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Here's Diana Krall's peckerwood husband.Just kidding! (Peckerwood-wise.) Elvis Costello has been a favorite of mine for over 30 years, and this cut stands out to me among his long list of masterpieces.
The zippy pop arrangement, as exuberant as bubble gum, provides the happy "vector" for delivering an apocalyptic prophecy for Empire. I assume that Costello's lyrics were understood much more directly by his British audience, being children of an imperial twilight, than by Americans. But his imagery is so vivid that the thrust of the words were readily discerned even by a complacent twenty-something college slacker in 1979 who had little detailed knowledge of colonialism.
This song has not become any less relevant with the decline of the great Western colonial powers, because those empires have been supplanted by extractive transnational corporate enterprises that rival the power of any in world history. And ultimately, I think the new ones are every bit as doomed as the ill-fated empires of Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. This is still a prophetic, snappy little pop ditty that should haunt the brain stem of any plutocrat within hearing distance.
Oliver's Army, Elvis Costello and the Attractions (1979, from "Armed Forces," Columbia JC35709), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.
Bonus fun stuff: while scavenging my vinyl LP collection for the catalog information I rediscovered the bonus 33 rpm demo EP packaged with the original US release of Armed Forces. It contains "Watching The Detectives," "Accidents Will Happen," and "Allison." Also stashed away in the sleeve: my ticket stub for the 10 March 1979 Elvis & Attractions performance at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. Bruce Pavitt's girlfriend smuggled my camera into that show under her greatcoat after a security goon tried to confiscate it from me. Don't try that today unless you're prepared to get beaten in the skull with a five-cell Maglite or else give some fat turd a blowjob.
Good stuff old bean. Thought Elvis was a strange name for an Irishman but we Brits are very tolerant.
ReplyDeleteNot clear about the reference to "a blowjob" - they were a passing phase in my youth.
Talking about reminiscing a musical's opening in London in September for a short run until end January to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' "Love Me Do". Crikey!!
Can't remember the "blowjob," eh? I'd have those arteries checked, lad, both above the clavicle and below the navel. And re "Love Me Do," you'll get used to it. We've assimilated the Elvis Impersonator Phenomenon without serious harm to our national character. Pity we've taken so many other hits in that domain, though....
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