This song is an attack on the demanding and merciless media. Front man, Morrissey, describes being hounded by the press and even compares himself to the French martyr, Joan of Arc.
The shrill voice in the background of this song is Morrissey's tuned to a higher pitch. This caused a great deal of hilarity at the time of recording. "He could hear himself sounding like one of The Chipmunks or Pinky and Perky and he was rolling on the floor laughing," bassist, Andy Rourke, recalled to NME. "Maybe in the end they just took a sample of him singing 'Bigmouth…' normally and tuned it up because he was laughing so much he couldn't pull it together." The sleeve notes credit the backing vocals to "Ann Coates," which is a pun on Ancoats, a district in Manchester, England.
The lyrics refer to Joan of Arc's melting hearing aid. At the time of the song's release, Morrissey had taken to wearing a hearing aid when performing, in a show of support for a hearing-impaired fan who had recently written to him: "I did it to show the fan that deafness shouldn't be some sort of stigma that you try to hide."
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