PETA Marks Morrissey’s Birthday With New Video—Scored by Him—to Play on Tour

Powerful New Short Reveals the Violent End That’s ‘Gonna Happen Someday’ to Chickens on Factory Farms

For Immediate Release:
May 19, 2014

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Morrissey has been combining music and animal rights ever since “Meat Is Murder” hit the airwaves in 1985, and his 2014 tour is no exception. The largely sold-out tour will feature “Someday,” a brand-new animated video—created by PETA and animator Anna Saunders in honor of Morrissey’s 55^th birthday on May 22—that offers an inside look at the life of a chicken on a factory farm.

Notoriously picky about licensing his music—even when big bucks are offered—Morrissey granted rights to his darkly emotional song “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday” to PETA for free to use as the score for the new video, which tells the story of Nugget, a baby chick who is separated from his mother and spends his life dreaming of escaping a cruel factory farm and reuniting with her. At the video’s end, Nugget finds a happy ending—but back at the factory farm, another baby chick is born, only to experience the same fate as the more than 7 billion chickens who are slaughtered in the U.S. every year.

“PETA’s ‘Someday’ video shows us what happens every day in the meat industry: Animals are torn away from their mothers, are caged, and eventually have their throats slit,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “The best way for anyone to celebrate Morrissey’s birthday is to go vegan—not ‘someday,’ but today.”

Morrissey is part of a long list of musicians and other celebrities—including Paul McCartney, Joaquin Phoenix, Joan Jett, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Geezer Butler—who have teamed up with PETA to speak out against killing animals for food.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.