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The Smiths' classic “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” is a sacred song by now, one that makes fans across the globe join hands and mope together.
The song was the second single off of The Smiths' 1986 "The Queen Is Dead" album (although released as a single six years after the album was released).
The song became The Smiths' second song to top BBC Radio One DJ John Peel’s Festive Fifty poll in his 1986 edition. As a single, the song reached number 25 on the UK Singles Chart.
The song has been referenced in multiple works of art, such as the novel Trainspotting, the movie (500) Days of Summer and the TV series Orange is the New Black. Multiple artists have also covered it, including superfan Noel Gallagher and Miley Cyrus.
The fan favorite has stood out for its ideal balance of Morrissey’s irreplaceable voice and lyricism and the ingenious guitar ability of Johnny Marr.
In 1993, guitarist, Johnny Marr, told Select magazine that he thought this was “the best song” that he had ever heard: “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.” In the same interview, Marr revealed that the song’s intro was lifted from The Rolling Stones' cover of “Hitch Hike” by Marvin Gaye. The Velvet Underground also swiped this intro for their song, “There She Goes Again.” Marr recalled: “There’s a little in-joke in there just to illustrate how intellectual I was getting. At the time everyone was into The Velvet Underground and they stole the intro to ‘There She Goes Again’ – ‘da da-da-da, da-da!’ – from The Rolling Stones' version of ‘Hitch Hike,’ the Marvin Gaye song. I just wanted to put that in to see whether the press would say, ‘Oh it’s the Velvet Underground!’ Cos I knew that I was smarter than that. I was listening to what The Velvet Underground was listening to.”
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