There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

The band rehearsed it in early September 1985 in F sharp minor, and four days later made a monitor mix in C sharp minor with a string arrangement Marr built on an E-mu Emulator, credited on the sleeve to the Hated Salford Ensemble. Morrissey was sceptical about synthesised strings, but the lack of a budget for a real string ensemble changed his mind. The recording was finished in November at Jacobs Studios in Farnham, where Morrissey redid his vocal twice and Marr added a flute melody. Marr called the recording magical and said someone told him that, with the volume really up, you can hear him shout "That was amazing" at the end. The rising chord sequence is taken from the Rolling Stones' version of Marvin Gaye's Hitch Hike, an in-joke, Marr said in 1993, to see whether the music press would trace it to the Velvet Underground's There She Goes Again.

Travis wanted it as the comeback single after the dispute with Rough Trade, but Marr insisted on Bigmouth Strikes Again, and Morrissey said they had by then written Panic. It was released as a single on 12 October 1992 to promote the compilation Best II, reaching 25 in Britain, the band's last top 40 appearance. It topped John Peel's Festive Fifty for 1986. Simon Reynolds of Pitchfork wrote that anyone who does not tear up at the chorus belongs to a different species. NME ranked it the 12th greatest song of all time in 2014, and Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone placed it first in his ranking of 73 Smiths songs. Marr said that when the band first played it, he thought it was the best song he had ever heard.

Live

The band played it at a soundcheck in 1985, and its first logged live performance was at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool on 8 February 1986. It was in the set at Brixton Academy on 12 December 1986. Its title is also a chapter of Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting, and it appears in the film 500 Days of Summer.