The Smiths reunion that’s been haunting the minds of sad, dreamy teens for decades almost happened eight years ago. That’s per an excerpt from a forthcoming memoir by guitarist Johnny Marr, in which he discusses a time when, for “four days, it was a very real prospect.”
Marr and the band’s famously particular frontman Morrissey apparently met up for drinks in 2008, with the conversation inevitably turning to “that subject.” “Suddenly we were talking about the possibility of the band re-forming, and in that moment it seemed that with the right intention it could actually be done and might even be great,” acccording to Marr. But then, as things so often do at the intersection of The Smiths and hope, those prospects evaporated. “Morrissey and I continued our dialogue and planned to meet up again,” he writes. “I went to Mexico with the Cribs, and then suddenly there was radio silence. Our communication ended, and things went back to how they were and how I expect they always will be.”
The excerpt is part of a longer interview Marr gave with The Guardian, discussing his relationship with Morrissey, his love of Modest Mouse, and the general weirdness of having been “former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr” for six times longer than he was “Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr,” from 1982 to 1987.