Last year, the cantankerous rock legend Van Morrison got extremely mad about the idea of COVID lockdowns. He released a statement about the “pseudo-science” of pandemic-control measures, and he went on to record a series of songs, including “Born To Be Free” and the Eric Clapton collaboration “Do You Want To Be A Slave?,” that explicitly targeted the lockdown. Morrison also attempted to mount a legal challenge against Northern Ireland’s live music ban. Today, Morrison announced a new double album, and it won’t feature any of those anti-lockdown songs that he released last year. It will, however, feature at least one song with a truly troubling title.

As Rolling Stone reports, Morrison’s creatively title new double album Latest Record Project: Volume 1 will arrive in March. Morrison wrote all 28 of the album’s songs during that detested lockdown period; in a statement, he says, “I’m getting away from the perceived same songs, same albums all the time. This guy’s done 500 songs, maybe more, so hello? Why do you keep promoting the same 10? I’m trying to get out of the box.”

The new album will include a song called “They Own The Media” — a title that sure seems to be an anti-Semitic trope. Maybe it’s satire. Maybe the “they” of the title doesn’t refer to any specific group of people. But when you consider that this man just went on a months-long COVID-denial tantrum, we have every right to be suspicious about this one. Other songs on the album include “Why Are You On Facebook?,” “Where Have All the Rebels Gone?,” “Stop Bitching, Do Something,” “Psychoanalysts’ Ball,” “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished,” and “Big Lie.”

The first single from Latest Record Project: Volume 1 is called “Latest Record Project,” and it seems to be a protest song about people expecting Van Morrison to sing his old songs: “Have you got my latest songs I’m singing?/ You got my latest songs I’m singing?/ Not something from so long ago/ Not something that you might want to know/ But something I can relate to in the present, in the present.” If you like, you can hear it and check out the album’s tracklist below.

TRACKLIST:

Disc 1:
01 “Latest Record Project”
02 “Where Have All The Rebels Gone?”
03 “Psychoanalysts’ Ball”
04 “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”
05 “Tried to Do The Right Thing”
06 “The Long Con”
07 “Thank God for The Blues”
08 “Big Lie”
09 “A Few Bars Early”
10 “It Hurts Me Too”
11 “Only A Song”
12 “Diabolic Pressure”
13 “Deadbeat Saturday Night”
14 “Blue Funk”

Disc 2:
01 “Double Agent”
02 “Double Bind”
03 “Love Should Come With A Warning”
04 “Breaking The Spell”
05 “Up County Down”
06 “Duper’s Delight”
07 “My Time After A While”
08 “He’s Not The Kingpin”
09 “Mistaken Identity”
10 “Stop Bitching, Do Something”
11 “Western Man”
12 “They Own The Media”
13 “Why Are You On Facebook?”
14 “Jealousy”

Latest Record Project: Volume 1 is out 5/7 on Exile/BMG.