The singer Morrissey is about to release his 16th solo album, Without Music the World Dies. Meanwhile, his 15th solo album, Bonfire of Teenagers, has gone unreleased for three years. Morrissey (forename Steven, former band The Smiths, foremost lyricist in English pop) said Capitol Records refused to release Bonfire of Teenagers because of its eponymous title song. “Bonfire of Teenagers” is about the Islamist bombing of an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena in 2017 and about how we prefer, and are even encouraged, to deny the moral challenge of evil.

The Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi, was an Islamic State enthusiast and the son of Libyan Islamists who, incredibly, had won asylum in Britain. Detonating a 66-lb. nail bomb hidden in a backpack, Abedi killed himself and 22 others and injured 1,017 more. Ten of the dead were under 20 years old. The youngest was an 8-year-old girl. One man’s body was so disfigured that he could only be identified by a leg tattoo.