A New Day in Meatless Music

Two of my favourite vegetarians, "Weird Al" Yankovic and Morrissey, both released new albums to-day I was able to go into Best Buy and buy physical copies of. I've finished listening to the Morrissey album, World Peace is None of Your Business, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I was going to. Hearing the title track had left me unenthusiastic as it seems to consist of not particularly profound political observations. I think the album ought to have been called I'm Not a Man--that's the name of the third track on the album, my favourite at this point, and the track that most directly expresses the theme that runs through much of the album--an attack on complacency and cruelty arising from roles enforced by society, particularly gender roles. "I'm Not a Man" almost sounds like a rebuke to Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy"--the distorted cries at the end of "I'm Not a Man" sound similar to the distinct backing vocals to "Mannish Boy". And as a rallying cry to gender non-conformity it also reminds me of Ani DiFranco's "Not a Pretty Girl".

Don Juan
picaresque
wife-beater vest
cold hand
ice man
warring caveman
well, if this is what it takes
to describe
I'm not a man.

The track is preceded by the nice "Neal Cassady Drops Dead" about the prominent beat figure. It, too, is a criticism of the bad behaviour that is usually, ultimately excused on account of boys being boys, in much the same way Kerouac expressed a simultaneous love for Cassady's wanderlust while portraying his tendency to abandon women and his children as pathetic and cruelly irresponsible. The song doesn't provide new insight but it works as a musical accompaniment for On the Road.

Morrissey hasn't released any real music videos for the album so far, only strange spoken word renditions of a few songs, which are kind of nice but the album versions of the songs are so much better.

I have to say he seems more like William Shatner every year.

"Weird Al" Yankovic, meanwhile, is releasing music videos for all the songs on his new album. He's released two so far, my favourite being "Word Crimes", a parody of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines".

Twitter Sonnet #646

Lime pudding oxygen stuck to the plaque.
Nothing escapes the bankrupt stromboli.
Gang broken glasses flutter on the track.
Leather smoke clouds obscure the unholy.
Peppermint tiles stick to the sandal.
Unchanging silver suits pack the ice box.
Sink strainer drains clog the new drawer handle.
Faded pink grasses mark the gameless clocks.
Acre cookies crumble like the clay king.
Bad fractions aren't even like whole numbers.
Not every angel in the bar should sing.
Good sawdust goes to particle slumbers.
One vegetarian's mandate is fun.
One vegetarian broke legs to run.