Van Morrison will soon release three protest songs that slam the coronavirus lockdowns in the UK as being “fascist,” claiming they “enslave” the population.
Van Morrison, the Northern Irish singer behind such hits as “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Gloria,” is set to release the three coronavirus-themed songs over the next couple of weeks, called “No More Lockdown,” “As I Walked Out,” and “Born to Be Free.”
“No More Lockdown” has the strongest messaging of the three. Morrison sings:
No more lockdown / No more government overreach / No more fascist bullies / Disturbing our peace … No more taking of our freedom / And our God-given rights / Pretending it’s for our safety / When it’s really to enslave…
It also slams “celebrities telling us what we’re supposed to feel,” and “Imperial College Scientists making up crooked facts,” with the latter likely being a reference to Professor Neil Ferguson, whose flawed model that claimed there would be hundreds of thousands of deaths in the UK pushed the government into locking down the country. Ferguson was later caught breaking the rules to have an affair with his mistress.
Morrison has been outspoken about the “pseudoscience” of the lockdown, and launched a campaign to save live music, claiming socially distanced gigs were simply unfeasible. “I call on my fellow singers, musicians, writers, producers, promoters and others in the industry to fight with me on this. Come forward, stand up, fight the pseudoscience and speak up,” Morrison said.
The Northern Irish Health Minister attacked Van Morrison, claiming his messaging was “dangerous”:
I don’t know where he gets his facts… Our messaging is about saving lives. If Van wanted to sing a song about saving lives, then that would be more in keeping with where we are at the minute. If Van Morrison has counter-scientific facts that he’s prepared to stand over, and have that debate with the chief scientific adviser, then I think that’s how he should do it.
However, Sammy Wilson, the DUP MP, defended Morrison, claiming he was “raising an important point”:
It’s a debate which has been going on for a long, long time, that we do ask the kind of questions that he has asked in these songs – how much of our freedom do we give to the government and how much should the government rely on us to use our common sense?
Last week, fellow British musician Noel Gallagher of Oasis said that he would refuse to wear a facemask despite the government mandate. “It’s not a law. There’s too many f**king liberties being taken away from us now,” Gallagher said.
