"I’m going VEGAN for VALENTINES (that’s literally your gift)". This song was inspired by the books Farmageddon: the True Cost of Cheap Meat and 60 Harvests Left, both by Philip Lymbery.
Thanks to Katie Edmonds / Beyond Ulthar for the cartoon pictures
Waiting staff expertly played by Outi Condit Thanks also to Manuel Parra, Sonny Mauricio, Jo Sonn and Unsplash media for stock media
LYRICS:
Oh great! Now it’s Valentines
January lasted 19 weeks and now it’s time
To overspend on underpinning
Some notion of
What means romantic love
But it all feels so performative and feebly heteronormative
Oh Valentine
You were executed in 269
A sexy year to die
It seems you were beheaded
WHich is not related (to oral)
Anyway thanks for facilitating cis-hets being more irritating
Valentine! 4 5ths of Europe was still trees when
You were alive
Which you probably took for granted while you were brutalised!
You were martyred for evangelical acts in your vestments
So that I could have a panic attack in a restaurant
For valentines!
A festival of smug couples and compromise!
Though to be fair the menu helps me realise!
That there really is something I want to give her
And it’s the mother of all grand romantic gestures
What. What “present” is it?
It’s my best idea yet!
Well that wouldn’t be hard!
Darling since your love has filled my life with grace and warmth and ease
I find that I am less inclined to wanna get heart disease
And since your love has filled my soul, all acceptance and no assumptions
I’ve found a new taste for evidence based improvements in kidney function
What about the dying of the planet?
Turns out I’m no longer a fan of that
Does that mean you were!?
I mean, kinda, but that was before - with love I feel more susceptible to wanting things to improve
Yes being with you makes me think of conditions endured in the life of a battery chicken
Do you mean you feel trapped? That I’m causing you harm?
No no no it’s just, more, like, you remind me of industrial fishfarms!
I think you need to explain what you’re trying to say!
Argh, this keeps coming out wrong - I mean, our love is like slurry! No! Not slurry! Like... a cow!
On a pathway
Of inquiry and enlightenment, complications and compassion
It sparks movement in my molecules, it’s a chemical, carnal reaction
It asks questions of myself that I have never asked before
And gives me space to really realise there’s a whole world to adore!
It asks me why I’m good with millions of tonnes of anchovies dragged out the sea
Sucked into highly intensive, energy burning processing factories
Made into cake but it’s nobody’s birthday - the locals are sick from the poison it spews
Filthy effluent waste, dumped back in the water
Dead zones grow on the coat of Peru
While the kids of the fishers have malnutrition cos local provisions are taken from them
And shipped to feed animals living in manacles, protein for Pigs and salmons and hens!
Living thousands of miles away from the source to industrial farms that few would endorse
We don’t like the cruelty, the pain, we don’t want it, prefer to believe that it’s just other countries
(And it’s making us trapped And it’s causing us harm And there’s no way to explain Why it needs to be this way)
Who treat fellow sentients in this way but there’s 1000 megafarms in the UK
They’re quietly appearing and growing not shrinking, from grass onto concrete, ammonia stinking
The harm is baked in at each phase of production
Pollution, curruption, and mass destruction
Cos cows without grass to eat need to eat something
So food fit for us to eat needs to get pumped in
To feed the machine! To feed the machine!
Feed it corn, oats and soy , all the fish in the sea feed it rainforests, livelihoods, animal care
Feed it oceans and humans and breathable air
To feed the machine! For the food that comes out three times more food goes in
W edon't quesiotn the shortage of food in the south but so much of it’s shipped into these tortured mouths
We feed the machine! We feed the machine!
We feed it our health and our longevity, we feed it our chances of going carbon free
And all antibiotic efficacy We feed it the seabirds, the topsoil, the primates,
we feed it the future, a livable climate
We feed it our past, our connection with earth
With forests and meadows and marshes that burst
With regeneration, the splendour the spell-bind - the great, sprawling mess of all life as it intertwines - our love is in it! It needs nature to survive - it asks me how I plan to keep our love alive...
Are you... tripping? No! I mean obvious yes. But my point is...
I’m going vegan for valentines! That’s literally your gift cause I want the world to survive
So our love can live in it - it’s action time!
It’s romantic that you now want to avoid armageddon
But you could just admit you forgot to get me a present
OK i did forget but htis is better than a one day thing! it means I’ll learn to cook, like, properly this time not like…
So it means I’ll be cutting way down on animal products without putting any effort in whatsoever?
Yeh!
oh ok that’s pretty cool! Thanks
Vegan for valentines Cos we’ve got power when the love Between us is unconfined To 1 day or 1 person or 1 sexy time But I don’t mean we should have sexy times with animals Because that would be unethical and- Just stop now