Watch Twin Shadow & Samantha Urbani Cover The Smiths

Throughout his UNDER THE CVRS series, Twin Shadow’s usually been rooted to a studio where it’s just a song of his choice and a microphone. He’s covered U2, Lou Reed, Tori Amos and Bruce Springsteen up to now, and this time round he’s recruited Friends singer and Blood Orange collaborator Samantha Urbani for a new version of The Smiths’ ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’.

Lewis explained his decision to cover the song (and it has nothing to do with Morrissey recruiting Cliff Richard and Tom Jones for a tour):

‘Everything I do, I mean sincerely, but there is a little joke within this one. In every critique of Twin Shadow, there is a dropping of Morrissey’s name, which I always thought was funny because I have never really been a huge fan of Morrissey or the Smiths. [Laughs] So it’s a nod to people calling me “the Dominican Morrissey”.

I think part of it is just that the trend in underground music the last 20 years has been to sing in a high, sort of whiny voice—coming from that MGMT, John Lennon place. I have a gloomy, low-ish voice, so I think people attach that to Morrissey.’