Morrissey's New Songs Assessed
Declaring World Peace Is None Of Your Business, Moz reveals anarcho-syndicalist self, beasts toreadors and wonders when the loneliness will end.
IT WASN'T EXACTLY the seven-year drought between “Maladjusted” and You Are The Quarry, but the half-decade of no new Morrissey music since the prophetically titled Years Of Refusal was a drag, a bummer, even. But now fans can turn to the songs from forthcoming LP World Peace Is None Of Your Business currently being played on the former Smith’s US tour. First up, the title track comes in on thunking percussion before turning into a plaintive, melodious slow rocker in his mature style that questions the state’s monopoly on violence in a world in torment, observes “the rich must profit and get richer and the poor must stay poor” and takes the contentious stance, “each time you vote you support the process” before concluding with a sinewy Jesse Tobias guitar solo and marching drums.
The next unheard song in the setlist – again filmed by thoughtful music fan gongligo – is The Bullfighter Dies (preluded here with Yes, I Am Blind, a 1989 co-write with former Smiths bass player Andy Rourke last played live in 1991). With a trumpet introduction, the two-minute song jangles in Smithsesque style while Morrissey shouts “hooray” and imagines bulls wreaking vengeance on matadors in cities across Spain.
The Spanish theme continues on Earth Is The Loneliest Planet Of All, a Flamenco lament of woe and aloneness of the kind our man does so well.
All suggest that World Peace Is None Of Your Business, which is expected in July and will contain songs entitled Neal Cassady Drops Dead, Kick The Bride Down The Aisle and Smiler With Knife, will satiate appetites stoked by that massively entertaining read Autobiography. And when are those British dates going to be announced?
