MJK vs Morrissey

[thomasknight]

I'm fairly new to Undertow and I only really listened to disgustipated properly last night. I was surprised to hear the similarity in the begining with "Meat is Murder" by the Smiths. Any thoughts?

[drayeva]

i don't think that they are similar at all. Morrissey is an extreme vegitarian and meat is murder puts across those views. To me it seems like Disgustipated is mocking these very views. For example:

"These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots!"

"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!"

You can hardly take these lyrics as not being humorous or sarcastic. The essence of the song is 'Life feeds on life' and 'This is necessary', something which i hardly think would sit well with morrissey.

i've never understood veggies, what do they put in their bacon sandwiches?

To quote John Cleese, “If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?”

[drayeva]

unless you're meaning this musically, and even then the only similarity is that both involve a piano, albeit the piano is getting smashed up in Disgustipated

[thomasknight]

unless you're meaning this musically, and even then the only similarity is that both involve a piano, albeit the piano is getting smashed up in Disgustipated

Thanks for your reply, but i think your getting in far heavier than me. I was only talking about the sounds at the very start. The sheep instead of the cow, those machine cutting like sounds. The fact that you pointed all those things out to me seems to mean there is a connection. I hadn't even thought about that. Are you saying that MJK is conscious of the Smiths song while writing this?

John Cleese: couldn't have said it better

[paraflux]

It's possible that he was, the entire sermon part is a parody. When did the Smiths song get released?

[thomasknight]

It's possible that he was, the entire sermon part is a parody. When did the Smiths song get released?

It's the last track on their 1985 album of the same name.

[drayeva]

Sorry for the mixup. I like to think that he's taking the mick out of veggies, which by implication would mean mocking meat is murder. not too sure about whether maynard actually had the smiths specifically in mind tho. on the note of animal noises i suppose we could draw parallels with pink floyd's animals just as easily.

[tbrent21]

Has anybody heard the bootleg CD where during the intro for one song, Maynard has a long dialogue about Morissey being born out of the ass of Elvis? I'm really not kidding on this one.

[thomasknight]

I hadn't compared the lyrics closely originaly but now I think disgustipated could actually be a direct response to Meat is Murder (http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~moz/lyrics/meatismu/meatismu.htm).

Morrissey first draws the picture of the emotional anguish of the animals, through their cries as their execution comes nearer:

Heifer whines could be human cries
Closer comes the screaming knife

Maynard takes Morrissey's angle but applies it to carrots:

what are these tortured screams
These are the cries of the carrots
tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust

MJK shows that it is weak to just apply this concept of "cries" to anything and claim that it is the sign of some wrongdoing.

Maynard's point is weakened by the fact that we can hear the noises of cows clearly, so it is a short step to thinking of them as cries. To claim carrots "cry" must be taken as facetious, or as is most probable from the song, a description of a newly heightened sense that has been discovered.

This beautiful creature must die

I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul!

Once again there is a parody, but Maynard goes into further detail as to why Morrissey may want to call them "Beautiful". But he is still talking about the carrots, asserting more properties on them.

Morrissey then moves onto his big message:

A death for no reason
And death for no reason is MURDER

He simply says that he can see no reason for killing the cows, and he then takes the step to equate this to murder.

Then Moz talks about the implications of being a murderer:

It's not "natural", "normal" or kind

Reverand Maynard takes a pause, MJK is now offering a direct argument to Morrissey:

Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on........

This is necessary

Morrissey's last line is:

Oh ... and who hears when animals cry ?

If Morrissey is saying that too few people hear animals crying then we could go back to MJK's crying carrots and talk about how nobody hears them crying. Maybe the original comparrison was not as facetious as I first thought.

I've heard that MJK has often mentioned Morrissey's name in concert. One could easily imagine that Morrissey's intorverted self-pitying lyrics are enough to piss Maynard off. Maybe Morrissey's assertion of human qualities to animals pushed him over the edge.

[gjamison27]

I often wonder why no one concerns themselves with vegetables being alive. Its wrong to kill a cow, but ripping up carrots and lettuce from their place in the world (where they are living and growing and would eventually die on their own just as all of life), is ok? It is ignorant to think of vegetables as any less worthy of being alive than other animals simply because they cannot communicate verbally. Fish don't do much more than vegetables when you really think about, with the exception of more movement. Vegetables move as well as they grow more towards the sunlight and expand in and around the earth. But vegetarianuts will still eat fish. Its all just silly and I think that is exactly the point Maynard is making. The argument is silly, vegeatarians are silly, and Maynard uses silly to make a pretty cool song and statement.

Wether we like it or not, life feeds on life and it is absolutely necessary.

Oh and vegetables aren't food, vegetables are what food eats!

[gjamison27]

Maynard is so silly! Like he could last an hour!