The Smiths - Meat Is Murder
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 11.02.1985
“I think we really began to hit our stride mid-way through making the second album. It felt like all the grown ups had left us and let us get along with doing our thing on our own,” says Johnny Marr, guitarist of "The Smiths", reflecting on the changes the band experienced while working on their second album "Meat Is Murder", released on February 11, 1985.
“I learnt how to put things together on the John Peel Sessions and I had learnt a lot through working with John Porter,” Marr continues. “From then on, we didn’t work with a producer on albums.”
Engineer Stephen Street recalls: “The first session I did with them was with John producing and I engineered. It was "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", but the band then decided they didn't want to work with John on the next record, which became Meat Is Murder. They wanted to do it on their own".
Stephen Street added: "They were still working with John Porter at the time, who co-produced the first album. I was working at Island Records’ studio in London, and they came in to do that song. I engineered the session, and afterwards Johnny and Morrissey took my number and said, ‘We’d love to do more work with you... Very soon after that, though, I got a call from Geoff Travis, and he said, ‘The guys want to have a go at producing the next album themselves, but would like you to be the engineer?’ I said, ‘I’d love to'"
At the height of its industrial power, Britain had once been the workshop of the world. British goods were found across all five continents, even in emerging markets opening up in China and Japan. As exports expanded, Britain also became a large-scale importer of goods.
But then the 1980s arrived, and the trend reversed. Britain became heavily dependent on imports, unemployment reached record levels, and the number of strikes continued to rise.
By 1985, Britain was already deep into nationwide strikes. Many believed depression did not really exist, dismissing it as an excuse for the weak. Countless unemployed people faced an intensely pressured reality on their own. Then “Meat Is Murder” arrived, and Morrissey’s lyrics reached a new peak on this album.
To build the album’s sonic landscape, Morrissey supplied Marr and Street with his personal copies of BBC sound-effects records. The album was harsher and more political than its predecessor. Morrissey even forbade the rest of the band from being photographed eating meat.
He decided he wanted to raise more serious issues on English radio. Even he did not anticipate how effective this would be. As the cliché goes, Morrissey caused panic on the streets of London.
He brought his political stance into many interviews. His targets included the Thatcher government, the British monarchy, and the famine-relief project "Band Aid". He actively promoted vegetarianism on live shows and in interviews. On another occasion, he persuaded a Scottish television program to broadcast footage from slaughterhouses during dinner time.
Morrissey mockingly commented on the latter: “One can have great concern for the people of Ethiopia, but it's another thing to inflict daily torture on the people of England.”
The British media were shocked when they heard what Morrissey and Johnny Marr had decided to call their second album. A BBC crew was sent to document the recording sessions, as if it were a declaration of war on the monarchy itself.
Morrissey used the visit to explain to conservative journalists that the new album title was self-explanatory, he explained that the band used this title because they believe popular music should be used to convey serious messages.
He explained that there are so many bands with millions of fans who don’t use their power to expand their listeners’ awareness, but he think that it's a sin. He added that If the bands' fans eat meat, he want them to stop and think about it, because there’s nothing in modern life that makes people consider this issue. In his opinion there's still a belief that there is no connection between the meat people eat and animals themselves. Animals are seen as something that wanders around in fields, while meat just appears on the plate.
If Morrissey is the driving force behind the album’s messages, Johnny Marr, responsible for the music, guitars, and overall sound of "The Smiths", is the one who paves the path that delivers Morrissey’s words straight into the hearts of the fans.
One of "The Smiths’" finest songs, “How Soon Is Now?”, was not included on the original UK release. The band added it to the American edition, placed directly in the middle of the record, and it has since become inseparable from the album.
“I wanted an intro that was almost as potent as 'Layla.' When it plays in a club or a pub, everyone knows what it is,” Marr later explained about his masterpiece.
The pulsing tremolo, the slide guitar layered above it, and the rhythm section of Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce prepare the listener for something unforgettable. Then, at precisely the right moment, Morrissey’s voice enters, delivering bombastic lyrics about crippling shyness in a song that became an anthem for the alienated and socially isolated. A decade later, "Love Spit Love" recorded their own acclaimed version, which found its way into the opening credits of the TV series "Charmed" (1998–2006).
The album also displays a broader musical range than its predecessor, with rockabilly influences on “Rusholme Ruffians” and funk elements on “Barbarism Begins at Home”, which addresses domestic tension and the physical punishment of children.
Three songs on “Meat Is Murder” focus on saving children from the education system and from brutal homes (“The Headmaster Ritual”, “Rusholme Ruffians”), and from meat consumption itself on the title track “Meat Is Murder”, which incorporates the sounds of cattle and pushes listeners toward new heights of hysterical carniphobia.
As a deeply sensitive individual, Morrissey recognizes emotional cruelty as much as physical cruelty, attacking the cynicism that mocks loneliness on “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore”. Despite feeling trapped in an emotionally barren world, Morrissey can still declare that his faith in love is still strong.
“I was trying to draw on American music in a way that had been forgotten. I’m into writing with rhythms that are very infectious but don’t have any traces of James Brown in because I wanted my band to be different,” Marr explains.
Marr also said that “Nowhere Fast” was written about the feeling of living as a poor and hopeless person, looking with frustration at the aristocracy and the upper classes who ignore those life has passed by.
The album cover features a 1967 photograph of American soldier Michael Wynn in Vietnam, although the slogan on his helmet was altered from “Make War Not Love” to “Meat Is Murder”. The original image was used in the documentary "In the Year of the Pig" (1968) by Emile de Antonio, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
On this album, Morrissey reaches out to young people and assures them they are not alone. Someone is there with them. At last, British listeners no longer had to settle for carefree, disposable pop, because “Meat Is Murder” was a work of art they could find genuine comfort in.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music