A Brief Smiths Reunion, Pressed into Seven Inches of Vinyl
The Smiths reunion in this context is a limited creative collaboration in which Morrissey and Johnny Marr set aside their long-running public feud to jointly approve, curate, and annotate a rare seven-inch single for inclusion in Rough Trade 45s: Volume 2, a boxset of classic label singles limited to 1000 copies and due October 30. This matters because it is a reunion of intent rather than stagecraft: two estranged bandmates quietly agreeing on song choice, artwork, and sleeve notes instead of arguing about trademarks and tours. For a group whose mythology is built on rupture, that small act of cooperation is a powerful symbol. It suggests that, at least when it comes to the recorded legacy, the story of The Smiths can still be written in the first person plural, not as competing solo footnotes.
Inside the Rough Trade Boxset: Why The Smiths Are the Emotional Center
Rough Trade’s new boxset, Rough Trade 45s: Volume 2, gathers freshly pressed classic singles spanning four decades of the label’s history, from The Fall’s ‘Totally Wired’ to Mazzy Star’s ‘Five String Serenade’. The Smiths’ contribution—a vinyl seven-inch single pairing ‘The Headmaster Ritual’ with ‘I Want The One I Can’t Have’—is the emotional center of the collection, because it is the only record that required two estranged co-authors to cooperate in real time. According to the label’s press material, ‘The Headmaster Ritual’ “has been created at the request of members of The Smiths” after previously being released only in the Netherlands, with its new B-side selected “at Morrissey and Marr’s request.” Set alongside influential peers like The Sundays and Scritti Politti, The Smiths serve as the boxset’s axis: the band that once defined the label’s sound, now returning in miniature to bless its own history.
Morrissey and Marr: From Hostile Statements to Shared Curation
The collaboration is striking because it arrives after years of rancor. Morrissey and Johnny Marr have been publicly feuding, with Marr repeatedly distancing himself from Morrissey’s politics and rejecting talk of a reunion. In 2024, Morrissey claimed that Marr had “ignored” a lucrative offer for a Smiths reunion tour in 2025, while Marr replied bluntly: “I didn’t ignore the offer – I said no.” Their conflict escalated into trademark disputes and accusations that Marr had “devoted his entire life to killing Morrissey”. Against that backdrop, both men requesting the same two songs, contributing sleeve notes, and agreeing to share space in a boxset booklet is more than an administrative detail. It is a tacit admission that, for all the bitterness, their names still mean more when they appear together on a Smiths record than when they fire off separate statements online.
Art, Notes and a Carefully Controlled Form of Nostalgia
This vinyl seven-inch single is carefully constructed nostalgia, not a spontaneous reconciliation. Morrissey has overseen new artwork, choosing a 1939 image of American actor Billy Halop, in line with his long tradition of using found photographs—Truman Capote, Candy Darling, Alain Delon, Elvis Presley—to frame The Smiths’ songs. Both Morrissey and Marr have contributed sleeve notes, placing their voices side by side in the booklet, which also includes writing from figures such as Elvis Costello, Stewart Lee, Green Gartside, Jonathan Richman and Robert Forster. The boxset goes further, adding a new interview with label co-directors Geoff Travis and Jeannette Lee, plus photography by Anton Corbijn and others. All of this turns the record into a curated museum piece: a guided tour through Rough Trade history where The Smiths appear not as a reactivated band, but as a canonized artifact they helped design.
What This Small Reunion Means for The Smiths’ Future
It would be naïve to read a single vinyl seven-inch as a prelude to a full The Smiths reunion tour; Marr has already dismissed that idea, and the trademark dispute shows how deep the fractures run. Yet this Rough Trade boxset collaboration matters because it changes the tone of the narrative. Instead of more public sparring, fans now have a tangible artifact in which Morrissey and Johnny Marr agree on songs, visuals and text. The Smiths’ second album Meat Is Murder finally yields a proper Rough Trade single, decades late, because its two main authors requested it. That move subtly reasserts their shared authority over the catalog at a time when business arguments have threatened to overshadow the music. The most realistic future for The Smiths may be exactly this: occasional, tightly controlled collaborations that keep their legacy alive on vinyl, even if the band never shares a stage again.
