Morrissey has claimed that the release of his 14th solo album, Bonfire of Teenagers, has been “gagged” owing to the subject of its title track, the 2017 terrorist attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester that killed 22 people.
Morrissey, 65, has been performing the song live since 2022. It features lyrics about a teenage girl being “vapourised”; about how “the silly people sing Don’t Look Back in Anger / And the morons swing and say Don’t Look Back in Anger / I can assure you I will look back in anger ’til the day I die,” a reference to the street singalongs of the Oasis track in the wake of the bombing. The song concludes with Morrissey singing “go easy on the killer”.
