UPDATE: Universal Music UK sent the below statement to Billboard regarding Morrissey’s claim that it blocked him from releasing his 2009 song “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris” as a charity single for the victims of the Paris attacks:
“We have not received — let alone refused — any request from Morrissey himself related to ‘I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris’. While we have not been contacted directly by Morrissey, after seeing the comments on his website last week, we asked his representative to confirm his intentions and which charity he had in mind to support via the song’s proceeds. We are yet to receive a reply.
Many people at Universal Music have been personally affected by the events in Paris. The implication that we have blocked a request from Morrissey in favour of another tribute ‘utilizing our current crop of Universal artists’ is hurtful and wrong.”
Original Post: Morrissey, via fan site/Moz mouthpiece True to You, is claiming that Universal Music will not allow him to re-issue his song “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris” in honor of the victims of the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13.
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The single comes from the former Smiths frontman’s 2009 album Years of Refusal. The night after the attacks that left 130 dead, Morrissey performed the song at a concert in Chile standing before a French flag, where he told the audience, “As you’ve heard, the war of religion is upon us — or the religion of war is upon us.”
True to You reports that “David Joseph at Universal Music in London has refused the request made by Morrissey and the band to re-issue ‘I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris’ as a loving tribute to the lives lost in the Paris atrocities. David Joseph is instead arranging his own tribute to Paris utilizing his current crop of Universal artists.”
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Billboard has reach out to Universal for comment. Years of Refusal was the last album Morrissey released under the label before moving to their offshoot Harvest Records.
You can hear Morrissey sing “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris” here: