“There is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths

"There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" is the heart of The Queen Is Dead, the Smiths' third album, from 1986, and it's the band at their most gorgeously melodramatic. Johnny Marr wrote the music and Morrissey the words, and the two of them produced it themselves, with Stephen Street engineering.

Marr's guitar is all chime and sway, bright and bittersweet, while Andy Rourke's bass glides and Mike Joyce keeps the beat light. Over it Morrissey croons, somehow wry and heart-stoppingly sincere at the same time.

Oddly, it wasn't a British single until 1992, five years after the band split, when it was put out to promote the compilation ...Best II; it reached 25 in the UK and 22 in Ireland. Its standing has only grown: in 2014 NME called it the 12th-greatest song of all time, and in 2021 Rolling Stone ranked it 226 on its list of the 500 greatest. Morrissey released a live version in 2005, paired with his cover of Patti Smith's "Redondo Beach", and it made 11 in the UK.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.