Blur’s cover of Elvis Costello song ‘Oliver’s Army’ is the “worst thing” they ever released
In 1993 Island Records decided to release a compilation album to promote peace in Northern Ireland. Peace Together featured the likes of Lou Reed, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, and future chart-toppers Blur. The band were given a list of possible tracks and ended up opting for Elvis Costello’s 1979 imperialist pastiche ‘Oliver’s Army’.
It was all for a good cause, but this particular rendition gives the distinct impression that Blur would have preferred to have been left to themselves. In Elvis Costello’s version, the lyrics are spat, not sung, heightening that sense of edgy cynicism so essential to his style. In this cover, Damon Albarn sings with a knowing lethargy, as though he’s been dragged out of bed and placed in front of a microphone – eyes still red from the night before. According to Andy Ross, the group’s uninspired performance was influenced by a multitude of factors, exhaustion and a sense of obligation being the foremost among them. Damon would later admit that the track was “one of the worst things” Blur ever released.
Still, it was a good choice. Costello wrote ‘Oliver’s Army’ in 1978 on a return flight from Belfast. At the start of that same year, Jack Lynch, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), had called for a British declaration of intent to withdraw from Northern Ireland. The request received much support from the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland. However, by the time Costello arrived, the British presence was more noticeable than ever.
On arrival, Costello was struck by just how young a lot of the British soldiers were. These were young men from ordinary families who had been armed with powerful automatic weapons. As he observed in the sleeve notes for Armed Forces: “they always get a working-class boy to do the killing'”. No wonder Costello wanted to highlight the presence of “the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne”. Liverpool, London and Newcastle were, after all, economically depressed areas in 1978, hence why the British Armed Forces did so much recruiting there.
At the time, the juxtaposition between Costello’s vitriolic lyrics and those jubilant, radio-friendly melodies proved a little too much for some, and the outrage at the heart of ‘Oliver’s Army’ passed many by. Arguably, it’s this which allowed the song to soar all the way to number two in the UK chart. For some, it was a stylish antagonist piece of pop; for others, it was quite clearly a parody. One can’t help but feel the nuance of that original recording was lost on Blur. Still, make sure to check out the group’s rendition of ‘Oliver’s Army’ below.
