{"id":638914,"date":"2026-08-15T16:30:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T16:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/638914\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T16:30:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T16:30:16","slug":"johnny-marr-shares-brilliant-answer-he-got-from-paul-mccartney-about-the-break-up-of-the-smiths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/638914\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Marr shares &#8220;brilliant answer&#8221; he got from Paul McCartney about the break-up of The Smiths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/johnny-marr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Johnny Marr<\/a> has looked back at the sage advice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/paul-mccartney\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paul McCartney<\/a> gave him in the wake of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/the-smiths\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Smiths<\/a>\u2018 1987 break-up.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"post-content-read-more\">\n<li><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/features\/music-features\/the-smiths-every-song-ranked-in-order-of-greatness-3589477\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Smiths: every song ranked in order of greatness<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/1801948-1801948\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marr left the band in July of that year, with his guitar duties briefly overtaken by former Easterhouse member Ivor Perry<\/a>. However, Perry failed to gel with Morrissey and by the time The Smiths\u2019 fourth and final album, \u2018Strangeways, Here We Come\u2019, came out in September, the band were effectively finished.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mojo4music.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">MOJO <\/a>recently, Marr looked back on that fraught period, and said Beatles legend McCartney was instrumental in navigating it.<\/p>\n<p>On spending \u201cone long, incredible day\u201d with him and his wife Linda, Marr said: \u201cLinda was so generous as a person, she was asking me all about my life. And he was sat there so I just told him about the break-up of the band.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI looked to him and waited and he just said, \u2018That\u2019s bands for you.\u2019 It\u2019s such a brilliant answer coming from him. Over the years, I\u2019ve been asked to give advice. There is just a time to say, \u2018That\u2019s bands for you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also touched on how, post-Smiths, he found purpose in being a \u201cringer\u201d, and didn\u2019t feel a pressure to form another band right away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just have to give credit to the people I was working with \u2013 [The The\u2019s] Matt Johnson is one of my closest friends to this day. Bernard Sumner and Chrissie Hynde \u2013 that collection of people. Because I get very tight with people, you know.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re looking at it like a CV it seems to be flitting around a lot, but I know when I\u2019ve got a good job \u2013 playing with Bryan Ferry and turning up on his records. There\u2019s a time to not look too deeply at stuff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/paul-mccartney-170-1252730\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">McCartney could\u2019ve been another name on Marr\u2019s CV, given at that time, he was invited to play with him<\/a>. While the sessions never led to anything permanent nor any official recordings, Marr opened up about the experience in a 2012 interview with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theautojubilator.com\/johnny-marr-the-messenger-interview\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Auto Jubilator<\/a>, and said: \u201cI didn\u2019t do a recording session with him as such, but we did get together for a good long eight-or-nine-hour day, and just played and played and played very intensely, really loudly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe can play that bass and sing pretty well, I must say. That was a fun time. That was pretty much the first thing I did when The Smiths stopped being together. I\u2019ve seen him a couple of times since. We\u2019ve not played together, but he\u2019s always very friendly and very gracious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/morrissey\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Morrissey<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/morrissey-and-johnny-marr-have-both-worked-on-new-rare-vinyl-release-from-the-smiths-3961991\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">and\u00a0Marr both helped to create a rare new seven-inch release from\u00a0The Smiths, as part of an upcoming Rough Trade boxset<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The legendary London independent label will release its second volume of newly printed classic singles, titled \u2018Rough Trade 45s: Volume 2\u2019, on October 30. It will comprise tracks from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/the-fall\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Fall<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/aztec-camera\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aztec Camera<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/mazzy-star\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mazzy Star<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/scritti-politti\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scritti Politti<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/robert-wyatt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Wyatt\u00a0<\/a>and more, and the boxset will be limited to just 1000 copies, released on October 30. Pre-order\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/roughtrade.ffm.to\/singlesboxset2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Among them is a new release from The Smiths, with \u2018The Headmaster Ritual\u2019 on the A-side, and \u2018I Want\u00a0The\u00a0One I Can\u2019t Have\u2019 on the\u00a0flip side. Both songs originally appeared on the band\u2019s second album \u2018Meat Is Murder\u2019 in 1985, but they were never released as a single\u00a0on Rough Trade.<\/p>\n<p>Now, they will\u00a0be available as a single for the first time, with Morrissey and Marr both requesting the two\u00a0tracks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Marr has looked back at the sage advice Paul McCartney gave him in the wake of The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[434,18,117,19,6082,17,6318],"class_list":["post-638914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-indie","tag-ireland","tag-rock"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117100480595793263","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}