Music Monday: The Smiths

When I first left home for university it was a conceit of mine to listen to this song when I returned home, as the coach pulled into the bus station.  Bradford, a northern town as grim and bleak as any Morrissey ever sang about; were it not for my family I would certainly have felt that "I would rather not go/Back to the old house". 

Driving past the house I grew up in  - my mum having long moved - on Christmas Eve, I began singing this again.  A masterpiece of longing, as so many of The Smiths' songs are, Back To The Old House conjures that precise mixture of regret and jubilation one feels on returning to a place you have previously escaped.