Covid Island Discs

Day 451: There is a light that never goes out, The Smiths

In this final week of Covid Island Discs I am citing bands that should really have been cited during the 65 week disruption we have experienced in the UK. Amazingly this is the first time I have cited a Smiths song and this one reminds of my late best friend Jonathan Higgs. Jonathan had what one could describe as an avant-garde personality and this was a song that he particularly liked. I still have such distinct memories of him singing the lines: “if a ten ton truck should kill the both of us” as if it was only yesterday; yet it was when we were both at Sydney University back in the 1980s. Sadly poor Jon died of liver cancer in 2017 just a few months after my Mum passed away at the age of 87. I guess the one thing that life has taught me is that it is brutal. I guess Jon’s appreciation of this fact made him connect to the Smiths in a way that passes most of us by. God bless you Jon, I miss you 😥.