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

Everything will eventually go very quiet. There’s hardly a hit song without at least one lyric that will offend someone, or will have been performed by someone whose lifestyle is or was offensive in some way.

So slowly but surely they will all have to pulled and we will all sit in silence.

Nah, he's just pretty annoyed at being labelled as something by people who just see a single word in a song about the 1970s. The expression also includes the word "white" as well and is very much a bygone era comment. Great song and a regular listen for me but quite surprised it hasn't been targeted before now.

Not sure he is to be honest. What he seems to be saying is that they're going to to come and take one word out of the context it was written to make it a problem. Rather than wasting his time trying to explain or ruining the song by beeping it out, he'd just prefer they didn't play it / listen to it.

What was the word in question?

Bit of a random “statement” there, L. The song is about Northern Ireland.

did a bro rogan mention 'woke' yet ? oh yeah its up there , if someone writes a song and wants to revisit it many years later , he has every right to

makes me laugh when people mention ' you can't say anything anymore'

you can never say more

imagine lenny bruce being shown what people think is cancel culture is these days , he had police in the audience waiting to arrest him if he said anything

if louis CK still has a career ....no one is cancelled , a myth invented by the right , colin kapernick & the dixie chicks got cancelled but that doesn't fit the narrative

Well, more about imperialism generally, though it was inspired by being stopped at an army checkpoint in NI, hence the “checkpoint Charlie”. The “offending” phrase is definitely a reference to Catholics in NI. Gerry Adams also got himself into hot water a few years ago as I recall by referring to himself using the same term. As a Costello fan ( though not so much of his recent work) I think he’s just saying that if radio is going to bleep the song, he’d prefer if they just didn’t play it. I don’t think he’s disowning the song, which is a bona fide classic.

Aging rocker finds way to remind radio stations chat he still exists.

Yawn.

He said hes not going to play it live anymore.

His choice and all but people should stand by their art. Who gives a **** what radio stations or some woke clown at a gig thinks. Its an important song.