There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

Origin and recording

The Smiths began working on "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" during their late-1985 recording sessions at London's RAK Studios. In early September, the band recorded a rehearsal tape of the song performed in the key of F♯ minor. Four days later, the group made a monitor mix in the key of C♯ minor, this time accompanied by a synthesised string arrangement Marr created on an E-mu Emulator (credited to the "Hated Salford Ensemble" on the album release). While Morrissey was sceptical about using synthesised strings, the lack of a budget to hire a real string ensemble as well as the band's reluctance to allow outsiders into the recording process changed his mind.

The recording was completed in November at Jacobs Studios in Farnham, Surrey, where Morrissey redid his vocal part twice and Marr added a flute melody. Marr later described the recording process of the song as "magical" and commented, "Someone told me that if you listen with the volume really, really up you can hear me shout 'That was amazing' right at the end."

Composition and lyrics

It was written in tandem with "Bigmouth Strikes Again". The two songs share the same key as well as similar chords. Simon Goddard noted both the guitar break in "Bigmouth Strikes Again" and the flute section in "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" (originally written as a guitar part) are based on C♯ minor arpeggio figure. The song features an ascending F♯m–A–B chord sequence that guitarist Johnny Marr took from the Rolling Stones cover of Marvin Gaye's "Hitch Hike". Marr said in 1993 he included the figure as an "in-joke" to determine if the music press would attribute the inspiration for the part to "There She Goes Again" by the Velvet Underground, who he contended "stole" the figure from "Hitch Hike". Marr commented, "I knew I was smarter than that. I was listening to what the Velvet Underground were listening to".

AllMusic's Tim DiGravina argues that, while depressed characters were a regular feature in Morrissey's work, his lyric on "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" "ups the sad-and-doomed quotient by leaps and bounds." Goddard argues in his book Songs That Saved Your Life (2002) that the basic narrative story is similar to that of the James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which Dean—an idol of Morrissey's—leaves his tortuous home life, being the passenger to a potential romantic partner. In fact, a line from that movie ("It is not my home") is alluded to in the song. According to Goddard, an earlier version lacked some of the finished version's ambiguity, culminating in the line "There is a light in your eyes and it never goes out". Uncut also cited the British kitchen sink drama Saturday Night and Sunday Morning as an influence, specifically its line "Why don't you take me where it's lively and there's plenty of people?"

Release

Due to a dispute between the Smiths and its record label Rough Trade Records after the group completed The Queen Is Dead, nine months passed after the release of "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" before the group issued another single. Once the matter was resolved, Rough Trade owner Geoff Travis felt that "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" should be the band's "comeback" record. Despite Travis's advocation of the song, Simon Goddard expressed doubt that the song's "explicit glamorisation of suicide" would have endeared it to daytime radio. Additionally, Johnny Marr was insistent that "Bigmouth Strikes Again" be the band's next single. Marr stated:

For a long time I worked on the premise that we should always have a song on each album that people said, 'That should be a single.' But in fact really wasn't. 'Reel Around the Fountain' was that for the first album and 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out' for The Queen Is Dead.

Morrissey affirmed Marr's position, commenting, "We did want 'Bigmouth Strikes Again'. I suppose it should have been followed by 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out' but by then we'd written 'Panic' and we were very eager to have it thrown out into the pop wilderness."

Regardless, "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" became the second Smiths song to top BBC Radio 1 disc jockey John Peel's Festive Fifty poll in his 1986 tally. The song was shortly thereafter included on the band's compilation album The World Won't Listen (1987). On 12 October 1992, "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" finally received a single release by WEA to promote the ...Best II compilation. The song reached number 25 on the UK Singles Chart, making it their last UK Top 40 appearance to date.

Critical reception

Music critics consider "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" to be one of the Smiths' finest songs. Simon Goddard wrote, "In a straw poll among Smiths fans today, 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out' would more than likely still come out victorious", which he credits to the "perfect balance" of Marr's compositional skills and Morrissey's lyricism. AllMusic's Tim DiGravina calls it "a standout among standouts from the Smiths' masterpiece third album, The Queen Is Dead." In 2014, NME listed "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" as the 12th-greatest song of all time. In 2017, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone placed the song number one in his ranking of 73 songs by the Smiths.

Marr commented on the song's enduring popularity: "I didn't realise that 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out' was going to be an anthem, but, when we first played it, I thought it was the best song I'd ever heard."

Personnel

Personnel taken from The Queen Is Dead liner notes, except where noted.

The Smiths

Morrissey – vocals

Johnny Marr – guitars, sampler (string and flute sounds)

Andy Rourke – bass guitar

Mike Joyce – drums

Charts

Morrissey version

All entries charted with "Redondo Beach".

In popular culture

There is a chapter in Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting (1993) named after this song, which mentions its title directly. It is also referenced in Enrico Brizzi's novel of the same year, Jack Frusciante Has Left the Band, and the author has stated the song encapsulates the story of the two main characters.

The song appears on the soundtrack to 500 Days of Summer (2009); in the film (at first in a scene when Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) met Summer (Zooey Deschanel) in an elevator), it is used to bring the main characters together. It is briefly sung by some of the main cast of Gavin & Stacey during a barbecue in Season 3. It is also played at the end of David Fincher's film The Killer (2023), which features many songs from The Smiths.