Meat Is Murder made you what are today.

[Bored Of Education]

Did Meat is Murder influence you to become a vegetarian?

[Benjm]

No, but then my favourite album of 1985 was Low-Life (insert punchline here).

[Janik]

Before my time, really. Morrissey was already clearly an arrogant and deluded egotistical prick by the time I was aware of him (though not seen as a racist etc., this is around 1990 or so). He was a figure of fun and condescension mostly, certainly not someone generally regarded as an important voice or trendsetter.

[ad hoc]

It wasn't close to being one of the bigger reasons but it did contribute to a small extent after one night listening to it in the dark after doing hot knives. It wasn't the lyrics but rather Marr's chainsaw guitar and the dripping blood piano and the mooing.

[hobbes]

How about Assault and Battery by Howard Jones?

[Satchmo Distel]

Even though I loved the rest of the album, Meat Is Murder was a very poor closing track and I doubt it would convert many. I had already been persuaded by The Animals Film (1982).

[Felicity, I guess so]

No, ‘The Animals Film’ which I think had a Robert Wyatt soundtrack.

but not a veggie now in any case

[3 Colours Red]

I find that Morrissey's militant racism, xenophobia and general cuntitude is actually a very good reason to keep eating meat. The less I am like him, the better.

[ad hoc]

Is he still vegetarian then? I think I'd assumed the embracing of cuntitude had gone along with a return to meat . He seems like a hardcore meat eater.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Although I was definitely a fan in the 80s, the celibacy and the vegetarianism didn't really appeal.

[Benjm]

Although I was definitely a fan in the 80s, the celibacy and the vegetarianism didn't really appeal.

As long as there's, you know, sex and meat, I can do without the rock and roll.

[Janik]

Is he still vegetarian then? I think I'd assumed the embracing of cuntitude had gone along with a return to meat . He seems like a hardcore meat eater.

Now an outspoken and aggressive vegan. Which, actually, fits entirely with his other extreme positions. In fact, he literally jumped from one to the next in an interview last year (which I won't link to because, well, the far right stuff).

[Sporting]

If Linda McCartney couldn't do It, then he stood even less chance.

[Jah Womble]

The first album I heard was the Dead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, therefore...etc, etc. (It wasn't, obviously.)

I saw The Smiths on the MIM tour (1985) - and admitted to others at the time that the performance of the title cut was the nearest anyone/anything had come to convincing me to 'go veggie'. Took me another decade, however.

(NB I think that there's a 'you' missing in the thread header?)

[ad hoc]

Now an outspoken and aggressive vegan. Which, actually, fits entirely with his other extreme positions. In fact, he literally jumped from one to the next in an interview last year (which I won't link to because, well, the far right stuff).

Well, obviously I don't agree that being vegan is "extreme" or that it "fits" with his other positions. And I find 3CR's position to be bizarre. There are reasons to choose one or the other, but doing so to distance yourself from someone you hate, is ...well weird. I can find a million reasons to hate Trump, and a vast array of reasons to be vegetarian, but I don't need to try and make some kind of link to Trump's diet to further entrench my position.

[Jah Womble]

Agree, although it might conceivably have been the 'outspoken and aggressive' element to which Janik was alluding.

[Janik]

Yes, there are vegans and there are vegans who call anyone not a vegan stupid. Key difference. Morrissey is the later (call it hardcore veganism if you will), and it makes absolute sense for him to be that.

[Giggler]

No, he didn't. But do any pieces of music sum up 1985 like Elegia by New Order, How Soon Is Now? and the searing guitar in That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore? It's almost as if they were made to be played over shots of snow gently falling on depressed mining communities as the strike nears its end.

[Disco Child Ballads]

Paul McCartney probably had more of an influence over me becoming a vegetarian, owing to his support for the Meat Free Monday campaign. The actual song 'Meat is Murder' is the weakest track on an otherwise great album.

[Satchmo Distel]

As an aside, I don't know if veganism automatically equates to being on the left. It was originally a religious position (Hindus in 1880s London, like Gandhi). Paul and Linda were not on the left in any meaningful way. Thus it it is less odd to me that Morrissey has become openly fascist without renouncing his veganism.

I agree that there's a big difference between vegans who berate non-vegans and those who live and let live. Presumably Morrissey does not extend this to requesting non-vegans to stay away from his concerts and not buy his albums, thereby denying him revenue. He's also happy to rip off his fans with reissues and repackages despite once releasing a song decrying that practice. You won't need to dig deep to find double standards with him.

I also recall him eating custard creams in a 1980s interview, and wearing leather shoes (does he still do so?).

[ad hoc]

No, I wasn't really equating it with the left, though common reasons for veganism are things like compassion or enviromental concerns which are basically left wing positions. It's clearly entirely possible to be vegan/vegetarian and right wing. Going back to the OP, Meat is Murder is written from the perspective of compassion for animals, however, which to me at least, does seem like a sort of left wing position to take.

[E10 Rifle]

Yeah the track Meat is Murder is a dreadful dirge, the worst track by miles on an otherwise sublime album (maybe their best). It's The Smiths' equivalent of The Manics' SYMM as a crass, album-ending turkey.

[Jah Womble]

A good number of Smiths songs were 'dirges'. And none the worse for that.

[3 Colours Red]

And I find 3CR's position to be bizarre.

I was being facetious... again. He is a cunt though and that kind of militancy really annoys me.

[caja-dglh]

I can find a million reasons to hate Trump, and a vast array of reasons to be vegetarian, but I don't need to try and make some kind of link to Trump's diet to further entrench my position.

But he does eat expensive steak, well done, with ketchup.