Zelda'sZecrets

This week sees the release of Morrissey's Greatest Hits album so now is as good a time as any to consider the man who possibly did more than anyone else in the 1980s and 1990s to increase the number of teenage vegetarians, not least through the title track of the album 'Meat Is Murder'. By using a term which usually applies only to the violent death of humans, he accused meat-eaters of perpetrating a barbaric act. Although condemned by some for being histrionic, the song brought food choices into sharp focus for a whole generation.

Steven Patrick Morrissey, known to all as just Morrissey, was born in Manchester on 22nd May 1959. Influenced by a number of local tragedies such as the Munich Air Disaster and the Moors Murders and blessed or cursed with a natural melancholy and iconoclasm, he was an intellectual loner in his early years. When introduced to guitarist Johnny Marr, however, his unique personal lyrics found their musical complement and The Smiths found themselves in the right place at the right time for commercial success. The band soon became a household name and their singer was piloted into the limelight where he has continued to reside, even after the band split up in 1987.

Morrissey stopped eating meat at age 11, saying later "If you love animals, obviously it doesn't make sense to hurt them." His convictions haven't changed. In 2006 he refused to play any concerts in Canada because of that country's annual seal hunt. Now approaching fifty and with a continued loyal following, we can still rely on Morrissey to speak his mind and champion the vegetarian cause.

Morrissey is the first in my new series on Famous Vegetarians which will be published at The Secret Vegetarian.