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On this day in vegan history · February 11, 1985

Meat Is Murder Puts the Question on the Turntable

A British indie-rock album went to number one with a title track that just flatly called eating animals murder, and a generation of teenagers heard the argument for the first time.

Meat Is Murder Puts the Question on the Turntable
Wikimedia Commons / Morrissey

The facts

Released
11 February 1985, via Rough Trade Records
Chart performance
Reached number one on the UK Albums Chart, the Smiths' only studio album to do so; stayed charted for 13 weeks
Band
The Smiths: Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce
Title track
The album's closing song, built around the argument that eating meat is killing

The Smiths released their second album, Meat Is Murder, on 11 February 1985 through Rough Trade Records. Its closing title track set slaughterhouse sounds against Morrissey's lyrics and argued, without any hedging, that meat-eating was violence. The album became the band's only studio release to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart, where it stayed for 13 weeks, so the argument did not stay underground. Morrissey kept pressing the point off record too, at one point persuading a Scottish TV show to air slaughterhouse footage during the dinner hour.

In their words

The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.

  1. I'm very proud of the fact people tell me they became vegetarian as a result of Meat Is Murder. I think that is quite literally rock music changing people's lives.

    Johnny Marr, quoted in Document and Witness by Neil Taylor

    Source: Classic Pop Magazine

  2. The first thing was Meat Is Murder, The Smiths.

    Thom Yorke, on why he stopped eating meat, in the documentary Eat This

    Source: Classic Pop Magazine

Why it still matters

A chart-topping record made vegetarianism sound like a serious, un-embarrassing position rather than a punchline, and its reach went well past its own fanbase, including a teenage Thom Yorke, who named it as the reason he gave up meat.

See it in the 1960-1993 timeline

Sources

This history is still being written.

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