Certain Songs #2303: The Smiths – “There is A Light That Never Goes Out”

Album: The Queen is Dead
Year: 1986

. . .

“The pleasure, the privilege, is mine”

“There is a Light That Never Goes Out” just might be my favorite Smiths song. And not only that, it’s one of those songs that always flashes me to another place, another time, another life.

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Spring ’87, and you both needed to get out of Fresno, get away from your circumstances. Maybe quell the fighting for a bit, because it’s claustrophobic in the small loft apartment you share with her and the two kittens who you’re hiding from the landlord. Be together. Just anywhere but there.

You’d only been with her for four months when you decided to live together. And while you’re 24 and she’s 20, this is all new ground for both of you. You were caught up in the flush of new love and also being a hero, as she’d been tossed out by her parents, and had been staying with you at your dads, where you’d holed up temporarily. So you found a place close to work to live, so you could roll out of bed at 7:30 and be there by 8:00.

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He got it from the Stones, of course. That opening guitars and snare drum riff. Johnny Marr got it from the Rolling Stones, not the Velvet Underground. I mean, in that Marr was the third awesome guitarist to base a song around the staccato riff that opens up the Stones’s version of Marvin Gaye’s “Hitch Hike.” (Technically, Gaye’s version has a staccato horn riff opening it, but it’s more of a call-and-response with the drums that what the Stones did.). “Hitch Hike” was one of the highlights of both the U.K. and U.S. versions of Out of Our Heads, but of course, it’s the U.S. version that added singles like (“I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and “The Last Time,” as well as deep cuts like “One More Try” all of which makes it my very favorite early Stones albums.

And more importantly, Out of Our Heads is probably where Lou Reed heard “Hitch Hike” in 1965, and he eventually, um, reappropriated it as part of “There She Goes Again” on The Velvet Underground and Nico, a song that Smiths cousins R.E.M. covered as the b-side of the I.R.S. version of “Radio Free Europe.” Because everything is connected.

And while Marr wrote a slightly different variation of that riff for “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” it’s close enough so that you can always enjoy the spate of multiple recognizance every time it pops up anywhere.

Take me out tonight
Where there’s music and there’s people
And they’re young and alive
Driving in your car
I never, never want to go home
Because I haven’t got one
Anymore

At first, “There is A Light That Never Goes Out” is pretty sparse: just Marr on the acoustic guitars, Mike Royce keeping a straight beat, and Andy Rourke rumbling subtle hooks. But that’s all they need right now.

Take me out tonight
Because I want to see people
And I want to see life
Driving in your car
Oh, please don’t drop me home
Because it’s not my home, it’s their home
And I’m welcome no more

All of this sets up the chorus, which is pure uncut Morrissey, so be careful!

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine

Morrissey sings this fantastically; not a single drop of irony aimed the lovestruck narrator of the song, especially the second time around, when his voice breaks on the second “your side” while the emulated woodwinds tremble and flutter about his head like cartoon birdies.

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And as you both tried to figured out how to live with a romantic partner, there were a lot of fights, and she was way better at them, as your emotions destroyed your wit. Still, when you weren’t fighting, you loved everything else about being with her. Like this spontaneous road trip, where you made a beeline for the coast, and then went north, driving up Highway 1 because you remembered it as beautiful as a little kid.

And you only had one tape going. Not because you only had one tape, but because there was only one tape that made sense: the one with Lloyd Cole & The Commotions Easy Pieces on one side and The Smiths The Queen is Dead on the other side, and every single time “There is A Light That Never Goes Out” comes on, you look at each other. Not because you wanted to fulfill the lyrics, but because you didn’t.

Because deep down, you both knew it was doomed, that you weren’t each others the one; it just hadn’t reached the surface yet.

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At first, I wasn’t sure about all of the Emulator stuff: I mean, in 1986, my agreement with the Smiths was that Johnny Marr would provide unexpected guitar parts and those would allow me to tolerate Morrissey, but things got weird during The Queen is Dead, first with “I Know It’s Over” and now even more with “There is A Light That Never Goes Out.” But it almost instantly won me over: this chorus was crazily romantic, even on a metaphorical level, and the fake woodwinds and strings — credited to the “Hated Salford Ensemble”, but was of course, Johnny Marr — absolutely kicked the song up into another level. Fine, Mr. Marr, I’ll let you get away with it this time, especially when Morrissey was writing verses like this.

Take me out tonight
Take me anywhere, I don’t care
I don’t care, I don’t care
And in the darkened underpass
I thought, “Oh God, my chance has come at last”
But then a strange fear gripped me
And I just couldn’t ask

And, at this point Johnny Marr is writing countermelodies to set against the original string arrangement, at least one of which — underneath this verse — might even be a guitar, or might not be. It doesn’t matter, because once Morrissey gets to the outro, I’m done, because it’s all just too lovely for words.

Oh, there is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out

For decades, I assumed that the “light” had something to do with the part of any city that never sleeps, but when a bootleg of high-quality Smiths studio outtakes made the rounds in the early part of the 2010s — right around the same time as the Johnny Marr remixed CD reissues, hmmm — we discovered that on the first of “There is A Light That Never Goes Out”, the lyric was “there is a light in your eyes that never goes out,” which makes even more sense, though dying in a car crash would take care of that pretty quickly. In any event, during the final take, Morrissey decided to let it be more ambiguous, which somehow how makes the whole song grander.

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You broke up before the the summer was over, even after moving into a bigger apartment near where all of your friends lived. Or maybe because of that. And it got sour and bad and weird for a long time: some breakups are clean incisions, others are gut shots where the wound stays open in order to stave off infections. It wasn’t the most fun autumn ever. But time did its thing, and you got over it — every relationship was a learning experience — and maybe the best memory of that one was driving in her car up the coast, never ever wanting to go home, and that was good enough.

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And yet, and yet, they never released “There is A Light That Never Goes Out” as a single in the U.K. while the Smiths were a going concern. Rough Trade wanted to, of course, but Johnny Marr wanted “Bigmouth Strikes Again” to be their lead single for The Queen is Dead, because he’d wanted to release it as a single in late 1985 before the troubles with Rough Trade sidelined them for six months. And while they could have easily released “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” as a single after “Bigmouth Strikes Again” ran its course, The Smiths already had “Panic” in the can, about which more early next week.

And so, when they did release “There is A Light That Never Goes Out” as a single in 1992 — in tandem with one of those posthumous repackage reissues — it only made it to number 25 on the U.K. charts; though in 2005, Morrissey hit number #11 with a live version that was a double-A side with his live version of Patti Smith’s “Redondo Beach.” You got all that? Because it will be on the test.

But, of course, “There is A Light That Never Goes Out” didn’t have to be a single to become an incredibly popular song right from the jump. Now decades later, it’s basically become a standard — performed live by both Morrissey & Marr — one of those songs that will be passed down through the decades. While I might prefer “How Soon is Now?”, “The Queen is Dead” or maybe even SPOILER ALERT! “Death of a Disco Dancer,” over the years, “There is A Light That Never Goes Out” has become the consensus “All-Time Greatest Smiths Song,” and I’ve fine with that, because the light in this song will never go out.

“There is A Light That Never Goes Out”

“There is A Light That Never Goes Out” live 1986

“There is A Light That Never Goes Out” Morrissey live 2005

“There is A Light That Never Goes Out” Johnny Marr live 2018

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