{"id":178459,"date":"2025-09-29T21:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T21:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/178459\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T21:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T21:23:07","slug":"smiths-there-is-a-light-that-will-never-go-out-who-sang-it-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/178459\/","title":{"rendered":"Smiths’ ‘There Is a Light That Will Never Go Out’: Who Sang It Better?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt\u2019s been over 38 years since Morrissey<\/a> and Johnny Marr<\/a> shared a concert stage. And despite the ludicrous sums of money they\u2019d no doubt receive if they ever agreed to a Smiths reunion, it\u2019s clear that\u2019s simply never happening. But that doesn\u2019t mean that Morrissey and Marr have turned their backs on the music they made during their brief partnership in the Eighties. They\u2019re both on tour in the U.S. right now playing sets packed with Smiths classics \u2014 and I had the chance to witness both of their New York shows this month.<\/p>\n

\n\tFirst up was Morrissey at Radio City Music Hall on Sept. 16. For much of his solo career, he\u2019s sprinkled only a handful of Smiths songs into his live show. But this time around, six out of 18 songs were from the Smiths<\/a> catalog: \u201cThere Is a Light That Never Goes Out,\u201d \u201cHow Soon Is Now?,\u201d \u201cHalf a Person,\u201d \u201cShoplifters of the World Unite,\u201d \u201cI Know It\u2019s Over,\u201d and \u201cLast Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me.\u201d At more recent shows, he\u2019s added in \u201cI Won\u2019t Share You,\u201d and upped the Smiths count to seven. (It would take a very deep dive into Setlist.FM to confirm, but I do believe that\u2019s a record.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere Is a Light That Never Goes Out\u201d is arguably the most cherished tune in the Smiths\u2019 history. When Rob Sheffield ranked all 73 songs in the Smiths catalog,<\/a> he placed it in the top spot. \u201cMorrissey sings about not having a home, but generations of fans have found some kind of home in this song,\u201d Sheffield wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s all here \u2013 the passion, the pain, the pleasure, the privilege, the double-decker bus, the victory of love over death\u2026 \u2018There Is a Light That Never Goes Out\u2019 remains the ultimate tribute to the friendship behind it. Johnny Marr and Morrissey \u2013 two lonely Manchester kids who found each other and hatched a plan to go down in musical history, against all odds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to the start of his tour on Sept. 10, Morrissey hadn\u2019t played \u201cThere Is a Light That Never Goes Out\u201d since 2017. In a major flex move, he opened the show at Radio City with it. He also walked out with a bouquet of flowers in his hands like this was a Smiths concert circa 1986. It sent a blast wave of nostalgia through the audience, and the performance was simply majestic. Morrissey\u2019s divisive politics have turned away many fans in recent years, but they\u2019re missing out if they stopped going to his shows. He\u2019s in absolute peak form right now.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tEleven days later, I headed out to the CBGB Festival at Under the K Bridge Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Johnny Marr played on the main stage before the Damned, Jack White, and Iggy Pop closed out the day. He was only given a 45-minute slot, and five of the nine songs were from the Smiths catalog: \u201cPanic,\u201d \u201cThis Charming Man,\u201d \u201cPlease Please Let Me Get What I Want,\u201d \u201cHow Soon Is Now?,\u201d and \u201cThere Is a Light That Never Goes Out.\u201d (That means his set was 55.5 percent Smiths. Morrissey\u2019s Radio City show was 33.3 percent Smiths.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMarr flipped the Morrissey script by closing with \u201cThere Is a Light That Never Goes Out\u201d instead of opening with it. Much like the scene at Radio City, the crowd screamed along to every single word. But it didn\u2019t have quite the same impact since it\u2019s always a little to odd to see Marr sing Morrissey\u2019s lyrics. The guitarist played an enormous role in the creation of every song in the Smiths catalog, but the emotion of the lyrics comes from Morrissey and his lived experiences.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Marr sang, \u201cSo you go and you stand on your own\/And you leave on your own\/And you go home and you cry\/And you want to die\u201d during \u201cHow Soon Is Now?,\u201d I just didn\u2019t buy it. That\u2019s a pure Morrissey sentiment. When Marr went to the club, he likely had a grand time and made new friends. It was Morrissey sulking in the corner and scribbling down the \u201cHow Soon Is Now?\u201d lyrics.<\/p>\n

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\n\tI had the same feeling when Marr delivered \u201cThere Is a Light That Never Goes Out.\u201d This is a man with one of the most enduring marriages in rock history. He met his wife Angie in 1979 when they were both teenagers, and they\u2019re happily together to this day. He didn\u2019t have a moment of \u201cstrange fear\u201d in the darkened overpass where he found himself unable to express his real feelings. He spoke his mind, and won over the love of his life. (I also wasn\u2019t convinced when Marr repeatedly sang \u201chang the DJ\u201d during \u201cPanic.\u201d He was likely glad-handing with the DJ and cracking jokes. It was his songwriting partner that dreamed of killing him.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom a pure financial perspective, it makes sense to remove Morrissey from theaters and Marr from afternoon festival slots and have them play these songs together at soccer stadiums. This is the conclusion that the fractured parties in Oasis and Guns N\u2019 Roses came to in recent years. They may have not liked each other very much, but the pressure to reform, financial and otherwise, was simply impossible to resist forever.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere have been moments where Marr and Morrissey nearly succumbed to the pressure. In his 2016 memoir Set the Boy Free, Marr admitted that he sat down with Morrissey<\/a> at a Manchester pub in 2008 to hash out their differences. It was their first encounter in a decade.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSuddenly we were talking about the possibility of the band re-forming, and in that moment it seemed that with the right intention it could actually be done and might even be great,\u201d Marr wrote. \u201cI would still work with the Cribs on our album, and Morrissey also had an album due out\u2026I was genuinely pleased to be back in touch with Morrissey. For four days it was a very real prospect. We would have to get someone new on drums, but if the Smiths wanted to re-form it would make a hell of a lot of people very happy, and with all our experience we might even be better than before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNeedless to say, Morrissey changed his mind and the reunion never got beyond their chat in the pub. But an August 2024 a post on Morrissey\u2019s official website<\/a> revealed that AEG made a \u201clucrative offer\u201d for Marr and Morrissey to reunite as the Smiths for a world tour. \u201cMorrissey said yes to the offer; Marr ignored the offer,\u201d reads the note. \u201cMorrissey undertakes a largely sold-out tour of the USA in November. Marr continues to tour as a special guest to New Order.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMarr usually ignores Morrissey\u2019s online provocations, but he couldn\u2019t stay quiet after this.<\/a> \u201cI didn\u2019t ignore the offer,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI said no.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe timing of this was deeply unfortunate since Smiths bassist Andy Rourke died<\/a> just a little over a year earlier. He was one of Marr\u2019s closest friends since childhood. In September 2022, they played \u201cThere Is a Light That Never Goes Out\u201d together when Marr opened for the Killers at Madison Square Garden in New York.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIf Morrissey had only acquiesced a couple of years earlier, it\u2019s very possible Marr would have agreed, if only for Rourke\u2019s benefit. But a partial reunion so soon after Rourke\u2019s death was simply not going to happen. (Poor Mike Joyce is always the odd man out in these conversations. There are still very hurt feelings over the band\u2019s legal battles in the 1990s, and Morrissey holds a grudge forever.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe situation in Smiths Land is so dire at the moment that Morrissey recently proposed selling his share in the band.<\/a> \u201cI am burnt out by any and all connections to Marr, Rourke, Joyce,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI have had enough of malicious associations. With my entire life I have paid my rightful dues to these songs and these images. I would now like to live disassociated from those who wish me nothing but ill-will and destruction, and this is the only resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tAll of this adds up to a very odd situation where both parties are essentially saying, \u201cI want nothing to do with the Smiths. Please stop asking me about them. I want to forever dissociate myself from the pain that band caused me and continues to cause me\u2026AND I\u2019m going to tour and perform a ton of Smiths songs every night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOasis fans were given their happy ending earlier this year. Their older cousins in the Smiths camp will never experience that joy. But the music lives on in tours by two people who loathe each other. They created an incredibly bright light back in the 1980s, and it\u2019ll never go out.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been over 38 years since Morrissey and Johnny Marr shared a concert stage. And despite the ludicrous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,82714,82713,136,82715],"class_list":{"0":"post-178459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-johnny-marr","12":"tag-morrissey","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-the-smiths"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}