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

The Making Of A Masterpiece

“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,”¹ —Johnny Marr

The ninth track on 1986s The Queen is Dead studio album, ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ was composed by Johnny Marr in the late summer of 1985, with Morrissey penning its lyrics shortly thereafter.

“One late summer’s evening in 1985, Morrissey paid a visit to Marr’s house in Bowdon for a routine writing session. It was to prove an especially lucrative night’s work, resulting in the basis of ‘Frankly, Mr. Shankly’ and ‘I Know it’s over’. But it was the genesis of a third song which would mark the evening out as one of the most significant in the duo’s creative relationship. ‘Morrissey was sat on a coffee table, perched on the edge, I was sat with my guitar on a chair directly in front of him…so I said, “Well, I’ve got this one” and I started playing these chords. He just looked at me as I was playing. It was as if he daren’t speak, in case the spell was broke’. Dumbstruck and spellbound, Morrissey listened to ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ for the very first time.”²

According to author Simon Goddard, the Smiths recorded a demo of the song at RAK Studios in London on September 2, 1985 The refrain in the outro of this initial version consisted of "there's a light in your eyes and it never goes out" (Morrissey’s choice of words being possibly inspired by The Shirelles 1960 hit song, ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’, which contains the line “Tonight the light of love is in your eyes”). Marr then added a synthesised string arrangement to a monitor mix of the demo a few days later by way of an E-mu Emulator³.

While Morrissey was hesitant about using synthesised strings, Rough Trade Records’ unwillingness (perhaps their inability due to financial considerations) to hire an actual string ensemble, coupled with the Smiths’ overall reluctance to allow outsiders into