Elvis Costello asks radio stations not to play Oliver's Army

[EX500rider]

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59950583

Elvis Costello has revealed he will no longer perform his biggest hit, Oliver's Army, and has also asked radio stations to stop playing the song.
Written about the conflict in Northern Ireland, the lyrics contain a racial slur used to describe Irish Catholics.

"That's what my grandfather was called in the British army - it's historically a fact," he told The Telegraph.
"But people hear that word... and accuse me of something that I didn't intend."

Released in 1979, Oliver's Army was played unedited on radio stations for decades - but as the word became increasingly taboo, many took the decision to bleep the lyrics.

On his last tour, Costello rewrote the song to address being "cut down by the censors", singling out the BBC, which attracted criticism for editing the song in 2013.
"They're making it worse by bleeping it, for sure," he told The Telegraph. "Because they're highlighting it then. Just don't play the record!"

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Yikes: It's 'white n----r'

[Scrivener7]

2. As he says, it was a common term for Irish Catholics. Not pretty. As an

Irish person raised Catholic I don't like it, but it was what we were called - there and here - for generations. Probably in the US up till WW2. Certainly very common before WW1.

And in Northern Ireland, till more recently.

[CurtEastPoint]

5. I've never heard that till now re: Irish Catholics. I'm sorry.

[Scrivener7]

6. Not in my time, thank God. But my grandfather had stories that could curl your hair

about growing up Irish Catholic in NYC in the nineteen tens.

[PatSeg]

3. Seriously?

I really don't remember the song, but I understand why Costello doesn't want it played on the radio.

[maxsolomon]

13. One the catchiest off Armed Forces.

I wore that LP out in High School

[SCantiGOP]

9. The only anti-Catholic slur I ever heard growing up

(and it was used jokingly by friends of mine) was Mackerel Snapper, after the Catholic practice of eating fish rather than meat on Fridays.

[maxsolomon]

14. You never heard "Mick"? or "Paddy Wagon"? Those are specific for Irish Catholics.

The Paddy Wagon being used by the Police because "the Irish were such drunks".

My Grandfather's barroom buddies called each other derisive ethnic slurs constantly: Polack, Kike, Mick, Dago, Kraut...

[SCantiGOP]

17. Yes on Mick

But I never thought of that as a slur. Kind of like calling someone a Brit.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

4. Costello didn't really understand the impact of that word in the US

Until Bonnie Bramlett knocked his ass out for calling Ray Charles and James Brown it...

[regnaD kciN]

24. Yeah, it's pretty hard to ignore that incident...

I know that Costello insists he was drunk and just trying to provoke outrage, but…isn’t that the same thing Clapton claimed about his “white power” tirade back in the ‘70s?

[Freddie]

7. The song was never a hit here

It’s about a historical event we Yanks don’t know much (if anything) about. All we hear is “that word”. I think he’s correct in deleting it from his playlist. He has a HUGE catalog of great stuff to pick from.

[tenderfoot]

8. The only time I've heard the song played is...

in my house - I have it on vinyl, cd and cassette - my friends house/car, a random party and alternative/college radio stations.

[Freddie]

12. Me too

I’m a huge EC fan but have never heard this one on the radio.

[Coventina]

10. Sirius XM "First Wave" station has it on regluar rotation.

A bit to my surprise.

I guess I'm the exception here, in that I always understood the context of his use of the term (treating people as cannon fodder).
But, I totally understand that the use is problematic.
I'm glad to see Costello addressing the issue.

[Ohio Joe]

11. Interesting... i've several times heard the song was about something else entirely...

Back in the late 80's, shortly after I first became a programmer, we were out at a happy hour when the song came on. Someone there said it was about life as a programmer. Throughout the years, I've heard a number of other programmers make the same claim. I never looked into it because... Well, I just did not care all that much what it was about.

[maxsolomon]

15. I always thought it was about mercenaries

The line about "we could send you to Johannesburg".

I guess that's just part of the meaning...

[Effete Snob]

16. "Oliver" is Oliver Cromwell

It is about the British army and refers to a number of places where the British Empire fought - e.g. the first and second Boer Wars in South Africa.

[Retrograde]

20. I think it's a different Oliver

there's also a reference to a Mr. Churchill, whom I don't think is Winston. But I'm not up to speed on 1970s Tory politicians.

It came out during the Thatcher years, when unemployment in Britain - especially among young working-class men - was high. It is about mercenaries, and that being one of the few jobs available to "the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne", former industrial areas that had lost a lot of working class and especially entry level jobs by that time.

[Effete Snob]

21. .

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver%27s_Army

“ According to Sound on Sound, the title "Oliver" refers to English Parliamentarian leader Oliver Cromwell, who personally led the English forces which subjugated Ireland in 1649. In addition to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the song references other "imperialist" conflicts in Hong Kong, Palestine and South Africa.”

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/elvis-costello/olivers-army

The title is a reference to Oliver Cromwell, leader of of the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War against the Royalist army of Charles 1. Among other things, he established what was called The New Model Army, which was the first professional, properly trained and drilled fighting force England had. Costello's song is a general anti-military statement, but its main target is how the only real option the unemployed have is to join the army (British unemployment figures were at an all-time high when he wrote the song in the early '80s). It doesn't have anything particular to do with Cromwell, other than the title.

[Retrograde]

22. That's the great thing about art

No two people perceive it the same way!

[Effete Snob]

23. Yes but in this instance...

…Costello has explained the reference explicitly.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. It is - and mercenaries were being used by apartheid South Africa in Namibia then

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WxWASJW70kMC&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&dq=%22namibia%22+%22mercenaries%22

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4185921

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. His biggest hit in the UK - reached no. 2

Looks like he never had much success in singles in the USA - the highest Wikipedia lists is "Veronica", reaching #19, and he (with or without The Attractions) had 6 more successful singles than that in the UK.

I've wondered about that lyric for some time. The context is that if you sign up as a mercenary, you might be killed, and the guys signing you up (or hiring them) don't care - you're just a (insert slur here) to them. But it does jar.