How Morrissey Helped Me Survive a Fundamentalist Baptist College

                        

"There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"

By the Smiths

(Lyrics by Morrissey)

Take me out tonight
Where there's music and there's people
Who are young and alive
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one anymore

Take me out tonight
Because I want to see people
And I want to see life
Driving in your car
Oh please don't drop me home
Because it's not my home, it's their home
And I'm welcome no more

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes in to us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine

There is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out

 I have a major public confession to make; the famous British pop singer with an ambigious sexuality named; Morrissey helped me get through a weird, little Baptist college located deep in heart of Texas.

In fact, I think I would not have made it if were not for a secret box set of the complete songs of Morrissey and the Smiths that I bought on Amazon at some point, and listened to everyday in the Bible belt. 

Without anyone knowing this, I listened to this set of CD's over and over and over again, seeking some sort of existential reality in the deep, southern fried hell I found myself in.

My time at that fundamentalist college was the worst time of my life for sure and in my angst, anger and desperation, I turned to the only music I could relate to turning this tragic time in my life.

It was a hideous time for me. I was surrounded by strange, cowboy- boot wearing, gun-toting people in an even stranger Baptist world. 

I always felt like an evil person when I questioned if there should be gaudy, stained-glass depictions of currently living Southern Baptist leaders on the chapel windows. 

I also felt out of place when I questioned the president if the  ostentatious carcasses of animals shot in big game hunts should be in the President's office and student center...

I can relate to this song because I was most definitely estranged at that Southern Baptist school.  

I often felt like Albert Camus' "Meursault" in his epic book; The Stranger. I definitely felt bitterly out of place and estranged in that surreal, John Wayne emulating world of Southern Baptist fundamentalism...

My last semester there, I was told by that Southern Baptist school's administration that even though I was a major academic scholarship winner with a 4.0 GPA, was on the Dean's List and the President of the largest student led club on campus, that I was not welcome there anymore. 

I thank God that I had some respite from that storm in working and meeting people off campus and outside of the Southern Baptist world. Without them I would have went insane for sure.

I am thankful for the many friends on that campus. Despite the odds stacked against me, I graduated...

I  also thank God for  Morrissey and the Smiths, without them, I would most certainly be the first in the gang to die and this light would surely be out.

"There is a light that never goes out."