Musically, this is a lot more varied compared to Meat Is Murder. The track Cemetry Gates [sic] is probably the closest to the prior album, Johnny Marr going “jangle jangle jangle” while Morrissey opines over the top about “a dreaded sunny day” and meeting a friend? lover? at the cemetery to recite Romantic poets at each other and claim the words as their own –it's probably meant to evoke Highgate Cemetery although none of the named poets are buried there.
On other tracks the Smiths try out different musical styles – do-wop for I Know It’s Over (with the great lyric that “it takes strength to be gentle and kind”), a bit of a polka march to Frankly Mr Shankly (a musing on the pursuit of fame with the great lyric “I didn't realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry, Mr. Shankly”), or a rockabilly beat to Vicar In A Tutu (“He’s not strange, he just wants to live his life that way”).
Yes, Morrissey is having a bit of fun with the lyrics, as surprising as that may seem, but even when musing on death he’s always had a bit of sly wordplay about him; he’s kind of like Alan Bennett in that sense, the overall sentiment is melancholy but there are laughs on the way. Or a wry smile at least.
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out is about the only one that returns to the pleasures of dying that the last album did, with the immortal line “And if a double decker bus, crashes into us, to die by your side, is such a heavenly way to die”. What stood out to me this time, however, was the lyric "Oh please, don't drop me home. Because it's not my home, it's their home. And I'm welcome no more” which perfectly conveys that sense of teenage alienation, the competing drives between independence and safety. And sadly, in some cases, that safety of home is removed thanks to parental disapproval – in 1986, for example, homosexuality was even more of a social stigma, made worse by the presence of AIDS.
Compared to Meat Is Murder, both Morrissey and Marr have honed their respective crafts, and both sides to the Smiths are that much sharper and more varied. There’s still that strange disconnect between music and lyrics that somehow works, but I also felt that at times the songs were more like a cohesive whole, especially the lighter numbers, and in that they were more like the Elton/Taupin partnership.
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