There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

"I remember being in a Pizzaland in Altrincham, giving the waitress my order - yeah, yeah, cheese and tomato, all that - and she said, You know the strings on 'There Is A Light' - is that an emulator or is it played? (Laughs) I was like, Whaaat? Are you fuckin' joking or what? What a fucking question!"

-Mike Joyce


"I think if we'd had a string quartet at the time we would have used it. But the fact that there was a keyboard there at the time... We just made it sound as real as possible."

"I was a bit fucked up, but I also had the worst roadie in the world. Throughout the set, me and Johnny used two tunings: one in F sharp and one in E, 'cos of Morrissey's range. Out of four or five gigs, this guy got it right once. I'd say, Right — There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. Pass me the one in F sharp. He'd pass me the E bass, and I'd be a tone out."

-Andy Rourke


"If we needed some songs fast, then Morrissey would come round to my place and I'd sit there with an acoustic guitar and a cassette recorder. 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' was done that way."

"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. He had A Sony Walkman recording, waiting to hear what I was gonna pull out. 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."

"We recorded 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' in 10 minutes. I went on to add some flute overdub and strings and a couple of extra guitars, but really, the essence and the spirit of it was captured straight away, and that normally means that something's gone really, really right. I have a version of that take with just the three instruments and the voice on it – it absolutely holds up as a beautiful moment in time. The Smiths were all in love with the sound that we were making. We loved it as much as everyone else, but we were lucky enough to be the ones playing it."

"I didn't realise that 'There Is A Light' was going to be an anthem but when we first played it I thought it was the best song I'd ever heard. 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' - da da da-da, da da-da-da, Dah Dah! - from the Rolling Stones version of 'Hitchhike,' 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."


-Johnny Marr

I have found an extended version of the Johnny Marr BBC video that I posted earlier. Here, he plays more of "There is a light" all the way up to the end of a verse, and the sound isn't faded out like it was in the first video. I have to say, this clip gives me chills. It's just so cool to see him up close playing a Smiths song.




This video has a different camera angle, which might be helpful.





Here is Johnny playing it at 7 Worlds Collide, you can also get some good angles of his playing. Thanks go to lordez185 for shooting this video:




Guitar Pro tabs for this song are here(right-click to save). There are 2 different versions of the tab that I've included... one has 7 tracks, one has 3. There is also a tab of Johnny's arpeggio from the BBC segment above, submitted by Mathieu.


Here are the tabs from the Singles book:











Here are the scans from the Smiths Best Complete Score:













Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:




Here are the scans from the Queen Is Dead piano book, with guitar chord boxes:









Here is a breadown lesson of the BBC chords and riff by 74949 on youtube:





Here's the evergreen Daniel Earwicker with another spot on cover:




djs1986 gives another multi-instrumental take, inspired by Daniel's version above:




Jahnli does a really nice version here, with a gentle vocal arrangement:




TboneWilson1978 uploaded a cool lesson here:




IrishBog does his take on Johnny's playing from the BBC video:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:




chiasson65 contributes another spot-on bass cover:

Ask

"Me and Johnny were sat in the library playing acoustic guitars and they must have been miked up as we were probably putting down the acoustic tracks for 'Panic'. I just started playing the chord sequence which would later become 'Ask' in exactly the way it appears on the record. Johnny then joined in playing the same... I then forgot about the idea and left it at that... Johnny must have played Morrissey this idea or given him the recording I already mentioned. I was completely surprised as we were now recording this for the next single. The only section of the chord structure that I didn't come up with for 'Ask' was the middle eight section with the chords E-minor, D and C. That was actually what Johnny came up with. All the way through the song there is an overdub with me and Johnny sat around a mike with acoustics, playing a riff that he came up with towards the end of the recording of the song. That is a great riff and a real hook but it was still just an overdub and I felt the song was nearly complete without it. Up until the release of 'Ask' I still thought I'd be given a writing credit. When I found that I wasn't given a writing credit, it didn't really bother me, but I thought it was pretty bad that no one even acknowledged that it was my idea in the first place."


- Craig Gannon



"That really hurt me. That's one of the things in The Smiths that you don't do. We were always very careful from the very first day all the way through the sessions to bring in our own songs. It was ridiculous. no one ever had any inclination to write any songs, and that was fine."

"On 'Ask', Craig Gannon and I are playing Martin acoustics. I play the G-Am-C-D progression on a Rickenbacker 330. The highlify part is played on a '63 Strat. I'm also vamping on a G harmonica through a Urei Boom Box, an early '70s piece of outboard gear that we also used a lot on guitars, as well. It's like one of those vulgar 'loudness' buttons on a hi-fi. It pushes things slightly out of phase, but gives them a bottomy, dense sound. It's a big chrome box with one knob: 'intensity.'"


- Johnny Marr

I have uploaded a Guitar Pro tab for this song here. Right click to save as.


Here's the complete band score from the "Louder Than Bombs:Off The Record" book:























Here is another tab, from the Singles book:














Here are the scans from the Smiths Best Complete Score:

















Here's a great version by nicknoh69 on a Les Paul:




Jahnli does a nice version here, with vocals.




fdealencar has a nice attempt at all the riffs here:




Here Daniel Earwicker does an amazing 3-track breakdown:





Here's johnnymare on a Tele and Rickenbacker 330: