The Hardest Thing In The World

The hardest thing in the world

Holland fades, it don't please
I never wanted to leave
Searching for a perfect day
It never happens that way
A hey hey hey

I'm sick inside I'm so obsolete
Would heaven help me be clean ?
Searching for a perfect day
It never happens that way
A hey hey hey

Get away
I know your world wants you around

You never heard a word I said
It sounded simple to me
That if you knew, you wouldn't say
"It never happens that way"
A hey hey hey

And the impression I get
As the story unfurls
That you're the hardest thing in the world

Get away
I know your world wants you around

What you feel it might not be
It seems so far to me
I cannot climb to touch your spire
I'm getting higher and higher

Get away
I know your world wants you around
The hardest thing in the world

Demo version (1987)

The hardest thing in the world

A pollen sails in the breeze
I'm like the flower that breathes
Waiting for a perfect day
So I can get in your way
A hey hey hey

And there's the chance that I must seize
Before it fizzles away
I need to reach enormous heights
So I can get in your way
A hey hey hey

In your way
I know your world wants you around

I'm on this earth, I plan to stay
I won't lie in the ground
So much for me, so much to be
I cannot lie in the ground
A hey hey hey

The impression I get
As the story unfurls
That you're the hardest thing in the world

In the ground
I know your girl spins you around

Cut my knees from rainy days
It seems so far away
I cannot grasp the things I need
I am and here I'll be

In the ground
I know your girl spins you around

The hardest thing in the world

Lyrics by:
Squire / Brown

Music by:
Squire / Brown

Written:
1986

Personnel:
John Squire (guitar)
Ian Brown (vocals)
Gary Mounfield (bass)
Alan Wren (drums, backing vocals)

Produced by:
Peter Hook

Available on:
Elephant Stone single (as b side)
Turns Into Stone (2.39)
The Complete Stone Roses (2.39)

First live performance:
In 1986

Pseudonyms:
'Hardest Thing'

Details:
The Hardest Thing In The World may have been written on the way home from Holland, if the opening line of the first verse - "Holland fades, it don't please" - is significant. One learns that the time there was not an enjoyable experience (the manner in which Ian ambiguously pronounces "Holland fades..." as "Holland fails…", hits home the fact that they were not pleased with their time there). The opening line of Safe European Home by The Clash expresses that same feeling:

Holland fades, it don't please I never wanted to leave
Searching for a perfect day It never happens that way
A hey hey hey

The Stone Roses, The Hardest Thing In The World

Well I just got back and I wish I never leave now (Where'd ya go ?)
Who dat Martian arrival over at the airport, yeah ? (Where'd ya go ?)
How many local dollars for a local anaesthetic ? (Where'd ya go ?)
The johnny on the corner was-a very sympathetic (Where'd ya go ?)

The Clash, Safe European Home (1978)

Perhaps Squire / Brown are answering the question asked in the backing vocals of Safe European Home - "Where'd ya go" - by naming the country (Holland). The line "A hey hey hey" is reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel's 'Mrs Robinson' (a duo whom the Roses relied upon heavily for inspiration at their creative peak).

The reference to "climb(ing) to touch your spire" (Ian is expressing either an inability or refusal to do this. I propose the latter in a metaphorical sense; Jesus did not fall for the temptations of the devil - one of which included standing on the spire of the temple and jumping off - but instead gets "higher and higher") is evocative of 'The Temptation of Jesus' (Luke 4: 1 - 13), when He was tempted by the devil for forty days in the desert. Jesus was led by the devil to the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem and asked to throw Himself down:

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
" 'He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "
Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'
(Luke 4: 9 - 12)

This was the third of three temptations by the devil. Three times in the song, the author tells the devil: "Go away. I know your world wants you around". This mention of the spire comes approaching the end of the song, before the third of three defiant "Go away.." statements, fitting the structure of the biblical passage. The track, written in 1986, can be seen as an accompaniment to I Wanna Be Adored, written a year earlier. The opening of this chapter from Luke tells us that:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
(Luke 4: 1 - 2)

'The author is asking that the Holy Spirit (from heaven) help him be clean in the second verse of the song. The middle of the song, the second of three temptations, has Ian say "You never heard a word I said", indicative of an answer to the devil attempting a second time to tempt Jesus. The devil is ‘The hardest thing in the world’, this being the sternest test for Jesus in His life to date, when He tempted in the desert for forty days without food. The author, in telling the devil to "go away", asserts that "your world wants you around":

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will.
(Romans 12: 2)

The 'devil's world' is the one of sin in this life. Jesus rejected this in the knowledge that a purer world, 'His' world, exists.

Back To The Songs