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Elvis Levels The Building with "Oliver's Army" | The Spindle
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In the late 70's Elvis Costello was on a roll, making hooky, insistent music that didn't compromise on message. The 1979 single "Oliver's Army" b/w "My Funny Valentine" is the most prime example—a scathing indictment of British imperialism that was catchy enough to hit #2 on the British charts. Hear how Elvis pulled this off as Marc and John dive into this controversial classic on the latest episode of The Spindle, a podcast about 7" from WASTOIDS.
Welcome to the Spindle, a podcast about seven inch records. I'm Mark. I'm John. In each episode, we talk about one seven inch record, hopefully give you some insight into it that you haven't heard before. We both got into music in the 80s and 90s when 7 inches were super important, especially on indie labels. So that's the arrow we mostly draw from. But we sometimes pick some stuff earlier or later than that too. And either way, we try to keep it short and to the point, just like 7 inches do. So this time around, we're going to talk about an Elvis Costello and the attraction 7 Inch. It's Oliver's Army backed with My Funny Valentine, released in February of 1979 on Radar Records. A-Side written by Costello and B-side as a cover of a Burt Backrock song. These songs were recorded at Eden Studios in London as part of the sessions for the album Out Armed Forces, which came out that year, produced by Nick Lowe. And the A-side got to number two on the UK charts, stayed there for 12 weeks, apparently.
SPEAKER_02I think it was on the I was on the charts for 12 weeks. I don't think it was at number two for no, no, it wasn't number two for 12 weeks. Let's just be, I mean, I just want to be clear about that.
SPEAKER_03Want to be accurate, yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Um, and the lineup on this one is Elvis Costello, guitar and vocals. Steve, do you know how do you pronounce Steve Neo? Naive. Steve Naive, okay. Piano organ synthesizer, Bruce Thomas on bass, and Pete Thomas on drums. Not related. Oh, that's good. They look entirely different. Oh, that that helps.
SPEAKER_02Like one's like shorter, like 5'3, and the other one's like 6'3.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wow. Which one's the tall one? The bassist?
SPEAKER_02The bass, no, the drummer.
SPEAKER_03Pete Thomas, one of the greatest drummers who's ever lived. Oh, wow. Awesome. Yeah, I to be honest, I don't know a ton about Elvis Castellan Attractions. I like a lot of their music, but uh I don't have anywhere near the connection to them that you do because you you like them very early on, right?
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, it was, I would say, I don't let's put it this way. He was popular enough that a 10 or 11-year-old could hear him at that point. So, like he was a little bit of like a you know, the 70s there were the hunt was on for the New Dylan. Where's the New Dylan? And there were a couple New Dylans, like Bruce Springsteen. There would be he was probably we'd call him a somewhat successful New Dylan. Uh Stevie Forbert, we would say, was not as successful in New Dylan or something like that. So, but Elvis Costello kind of really was a New Dylan. If you're talking 65 Dylan, somebody who is taking pop music by the throat and cramming it full of a bunch of stuff that it didn't have before, and then kicking the corpse around, uh, then he definitely is probably the first person you could say was the new Dylan. He was probably one of the most popular early New Wave artists that people heard about, um and me included. And so um he grabbed me because uh I as I as I've said before in the 70s, and I know I wasn't alone because the scene came up. I was standing there going, like, I absolutely love music, and you know me. I I adore music. I hear music all the time. I want to hear everything, even if I don't like it, and I want to hear it all. But what was disappointing to me is like I didn't hear anything that I connected with. The closest would be that mid-60s stuff, but even that's old, you know, that's like other people's music. I can't totally relate to it. I mean, I was born then, but it's not mine, and um, so the the what punctured is it took I was interested more in books then, you know, like as far as like actually buying books and being into writers, I was into like Russian writers and stuff and into Orwell and things like that's where it all went because I I don't like Ted fucking Nugent, you know. I don't like Queen, I didn't want to buy those records. I would try like Jethro Tull, you know, kind of the nerdier stuff I could sort of get with, you know, but mostly I was just searching for something that that combined intelligence and aggression. And um Elvis Costello did like that's that's what it is, you know. He he was like, we don't have to dumb this down anymore. Um you can go ahead and up the tempo, but you still can write catchy songs. Uh they can be about subject matter other than love, they can be about hate, they can be about uh not wanting to be hated, they can be about fascism, they can be about, you know, and so the breadth of what he started writing about right away was again Dylan-esque, but filtered through a completely new sensibility. And I guess he came out of the pub rock scene. His favorite artist is Nick Lowe. My daughters are hugely into Nick Lowe right now, so I'm full of Nick Lowe lore. It's good timing. Um, and so he met he was into Nick's band Brinsley Schwartz, got on the pub scene, had his own little band, and was playing around. Obviously, a really good singer and songwriter. You he must have been immediately like you'd be like, That guy's got something. I mean, he can sing, you know. And um, but he just loved Nick Lowe. And so as the 70s went on, when Jake Riviera and those guys started Stiff Records, Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello were among the first couple artists that came together. And of course, Elvis wasn't Elvis Costello, then he was Declan McManus, or he would do other kinds of he then was doing like DP Costello. I can't recall whether maybe his mother's maiden name is Costello or it's some family name, and um, because he was Declan is his Declan is his real first name, and then at some point Jake Riviera, who had a great great nose for this kind of stuff, and this is '76, I think, said, Why don't you be what let's do Elvis? Like, there's no other Elvis. Why not be Elvis? So, of course, he's he's Elvis, and then Elvis dies. He's Elvis for like nine months. Elvis Costello, he was like, That's weird, that nerd's Elvis Costello, you know. He's Elvis, why how dare he be Elvis? Then Elvis Presley dies. He's the last last Elvis standing. And um, so but that's you know, that's kind of that sort of cheeky thing. And then I don't know, man. There it's everything was so sedate and about like relationships or about just dancing or novelty hits, which you know I love, but it just missed anything that was kind of trying to attack your brain and get you to think, like it just really wasn't there, it wasn't represented. So I think a lot of people were thirsty for that. And so his first LP came out and didn't even come out in the US, and apparently uh it sold about a hundred thousand copies as an import. Oh wow, uh, which probably paid, by the way, uh that was uh his CBS Records uh probably used that model to break cheap trick later, two years later, if we with live at Boudacom. But um basically then it was off to the races for him for the first three or four years because he had the goods. Every record's better than the one before it for a few years there. Like, I don't know, very not very many people have had an album run like he had from say 77 to um 81 or so. And so armed forces came in the middle of that and is gotta be peak of his powers. He's been on a couple tours, he's confident, he's ready to make an album, he's got themes in his head, and obviously he's got a freaking hit single as well. And so, you know, he 79 was gonna be his year.
SPEAKER_03And he goes to Belfast, he does a show there, and he's walking around and he's like basically, I mean, even said, What is the the uh I saw mere boys walking around in battle dress with automatic weapons, you know, and so like in the middle of traveling, he starts writing this song um uh sort of about that what's happening there, but also just like generally about war and battle, and the Oliver refers to Oliver Cromwell, I guess, right?
SPEAKER_02Who caught he's the one who invaded Ireland in the first place.
SPEAKER_03So but then he also talks about Hong Kong, Palestine, South Africa. I mean, there's like everything kind of merges together in this.
SPEAKER_02Well, no, no, it's one subject, it's the British Empire.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02The whole song is about colonialism in the British Empire, and it's the how colonialism dehumanizes both the people that it colonializes, which is the slur, the famous slur that's in there is is legit. And he's probably repeating something he heard British soldiers say, you know, he's Irish. He grew up in Liverpool as an Irish person in Liverpool, and it's a very Irish city. He he felt it all. I don't I've never really plumbed which side of you know, I it seems to me he's just like whatever side it is, the Irish are treated like shit right now, you know. It's better now than back in the 70s. But the 70s were a particularly bad time called the Troubles and stuff like that. There was Bloody Sunday earlier in the 70s, British soldiers walking around with weapons shooting people. But what Costello ultimately is pointing out in this song is how dehumanizing it is for the people doing it. These are just ignorant boys. Do you have a job? Here, have a gun. There's no real qualification, you don't have to care about anything. You don't want to go to Ireland, fine, we'll send you to Hong Kong. You know, the British Empire goes everywhere. Every place that he mentions, um, and then London is full of Arabs. We could be in Palestine with Oliver and the Chinese line, which is an intelligence, Middle Eastern and Eastern intelligence thing, um, and the boys from the Mersey, which is Liverpool and Port's going out, the Thames, which is the river that goes through London, and the Times, which is the London, you know, the new newspapers just stands in for the newspapers and their connections to colonialism, their deep connections to the government and the intelligence system of the UK. Right, right. He gets it all in there then. No, he does. This is it. This is what I'm saying. This song's incredible. This verse, these verses are that's that's his he really did manage to catch catch it all in there. And um it's incredibly compressed language, which is also goes with the theme of you know, the album was originally being entitled Emotional Fascism, because at the time in England there was a lot going on with racism, the National Front. He'd already written Night Rally, which is about racists, Less Than Zero, which is about Oswald Mosley. I could probably pick out a couple other songs that are like that. Uh Night Rally's cool because it's on This Year's Model, and it's sort of connecting it to things like I don't want to go to Chelsea and the more gangland feel of that, uh make shows you that fascism is a kind of just a gang, like a mafia sort of thing. Whereas a lot of armed forces is about how colonialism and fascism dehumanize us as humans and affect our interpersonal relationships, and that we act that kind of thing out in our relationships, unless we're mindful of it or whatever, or less we fight against racism, fascism, inequality, ignorance, stupidity, foolishness, uh, you know, all the way down the line.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And the the one of the other cool things too is like I think he thought after he wrote it, well, this is this might be uh album cut, a b-side or something, and and then the the Steve the Steve uh naive added a piano part that was inspired by Dancing Queen by ABBA, apparently.
SPEAKER_02It's more than that. I this is my nick Nick Lowe lore. So I've I've heard it a couple different ways, but girls talk was around this time, and so basically, um Nick Lowe and Dave Edmonds took girls' talk and made a hit with it. And so Nick Lowe basically said to these guys, they're like Hammond and Hawen over Oliver's Army. And Nick Lowe's like, I'll tell you what, you don't want it, I'll take it, I'll buy it from you, I'll do it. You guys, and so they're like, Oh, and so uh when confronted with that, um Steve, they they they set to it again, and Steve Naive came out with that bouncy piano part. A lot of people compare it to Dancing Queen. I've heard it's around, like there was I can't recall it now, but there's other songs that have kind of piano parts like that, probably because it's so around the time of ABBA. But I always see one of the things I like about it to me, ABBA is musical fascism. So using ABBA, it's sort of and that that kind of I don't want to tar them as white supremacists or fascists per se, because I don't know that that's true about them, and I don't necessarily think it is. But the way their music is made as pop music is one of the things that I know I didn't like hearing. It's all very consonant. You can guess what's coming next. The very form is what people are reliant upon, they don't want it to sound like something they don't expect. And right so um that kind of I I think in a way, I don't know whether they intend it that way, but for me, it's yet another pun in the song. Because take to talk about what's going on in this song and then to take some such regimented music as ABBA and kind of use that to put it over the top as a pop song. Right.
SPEAKER_03I think that's it makes a lot of sense, you know. Even if it wasn't like consciously intentional, it makes a lot of sense that that would right, right. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's a certified banger.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, totally. There's a good quote, and I'm not sure this is my not doing due diligence. I I read it in this Avos Costello bio, but I don't know who Roger Bacurian is.
SPEAKER_02Maybe he was the and Roger Bescherian, he's the engineer. Engineer, okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so he he's like Nick and I were this were like, this is a fucking hit. You could smell it from the first note. They were doing the basic track intro, and we were just in hysterics. We couldn't wait to get it finished. Which is I mean, right, once you do hear the final product, you can understand completely why they would think that. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Well, so Nick and Roger are sitting in the control room listening to them cut the song, and then the guys come in the crow room and they're like, it's all right, you know, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, the fuck? And Nick's like, no, what the hell is wrong with you? Um, and uh so, but he did Nick did he like for instance, um, there's a single Nick did called American Squirm, where basically it's him and the attractions. And this is from when they before they were recording Armed Forces, because it came out on this move in this movie soundtrack called Americathon in like 78 or something like that. And so um then on the B side of that is the Elvis version of what's so funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding. So he might have been like, you know what, I'm just gonna take the track and sing over it and put it out as mine. And Elvis is like, all right, we'll finish it. So yeah, it's it's yeah, no, we remember we were talking about A and B sides where you want to make sure they play the A side. I think this well, but the other thing is I really love that version of My Funny Valentine. I think it's excellent. Like, I I really but I heard it on Taking Liberties, of course. But um I think they wanted to make sure because of what because of even because of the words on the A side that people you didn't want to give them an excuse to flip it over. Right. You know what I mean? Like you're not gonna like they're two completely different songs, right? So you're definitely if you're gonna play something like Oliver's Army, you're not just gonna randomly play My Funny Valentine's. So even though it's a great B side, it there's a case where they wanted to make sure that there's no competition that you know which one's to be played, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, totally. I think the the B side is just him, right? I don't even think the other guys are on the Funny Valentine.
SPEAKER_01Sweet comic Valentine. You make Miss Map.
SPEAKER_03Now that you're talking about it more, I mean it's kind of occurring to me because I always sort of, once I'd heard about what the lyrics were about and stuff, I always sort of, well, this is one of those cool subversive songs where they're packaging uh a tough message inside of a like a catchy pop. But it's like it's not like born in the USA or something. It's not like like you could reinterpret the. I mean, there's one the message is strong here, and I don't think anybody's gonna listen to it and be like, oh, I don't even know what it's about, it's just catchy. I mean, some dumb people might, but but I mean, I I feel like it's a little bit more a little bit, but it's not trying to hide behind, oh, someone could interpret this another way, or or we're slipping message into something, you know. I if if if that makes sense what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I think in it you see, we're Americans. There are plenty of British pop songs that deal with the Irish situation, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02People hear plenty of songs like that over there, they're probably pissed off or whatever. And and there's so it's not, it probably isn't it's something that's a little more maybe common. I sure it's good to me, the big smuggling is is the the it isn't just like, hey, the British are mean to the Irish. That's not what he's saying.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02Like, it's way heavier than that. But as you're saying, it's not even hidden. Like it's there's there's there's no subtext in this song. No. I love him. You know, he writes subtext when he wants to. It's there. This is there's no subtext. He's just pissed. Right, right. He's compressed the language like a poem. But this is you could write, you're just see just sitting in Belfast writing it down, probably. No way. And it's all you just immediately connected. Yeah, well, is you know, Palestine, Ireland, Hong Kong, Africa, wherever the British behave the same.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_02And um, you know, it's it's hard, and they're uh dehumanizing themselves in order to do it. Yeah, yeah, byproduct of white supremacy. Like white supremacists are constantly caught in this trap that they're debasing themselves, they're admitting that they really aren't better than anybody else because they keep having to gain things to make sure they stay on top. They know they're doing this, but they want to stay on top, and they can't admit that they're doing that they they are the same as everybody else, or maybe even I mean, honestly, dumber, more aggressive, more violent. I mean, it's our cohort, we're allowed to say what we want, and um it's like that dissonance is literally right now what we're all dealing with. That inability to resolve it. I mean, we're talking about this like almost every episode. Something like this kind of thing, though, it's reality, and it's worth talking about, and hopefully other people think about it that way too. It is it's it's an it's a historical psychological issue. Like history is psychology, and it's the actions of people's minds and groups in a way, and so you know, you can't just pretend like history is dates and people marching to one place or another. His this this song it captures the mindset of the English Empire as well as the charge of the light brigade. It's it's incredible, and it's an incre it's might he's rotten written a lot of great shit, Elvis Costello. I mean, I don't he doesn't freak me out as much as he did those first five albums, but he's still really good. His songs like that guy can write a song about anything that's deep, meaningful. Uh you know, he just seems to have a knack. And um whether every album is filled to the brim with all of these songs, there's always shit in there that's worth listening to. He's always challenging people a little bit and trying to say something new. Um, and um, but I don't know, man. I don't know. It's I love songs like this. It's just to put everything together in one place like that, is crazy. Right, right.
SPEAKER_03And to do it's so kind of uh uh I hate this word sometimes with the whole pithy aspect. He doesn't have to say a lot to get a lot across in the song.
SPEAKER_02And and also one more wiggle, one more wiggle, right? It's like you feel it's you feel it, like you can almost hear the barbed wire. Uh-huh. Yeah, it's crazy, it's it's it's excellent writing, and then the performance is great because he it like you're saying, it isn't like but born in the USA seems to have been a d I always get annoyed with that song, and because I I mean I don't hate Bruce Springsteen or anything, but man, they they knew what they were doing with that song, they pumped that fucker up and made it an arena song. I don't think they really thought too much about the consequences until it was done. And then they're like, oops, and I saw that Braun in the USA show, it was a little fascist, you know. And um, I know that Bruce isn't that way, and I don't want to, you know, he's he's definitely anti-fascist, he's on the side of the angels. Oh, for sure. He seems like a genuinely nice guy with good taste in music. So I I it is it is interesting that he never did that kind of shit again. His his career became completely different after that. Uh-huh. Like touching that flame made him maybe say, Ah, that's weird. Right. Feels weird. Yeah. Elvis has no such problem because he he doesn't disguise it in this song. The song sounds he sounds sarcastic and bitter and pissed off. But it's not, I mean, the piano part is sweet, nothing else is that that the whole verse is like us just one chord just ranging away. It doesn't move like an empire, it just sits there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's what I always kind of funny a little bit about the whole like Born in the USA and other songs like the kind of myth of like wow they slipped they tricked people they slipped some stuff in in disguise on it and and that's fine. I mean that can work or not work, but how about yeah. How about if that's if that's supposedly a talent or a tricky thing, you know, a hard thing to do, how much harder is it to not disguise it? Just put it in there and still have a hit with it. That's that's a much bigger feat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, this is as far as like you know, like a say a dive off the high board, this sucker is like a difficulty factor of 10. This is like right, he pulled it off. I mean, they probably it probably didn't make number one because it was about iron. Because they would game the charts like that back then. He may not say it, nobody will say it, but it's a good possibility. It was up there for like three or four weeks before it came back down, and um it um yeah, it's it's an angry song, like it's not hidden. Like Born in the USA deliberately sounds celebratory. Also, Born in the USA lacks a fucking hook. I mean, fuck you. This one has like six.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02Because even if uh it like Nick Lowe noticed that piano part's great, but if you let that out, this song, I mean, this song would still be catchy as hell. Oh, for sure, yeah. There was a check for Charlie. He did it, Craig. You can say I can sing the whole song from memory because it's that catchy. It just like goes the words, or they just roll like the scanning on the lines is perfect.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, no, I mean that is a funny thing that the the a little bit of the story behind it is this piano added something to it, and it did add something to it, but it's not like it wasn't catchy already.
SPEAKER_02I mean, super the whole chord structure and the and the first chorus are all like totally catchy, and it adds I think I think the thing that makes it a deeper song than say born than say born in the USA is that it actually adds like uh friction. You know what I mean? It's like the reason people talk about that is because of the subject matter that's so obvious. Like nobody mistakes what Oliver's Army is about from the moment it came out, nobody has ever mistaken that. So when you layer, as I said, the semi-fascist, predictable hyper pop chords, disco chords. I mean, disco is the wrong word, but those kind of euro pop, that's a better way, euro pop chords over it. What other point are you? I mean, there's no way that's not slightly knowing, you know what I'm saying? Like another colonization. Yeah, yeah. And and so I don't know. I I just it's that to me makes it immediately different than say born in the USA. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean it it's an awesome, and it's a really good example of what he what he was able to do. You know, I mean, he did this with it did similar things with other songs, but this is like there's definitely some pinnacle aspects to this one in terms of how how well conceived it is and well put together.
SPEAKER_02Then he went on a disastrous tour of the US where he turned into an asshole for a couple months and had to totally totally change his life. Oh, yeah. He got he he he said some not so great words. Now I this is the wrong way to put it in his defense. What had happened is he got into an argument with Steven Stills, one of Rock and Roll's greatest assholes, and uh Bonnie Bramlett. And so they they were mad about punk and they were arguing with Bruce Thomas and Elvis Costello who were loaded. Bruce Thomas called Steven Stills steel nose, because Steven Stills had lost his septum to due to cocaine abuse and had a piece of steel in his nose. True. I mean, as far as I know, that's true. And so he called him steel nose, and so they're arguing back and forth, and he and Elvis Costello, he makes no excuses, said not great things, um, used the N-word, and uh got totally carpeted for it, definitely a huge dent in his US career. Uh, he was very chastened from that because he actually his he he, I mean, I just from all of his actions, even what he writes about, he's completely anti-racist, anti-colonial. So he reevaluated everything he did. And he went and personally apologized to the people he talked about. And uh they were magnanimous about it. He wrote about this in his book. They were magnanimous about it, but he's like, There's no they shouldn't accept my apology. I was, you know what I mean? He's frank about it. He's like, no matter what I thought I was trying to do. This is how you do it, and then you don't do it again, then you don't fucking do it again, and say, Well, you can put up with it. He was like, Wow, I fucked up my life. My life, he said to himself, my life had gotten to a point where I was willing to do that and say that that's bad. And so he, you know, that's when he did like he just completely changed after that point. Um, and uh, yeah, it's pretty wild. It read about it in his autobiography because he doesn't write about it, it's not a secret. Um, and it was a little bit of a big deal at the time, I think tempered by the fact that I mean, honestly, at that time, Steven Stills might have been one of the least popular people in the music industry, and almost everybody was probably like, Well, he could make you say lots of stuff. Um and so, but um, you know, he he he yeah, he fucked up. And uh it's kind of it kind of was a peak. You're right. It was kind of a peak for him of sorts of a certain type of Elvis Costello.
SPEAKER_03Right, right, absolutely. Well, awesome. Well, um, hope everybody enjoys it. If you haven't heard it before, I'm sure you probably have, but uh hope you got a little bit more. I learned a more more about it just looking into it and listening to it and talking to you about it. So hopefully, yeah.
SPEAKER_02The whole album, Armed Forces, I in some ways I I think it's highly underrated. Like it's all every song is like Oliver's Army. They are all that compressed. Every song is about kind of fascism and systems of control, but how we as humans use them to emotionally control each other. It's it's incredible. I mean, I can see maybe his brain just started boiling at that point because to write this stuff must be you really have to work hard to do it, you know, because it's very heavy, interesting stuff. And uh it was great for me as a history buff kid because he definitely a lot of history. There's a lot of you know, a lot of Nazi Germany stuff in this, and that he writes about, uh, like oh, what's the famous line somewhere in the Quisling Clinic? There's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes in the green shirt. And it just this credible wordplay, and it just it's just a remarkable album. I can't recommend it enough. Yeah, even though he's a bad boy and said the the bad words, right?
SPEAKER_03Right. Well, he redeemed himself somewhat, or at least did it the right way, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I mean he he said, I can't redeem myself, I can only move on and and be a better person.
SPEAKER_03Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Kind of like Albini did something similar, right?
SPEAKER_03Albine, yeah, Albini, very similar, very similar, yeah. All right, well, thanks everybody for listening to this one. Hope you enjoyed it, and uh, we will see you next time on the spindle.
SPEAKER_02All right, cheers.
SPEAKER_03The spindle is produced by John Howard and me, Mark Masters. I'm also the audio editor. Our theme song is by the great band Honey Radar. Our podcast is brought to you by WaystOways. Audio and video from Hello Mode. Find more podcasts and videos at waisttoys.com. Include legal rating and review of our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.