perhaps the vocalist has revealed his romantic affection for the addressee. For instance, amidst the latter bouncing, Morrissey puts forth that he is “still fond of” this person, which isn’t necessarily the type of terminology one heterosexual male would to express his friendship for another. 

And it is also quite obvious that the vocalist feels as if a burden has been lifted off his chest in making this admittance, which would infer that it likely had something to do directly with the addressee as opposed to just being some type of general or personal secret.

But in the eyes of Morrissey, this admittance shouldn’t make any “difference” in terms of the friendship at hand. As such, he is not only offended by the addressee’s response, which he deems to be excessive considering the past sacrifices he’s made in the name of their relationship. But conclusively, he has also resolved himself to move on instead of harping on the matter.

“What difference does it make?
Oh, it makes none”

An Autobiographical Song?

This song is about a close friend rejecting you after they finally get to know a secret in your life. Many Smiths’ fans believe that the song is about the personal life of Smiths‘ singer Morrissey. According to them Morrissey is basically singing about being rejected by a very close friend of his after he revealed to that friend of his homosexuality. Morrissey has never said whether the song is autobiographical or not.

Facts about “What Difference Does It Make?”

The track’s lyrics and music were written by Morrissey and Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr respectively.

“What Difference Does It Make?” was produced by record producer John Porter and released on January 16th, 1984.

The song is a single from The Smiths’ 1984 highly successful self-titled debut album.

In an interview with the Smiths and Morrissey fan blog Following The Mozziah, Morrissey said of “What Difference Does It Make” as one of his least favorite songs performed by The Smiths. According to him, although the song is “musically interesting”, he find the lyrics pretty “facile” and “embarrassing”. He later went on to compare the lyrics of the song to the work of Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran.

Despite Morrissey not liking the song very much, it went on to become one of the band’s most successful songs. The song did so well it made its way to the 12th position on the UK Singles Chart.

The person on the song’s cover is that of legendary English actor Terence Stamp while he was on the set of the 1965 crime/thriller film The Collector. Initially Stamp didn’t want the band using his image on the cover of the single, thereby forcing the band to recreate the scene using Morrissey instead of Stamp for the single’s cover. However, Stamp later changed his mind and gave the band the permission to use his photograph. As a result of this, the single ended up with two different covers: the Morrissey version and the Terence Stamp version. The former version is very rare to get these days.

A music video was never made for “What Difference Does It Make?”.