‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ (Part II)

The Lyrics

Selon son habitude, Morrissey’s lyrics for ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ channel several disparate sources drawn from the vast cultural reliquary he acquired in his youth. In the instance of ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’, Morrissey references his cinematic and musical idols.

The lines “Driving in your car / I never, never want to go home / Because I haven't got one anymore” echoe the angst of James Dean’s character (Jim) in 1955s Rebel Without A Cause, who exclaims to Natalie Wood’s character (Judy), “I know one thing, I’m never going back to that zoo [his home]”. Judy likewise utters “I’m never going back” in the very same scene (in reference to her troubled home). Jim and Judy, who at this point in the film find themselves mutually drawn to the other, then drive away to an abandoned mansion where they are eventually joined by a friend of Jim’s. While Jim and Judy are not themselves joined in death, they do witness the subsequent violent death of Jim’s esteemed friend in the film’s climax. This profound tragedy acts to symbolically bind them together.

“Would you like to go for a drive in my car tonight?”

Then there is 1973s ‘Lonely Planet Boy’, a song by Morrissey’s beloved New York Dolls with its strikingly similar lines:

Oh, you pick me up
You're out drivin' in your car
When I tell you where I'm goin'
Always tellin' me it's too far

But how could you be drivin'
Down by my home
When you know, I ain't got one
And I'm, I'm so all alone

Considering Morrissey’s well-known adoration for the New York Dolls, it would seem that he was especially liberal in paying homage to them by way of borrowing so freely from them.

Listen to the New York Dolls perform ‘Lonely Planet Boy’ here:

The opening lines of ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ - "Take me out tonight / Where there's music and there's people / And they're young and alive" - are clearly borrowed from a snippet of dialogue from the 1960 British kitchen sink drama Saturday Night and Sunday Morning¹. Specifically, “Why don't you take me where it's lively and there's plenty of people?”, an utterance that Shirley Anne Field’s² character (Doreen) puts to the film’s protagonist (Arthur Seaton played by Albert Finney³) at the 57:53 mark in the film.

[Wholly as an aside, Finney’s character offers to take Doreen “to the fair” in response to her request. The events in the subsequent fair sequence are somewhat reminiscent of the lyrics to the Smiths’ ‘Rusholme Ruffians’ as Finney encounter’s another lover at the fair (a married woman who is attending the fair with her family along with her brother-in-law and his friend—both of whom are soldiers). Finney jumps on a ride with his lover, and ends up being severely beaten by the two soldiers after both they and the woman’s husband observe Finney sharing the ride with the wife].

Photo still from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. In this scene (at 57:53), Doreen asks Arthur “Why don't you take me where it's lively and there's plenty of people?”

Watch the entire film here:

The lyrics indicate that the subject who possesses a car has agreed to the singer’s request to go out that night for a drive. The singer then fantasizes about the two of them being killed together in a collision with a double-decker bus, or perhaps a heavy truck.

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This fatalistic fantasy is initially confounding, especially when one considers that the singer (who had just expressed his desire to go out and experience life) states that such an outcome would be a pleasurable way to die. But this fantasy is not motivated by some manner of irrational fear; rather, it is revealed to be a morbid wish on the part of the singer, who implies an intimate (sexual) desire towards the driver of the car - one that the passenger is reticent to act upon despite an opportunity presenting itself in the course of their drive:

“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)”

One can deduce that in the absence of physical consummation of the singer’s desire