The album, World Peace is None of Your Business, is about human agency—particularly the structures which limit it.
Human agency is the capacity for humans to make choices. In World Peace is None of Your Business, Morrissey describes numerous situations where agency is limited or influenced by structures outside of one's control. Many of the songs address society's pressure to make individuals conform. Several other songs concern themselves with freedom: how much and how little the individual has to make choices in his or her life. In other words, the album is about the power struggle between the individual and society.
World Peace Is None of Your Business ~ Government control
You must not tamper with arrangements
Work hard and sweetly pay your taxes
Never asking what for
Neal Cassady Drops Dead ~ Choice
Victim or life's adventurer
Which of the two are you?
I'm Not a Man ~ Gender as a construct
Ways to sit
And of course
Ways to stand
I'm not a man
Istanbul ~ War
In Istanbul
Give him back to me
In Istanbul
Give me back my brown eyed son
Earth Is the Loneliest Planet ~ Anomie
But you're in the wrong place
And you've got the wrong face
Staircase at the University ~ Conformity
"If you don't get three As," her sweet daddy said
"You're no child of mine and as far as I'm concerned, you're dead."
The Bullfighter Dies ~ Rebellion
Hooray, hooray
The bullfighter dies
Hooray, hooray
The bullfighter dies
And nobody cries
Kiss Me a Lot ~ Liberation
I don't care when or where
I only care that the two of us are there
Smiler With Knife ~ Surrender
Time has frittered long and slow
All I am and was will go
Kick the Bride Down the Aisle ~ Heteronormativity
She just wants a slave
To break his back in pursuit of a living wage
So that she can laze and graze
For the rest of her days
Write down every word I say
Oboe Concerto ~ Indoctrination
There's a song I can't stand
And it's stuck in my head
Human agency is the capacity for humans to make choices. In World Peace is None of Your Business, Morrissey describes numerous situations where agency is limited or influenced by structures outside of one's control. Many of the songs address society's pressure to make individuals conform. Several other songs concern themselves with freedom: how much and how little the individual has to make choices in his or her life. In other words, the album is about the power struggle between the individual and society.
World Peace Is None of Your Business ~ Government control
You must not tamper with arrangements
Work hard and sweetly pay your taxes
Never asking what for
Neal Cassady Drops Dead ~ Choice
Victim or life's adventurer
Which of the two are you?
I'm Not a Man ~ Gender as a construct
Ways to sit
And of course
Ways to stand
I'm not a man
Istanbul ~ War
In Istanbul
Give him back to me
In Istanbul
Give me back my brown eyed son
Earth Is the Loneliest Planet ~ Anomie
But you're in the wrong place
And you've got the wrong face
Staircase at the University ~ Conformity
"If you don't get three As," her sweet daddy said
"You're no child of mine and as far as I'm concerned, you're dead."
The Bullfighter Dies ~ Rebellion
Hooray, hooray
The bullfighter dies
Hooray, hooray
The bullfighter dies
And nobody cries
Kiss Me a Lot ~ Liberation
I don't care when or where
I only care that the two of us are there
Smiler With Knife ~ Surrender
Time has frittered long and slow
All I am and was will go
Kick the Bride Down the Aisle ~ Heteronormativity
She just wants a slave
To break his back in pursuit of a living wage
So that she can laze and graze
For the rest of her days
Write down every word I say
Oboe Concerto ~ Indoctrination
There's a song I can't stand
And it's stuck in my head