figure. The song features an ascending F#m–A–B chord sequence that guitarist Johnny Marr took from the Rolling Stones cover of Marvin Gaye's "Hitch Hike". Marr said in 1993 he included the figure as an "in-joke" to determine if the music press would attribute the inspiration for the part to "There She Goes Again" by the Velvet Underground, who he contended "stole" the figure from "Hitch Hike". Marr commented, "I knew I was smarter than that. I was listening to what the Velvet Underground were listening to". AllMusic's Tim DiGravina argues that, while depressed characters were a regular feature in Morrissey's work, his lyric on "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" "ups the sad-and-doomed quotient by leaps and bounds." Goddard argues in his book Songs That Saved Your Life that the basic narrative story is similar to that of the James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause, in which Dean — an idol of Morrissey's — leaves his tortuous home life, being the passenger to a potential romantic partner. In fact, a line from that movie ("It is not my home") is alluded to in the song. According to Goddard, an earlier version lacked some of the finished version's ambiguity, culminating in the line "There is a light in your eyes and it never goes out". Release Due to a dispute between the Smiths and its record label Rough Trade Records after the group completed The Queen Is Dead, nine months passed after the release of "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" before the group issued another single. Once the matter was resolved, Rough Trade owner Geoff Travis felt that "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" should be the band's "comeback" record. Despite Travis's advocation of the song, Simon Goddard expressed doubt that the song's "explicit glamorisation of suicide" would have endeared it to daytime radio. Additionally, Johnny Marr was insistent that "Bigmouth Strikes Again" be the band's next single. Marr stated: Morrissey affirmed Marr's position, commenting, "We did want 'Bigmouth Strikes Again'. I suppose it should have been followed by 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out' but by then we'd written 'Panic' and we were very eager to have it thrown out into the pop wilderness." Regardless, "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" became the second Smiths song to top BBC Radio One disc jockey John Peel's Festive Fifty poll