Children In Pieces
Morrissey's Missed Opportunity
‘Children In Pieces’ was released in CD format only on June 2, 2008 as the second track (the “B” side) to his ‘All You Need Is Me’ single. The release of this specific version of the single (there was also two different 7-inch vinyl format versions) was limited to the UK. The song was included on the Swords compilation album, which was released the following year.
Listen to the song here:
Jesse Tobias co-wrote ‘Children In Pieces’ with Morrissey, with a demo undertaken during the Ringleader Of The Tormentors recording sessions at Forum Music Village in Rome in the Autumn of 2005. This demo was shelved, and it wasn’t until two years later that a new version of the song was recorded in Los Angeles. The new version of the song was produced by Gustavo Santaolalla and Jerry Finn. The musicians on the recording were Boz Boorer (guitar), the aforementioned Jesse Tobias (guitar), Solomon Walker (bass), Matt Walker (drums) and Michael Farrell (keyboards).1
‘Children In Pieces’ is, in the authors humble opinion, something of a lost opportunity for Morrissey. The song speaks to Catholic nuns and Christian Brothers2 physically and (in the instance of the Brothers) sexually abusing terrified children with church and government institutions looking the other way:
In Irish industrial schools
Nuns called "mothers"
And the Christian Brothers
Kick the shit out of very frightened children
Judges and priests and
Police and cardinals
They look the other way
When the weekend comes
They'll make use of those Children in pieces
As an example: throughout the 20th century, corporal punishment was casual, frequent and brutal in Artane Industrial School in Ireland, which was run by the Christian Brothers. Artane's staff included a number of Brothers who had been warned for "embracing and fondling" boys. Accused Brothers were excused, lightly admonished or, typically, moved to other institutions.3
Indeed, the Irish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse's4 five-volume report of its investigation of systemic abuse of children in Ireland found that the Congregation of Christian Brothers, which was the largest provider of residential care for boys in the country, received more allegations of abuse (both physical and sexual) than all of the other male religious orders combined (Artane was the largest industrial school that the Christian Brothers order administered).
The version ‘Children In Pieces’ released by Morrissey possesses musical and vocal qualities that are seemingly out of step with the import of the song’s lyrics. To put it another way; a jaunty, guitar-driven sound (with Morrissey at times singing with gusto, belting out his vocals) accompanying lyrics that touch upon the physical and sexual abuse of children in the care of a Catholic religious order is uncomfortably incongruent.
Perhaps a more constrained tempo (the outro of the song finds the musicians proverbially “rocking out”) with understated and measured vocals would have made for a potentially monumental statement on a very real and horrific issue.
The second half of the song’s lyrics deal with societal indifference to the plight of the abused children…indeed, such a long-term history of abuse could not possibly have gone unnoticed:
You say you wanna go home
you say you wanna be left alone
and so you turn to me
but instead of sympathy I find
my sentimental heart hardens
my sentimental heart hardens
get your hands off me, kid
you must be bad luck
my sentimental heart hardens
Doubtless, the countless revelations of abuse conveyed by students (whether contemporaneously or after the fact, over many decades) to family members, church and/or government officials and anyone else who would listen were apparently discounted, denied, or outright ignored, which is testament to the adage that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing; however, in this instance there were no good men (or women), but only indifference.
The lyrics of ‘Children In Pieces’ draws one’s attention to rather uncomfortable truths — the innocent and vulnerable suffer at the hands of those whose task it is to protect them — indeed, they suffer not despite the fact that they’re innocent and vulnerable, but precisely because of this. That such morally and ethically reprehensible behavior is documented to have occurred at the hands of the church, and ignored by society at large for such a protracted period of time, speaks volumes as to the inherent evil that
