A Light That Never Goes Out Quotes

“Less than six months later, Betty gave birth to a girl, Jacqueline Mary. The daughter arrived in the midst of a transition for the British so vivid that many who lived through it saw it as if the world switched in front of them from black-and-white to color. The arrival of rock ’n’ roll music from America, and the simultaneous explosion of its simplistic British sibling, skiffle, came at a point when food rationing had finally ended and the abolition of national service loomed enticingly on the horizon, inviting the nation’s youth to rediscover themselves as something brand-new: teenagers. They did so in a growing economy, with a disposable income on which to buy the 45 rpm singles of the newly hip hit parade, as well as to indulge in fresh fashions that experienced a tabloid-enhanced heyday with the drape jackets of the “teddy boys,” but were more generally enjoyed for the novel freedom to express oneself as something other than merely a working person.”
― Tony Fletcher, A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths

“the lack of raw cotton imports during the American Civil War led to famine and riots even as the Manchester workers officially supported the American Union in its opposition to slavery (which explains the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Manchester’s Lincoln Square).”
― Tony Fletcher, A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths

“By the end of the 1830s, cotton accounted for fully half of Britain’s export earnings, but there had been little change in living standards. When the German-born Friedrich Engels came to town in 1842, sent by his father to oversee the family’s cotton spinning mill in the hope that the experience would temper the young man’s radical beliefs, his exposure to the effects of large-scale industry encouraged him instead to formulate his own vision of society alongside his political partner, Karl Marx, with whom he would meet and devour economic theories at Chetham’s public library (the oldest in Britain) during the latter’s visits to Manchester. Engels and Marx would later pen The Communist Manifesto, but first, in 1845, Engels was to publish The Conditions of the Working Class in England, at the age of just twenty-four.”
― Tony Fletcher, A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths

“Its inhabitants therefore mix an instinctive pride for their city’s copious achievements (including its ongoing sporting and cultural successes) with a necessary prejudice against their own bosses and municipal leaders who have often sold them out without a second thought.”
― Tony Fletcher, A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths

“As children, Steven Morrissey and Johnny Marr were ejected from their inner-city childhood homes, in the overlapping neighborhoods of Hulme and Moss Side, and Ardwick, respectively, as part of a sweeping program of “slum clearance” that provided them with better housing, but at the cost of community upheaval. All four members of the band were subject to the city’s arcane and draconian (in their case, Catholic) school system, which failed miserably to provide them with a quality education, let alone a means to pursue their artistic talents.”
― Tony Fletcher, A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths

“Once the initial backing track jam had been recorded, Marr delivered his most savage guitar performance to date, heavy on the wah-wah pedal, returning to the control room “shaking” at his own intensity.”
― Tony Fletcher, A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths

“It takes a particular confidence for one unknown musician to pronounce to another that their first meeting has the hallmarks of legend.”
― Tony Fletcher, A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of The Smiths