One of rock's fiercest rivalries is moving to the bookshelves after it was announced Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr is following his former songwriting partner, Morrissey, and publishing his memoirs.
Marr, whose trademark 12-string guitar sound and songwriting talents were central to the band's success, will have his say next year when the book is published.
He said: "For the past few years as I've been out on tour promoting my solo work fans and journalists have been asking me when I'll write my book. I'm very happy to say that the time has come to tell my story."
Morrissey and Marr started The Smiths in their native Manchester in 1982 and scored more than a dozen hits on their way to becoming one of the most critically-acclaimed bands of the decade.
The band - and the Morrissey and Marr songwriting partnership - broke up in 1987 with the pair fending off reunion rumours ever since while continuing to snipe at each other in the press.
Ben Dunn, publishing director of Century which will publish Marr's book, said: "It's the book Smiths' fans have been waiting their whole lives for and the early material that Johnny has written is utterly breath-taking. I'm delighted that Johnny has chosen Century to be his publisher."
Marr's post-Smiths' career saw him join New Order frontman Bernard Sumner in Electronic and play alongside acts including The Pretenders, Modest Mouse and The Cribs before embarking on a solo career.
Morrissey's 2013 memoir was an unexpected publishing hit. The book, called Autobiography and published by Penguin Classics, outsold the latest Bridget Jones novel to top the best-seller charts in its first week.
It saw the famously private chart star disclose details of how his first relationship with a man came in his 30s and grumble at length about the injustices of a court case concerning the royalties from his former band.
He also revealed that Marr told him at one stage he was ready to reform The Smiths.
But dismissing such a move, Morrissey said: "Surviving The Smiths is not something that should be attempted twice."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article