A review by suburban_ennui
A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of The Smiths by Tony Fletcher

4.0

It’s almost twenty years since I read Johnny Rogan’s seminal tome, Morrissey and Marr: The Severed Alliance. In those pre-internet days, before the Smiths were an “institution” worthy of the covers of such traditionalist music papers as Mojo and Uncut, Rogan’s tell all biography was a revelation. Up until then, verything I’d read about my beloved band had been assembled in snippets – an NME article here, a music encyclopaedia entry there. The fact that Morrissey called down a fatwa on the author only made the content seem more scandalous, and probably a little more believable too.

Two decades later, and as Tony Fletcher points out in the forward to his own book, there’s been little else to compete, other than Simon Goddard’s excellent trainspotter guides, Songs that Saved Your Life and Mozapedia, and more fan-orientated books like All Men Have Secrets. However, despite the paucity of books on The Smiths, there has been a shedload of magazine cover stories in the above-mentioned magazines, and the webisphere thrives with numerous comprehensive sites, some sublime, most ridiculous. Given the closed nature of Morrissey’s inner circle, and the very pubic nature of Joyce and Rourke’s legal issues with their ex-bandmates (or should that be employers?) I really had to wonder if there was much more to uncover.

So what does A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of The Smiths offer? To a newcomer, it is an excellent and comprehensive history of the band, and to anyone who has read all of the above, not a lot more. Given the time that has passed since Rogan’s (apparently tell-all) book, there seems little else to tell. There’s no new scandals (other than Marr – older and wiser, no doubt - being far more forthright on the bands’ drug use) and precious new information for those already initiated into the cult of Morrissey and Marr. Yes, the band was appallingly badly managed from the get-go. Yes, Morrissey had an increasingly annoying habit of failing to show for important appointments. Yes, Andy Rourke got fired for being on the gear and Craig Gannon got hired and fired with little in the way of acknowledgement or recompense. And that’s pretty much the story, retold once more.

Tony Fletcher – an engaging and unfussy writer – is constantly at pains to point out just how young Marr was, and what a prodigy he was, with constant references to his age. (And, to this now-37 year old reviewer, it is quite amazing to consider that Marr wrote The Queen is Dead when he was only 23, and that the first two songs the duo wrote together were Reel Around the Fountain and Suffer Little Children.) Marr is clearly the hero of the book, and Morrissey remains something of an enigma throughout – he’s certainly far less of a ‘character’ or engaging presence than in Rogan’s book. (One interesting point of omission is that of Morrissey’s personal relationships. For all the people who want to “out” Morrissey, it’s quite incredible that no one has ever come forward to dish any dirt of Morrissey’s personal relationships, or lack thereof.) Another issue – and this is a problem of most rock biographies – is that the time spent on the formation of the band is hugely out of proportion to the latter part of their career. Both Marr and Morrissey view Strangeways … as their masterwork, and Fletcher seems to agree, yet the sole chapter devoted to this album flies by far too quickly.

Whilst being a very thorough history of what actually happened, the frustrating thing about this book is that it’s far less enlightening about the more nebulous nature of the band, and what made them such a phenomenon and why the immediately attracted such a fanatical following. Perhaps more oral history with the bands’ fans might had aided in this endeavour? Or close access to Morrissey’s inner circle. I’m really not sure. This is an engaging read, and I’d certainly recommend it, but I still feel the definitive history of The Smiths is yet to be written.