In 1985, The Smiths named their second album Meat Is Murder, and the famously vegetarian attitudes of the band’s frontman have ratcheted up quite a few notches in the nearly 30 odd years since then.
Morrissey has been stoutly non-carnivorous since the tender age of 11, as chronicled in his recently released autobiography, and following the release of his press-grabbing tome the po-faced 54-year-old has now likened meat-eating to despicable sex crimes, saying “I see no difference between eating animals and paedophilia.”
The controversial comments arrive via Morrissey fansite True To You, where the British singer conducts most of his media promotion and interaction these days. In an official Q&A session conducted earlier this week, the former Smiths frontman was quizzed on his vegetarianism, triggering Morrissey’s outlandish comparison, as Noise 11 reports.
“I see no difference between eating animals and paedophilia,” he writes. “They are both rape, violence, murder. If I’m introduced to anyone who eats beings, I walk away. Imagine, for example, if you were in a nightclub and someone said to you ‘Hello, I enjoy bloodshed, throat-slitting and the destruction of life,’ well, I doubt if you’d want to exchange phone numbers.” Though he mercifully doesn’t illuminate on the parallels between cooking and consuming flesh as compared to stalking and fornicating with it.
The singer, who last toured Australia in December 2012 (while his former Smiths compatriot Johnny Marr has just visited as part of Falls/Southbound festivals), also responded to questions about his career’s highest achievements with a vegetarian related answer. “I see no difference between eating animals and paedophilia… They are both rape, violence, murder.”
“Many people have told me that they stopped eating flesh because of something I said. I can’t ask higher than that, and I wouldn’t aim for higher than that,” he replies. “If you believe in the abattoir then you would support Auschwitz. There’s no difference. People who would disagree with this statement have probably never been inside an abattoir.”
His anti-meat stance also extended into another response over a question regarding new British laws that should be introduced, spiralling into references to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, singer Cilla Black, and even her Majesty (of whom The Queen Is Dead hit-maker is obviously not a fan).
“I would like the Queen of England to be asked why she wears an electrocuted bear-cub on her head. I would like to ask all so-called celebrity chefs why they believe that animals should have no right to live. If Jamie ‘Orrible is so certain that flesh-food is tasty then why doesn’t he stick one of his children in a microwave? It would taste the same as cooked lamb,” notes Morriseey.
“The singer Cilla Black recently appeared on television telling us how she was preparing leg of lamb for dinner, and since a lamb is a baby, I wondered what kind of mind Cilla Black could possibly have that would convince her that eating a baby is OK,” before providing his own solution.
“I would like all governments to be forced to engage an Animal Protectionist MP. I would like a complete zoo and circus ban. I would like every television commercial that promotes ‘flesh-food’ to be followed by a commercial showing how the living pig and the living cow become the supermarket commodity, step by step.”
As unavoidable as his extreme comments is the topic of a Smiths reunion, which also floated into the True To You Q&A, to which the singer gave a firm ‘no’: “As an entity, I have no interest in the Smiths, so as long as I’m not asked about the Smiths, I won’t slip into permanent unconsciousness. And that’s a promise.”
That means no Meat Is Paedophila reunion album, folks.
(Image: Carbie Warbie. Source: Morrissey, 19th December 2012 @ Festival Hall)
