35. The Imposter (aka Elvis Costello) - Pills And Soap (Imp)

Three weeks at number from w/e 18th June 1983

Not really much of an “imposter”, more an interloper to the indie charts. While “Pills and Soap” was presented in some quarters as a pseudonymous “mystery single”, in reality Elvis Costello did virtually nothing to dupe the public with this, not even bothering to disguise his extremely distinctive voice. By the time it emerged in the UK National Top 40, he even appeared on Top of the Pops, where John Peel and “Kid” Jenkins both sarcastically pretended not to know his true identity (Peel: “It’s not Shakey, is it?”)




There were some very dull reasons underlying this quarter-hearted deception. In 1983, Elvis Costello’s record label F-Beat were undergoing a change in their worldwide distribution arrangements, moving from Warner Brothers to RCA. The protracted legal discussions had delayed the release of his next album “Punch The Clock”, and rather than also delay the release of the first single “Pills and Soap” longer than necessary, Costello opted to release it under a pseudonym on F-Beat’s “indie” subsidiary Imp Records.

There are two possible reasons why he took this path – firstly, there’s a strong chance that he may have been impatient while bureaucratic issues were being discussed in the background, feeing that if he didn’t get something fresh out soon, momentum may be lost. There was also the small matter of the imminent General Election in the UK, which caused the subjects touched upon during this single to potentially feel more relevant, pressing and explosive.

“Pills and Soap” could, to a half-listening person, be referring to animal cruelty with the references to Noah’s ark and melting animals “down for pills and soap”. This was the explanation Costello gave to the BBC when they nervously asked him what the song was about. Closer inspection reveals this to be nonsense, though. Firstly, the chorus refers to “children and animals, two by two”, then points its finger towards the aristocracy and perhaps even the royal family: “The king is in the counting house, some folk have all the luck/ And all we get is pictures of Lord and Lady Muck/ They come from lovely people with a hardline in hypocrisy/ There are ashtrays of emotion for the fag ends of the aristocracy”. There are other sharp, bitter tasting lines on offer besides, such as “You think your country needs you but you know it never will”, which totally give the game away.

If “Shipbuilding” was a sympathetic gaze at a community (and country) in crisis, “Pills and Soap” is unfocused invective – an unfixed list of the malaise that Costello feels the UK fell under in the early eighties; decadence, distraction, blind patriotism, the establishment worshipping view of the tabloid press. The animals and children being melted down are the expendable lower classes; though of course, the fact Costello is a vegetarian isn’t a complete coincidence here.

Musically speaking, it’s absurdly simple, with a drum machine generating simple, clicking beatnik Daddio rhythms which combine with Steve Naive’s thundering, Hammer Horror piano lines. It’s an extraordinarily daring first single to lift from an album, offering the polar opposite of so much eighties pop – while that was often elaborate and multi-faceted, “Pills And Soap” is threadbare and puts the emphasis and weight of the record’s worth on its lyrics.

How you feel about it really depends upon how receptive you are to such earnest singer-songwriter minimalism, and also crucially when you first heard this. In 1983, there’s little doubt that Costello’s observations were controversial and insightful. Britain was under the early spell of Thatcherism and the behaviour of the press and the Government in power was quite radical – earlier Conservative governments obviously held aspirations to defeat Trade Unions, but few had swung the axe with as much enthusiasm and as little regard for communities as Auntie Maggie.

26. Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding (Rough Trade)

Four weeks at number one from 16th October 1982

There’s a moment in Sue Townsend’s bestselling novel “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole” where, upon learning that the Falklands War has broken out, Adrian’s father has a meltdown and tumbles out of bed, believing Britain to potentially be under attack. When the Moles are reassured that nothing of the sort is about to happen, and realise the Falklands are located off the coast of Argentina (hidden beneath a cake crumb in their atlas) normal family order resumes.

In the current age, where war seems to be a continual rumble in the background, it’s almost difficult to relate to this fictional overreaction. In 1982 though, the Falklands conflict was a shock. While the decades following World War II hadn’t been entirely peaceful, another country hadn’t actually invaded British territory in that time. As an innocent nine year old, I too sought reassurance from my parents that Argentinian soldiers weren’t likely to be parading down our street anytime soon. I had never heard of the Falklands and assumed they were either in the Channel Islands or off the coast of Scotland; this smelt to me like big trouble.

Once the national shock subsided, political blame began to be apportioned and sides began to be taken. Doubts were raised that the military or the British government had been taking the Argentinian threat seriously, leading to them being surprised by an attack which they had been repeatedly warned was imminent (this later led to conspiracy theories that Margaret Thatcher had actually allowed the war to occur for her own electoral benefit; I’m no fan of hers, but this seems unlikely). There were questions about whether an insignificant, sparsely populated island in South America was really worth risking human life over, and the inevitable counter-argument that the vast majority of Falklanders did not want to live under the rule of Argentina’s military dictatorship, and Britain had a duty to them.

It would be naive to assume there were clear left/right wing lines on these complex issues, though the general assumption was that left-wingers were supposed to be against the conflict while those on the right felt Britain had to protect its own citizens. To this day, I haven’t formed a clear opinion of my own on the situation, though by the time I was an adult and in a learned enough position to do so, the war seemed like a distant memory, so the pressure to have a proper opinion was off.

Meanwhile, out there in insignificant, gun-free indieland, it felt as if every group had a view. The anarcho-punks were against the war, obviously. Mark E Smith felt that the war had to happen, the first   contrary political position he had taken which apparently alienated him from some of his peers (it wouldn’t be for the last time). Some of the Oi groups were less subtle than that. And Elvis Costello and Clive Langer wrote this song.

Costello was vocally anti-Thatcher, and not necessarily subtly so. “Tramp The Dirt Down”, from his 1989 album “Spike”, is a fantasy about dancing on her grave when she finally passes away. While that song was visceral, “Shipbuilding” is subtle and unique among protest songs for not giving the listener an easy steer. Instead of laying down the law or satirically mocking the government, it takes the rare step of putting the singer in the shoes of an ordinary unemployed shipbuilder in a neglected industrial town – notably, the very towns Thatcher had virtually abandoned as non-Conservative voting lost causes in the eighties.

Robert Wyatt, who recorded the vocal in a couple of hours, is an inspired choice for the message. His voice has the correct levels of earthiness and vulnerability to carry the song, and he knows exactly where the difficulties and contradictions lie. “Shipbuilding” presents the war as an opportunity and a threat; a chance for a deprived town to be given serious work for awhile by helping to build the ships which may send their sons home, alive or dead. “Is it worth it?” Wyatt asks. “A new winter coat and shoes for the wife/ and a bicycle on the boy’s birthday”. The song opens with the mundane, the everyday, despite the enormity of the problem the record is addressing.

In common with the rest of the country, disagreements in the town spill over: “Somebody said that someone got filled in/ for saying that people get killed in/ the result of the shipbuilding” Wyatt sings breathlessly. This is probably the clumsiest lyric in the whole song, but his tight, rushed delivery ensures that it’s made to work; the one direct mention of the event every parent is dreading, skirted over quickly, almost in denial.

At various moments, you sense Wyatt protesting himself, justifying allowing himself to feel upbeat, the line “It’s all we’re skilled in!” saying everything in five short words. What else do we expect or want them to do? Sit out the chance to take their families out of poverty, albeit briefly?

Unlike most political records, “Shipbuilding” understands the micro-events that underpin society. As individuals living in capitalist societies, we are all to some degree complicit in wars, slavery, and cruelty we would not otherwise condone. We may have opinions, but our jobs and lives, and our ability to put food on tables, are inextricably bound up in situations we may only be dimly aware of. Even the melody understands this, the piano line following “It’s all we’re skilled in” allowing itself to sound almost triumphant, before falling back into a minor chord again.

18. Blitz - Never Surrender (No Future)

One week at number one on 20th March 1982

Thanks to this blog, Gary Bushell has been on my mind a lot lately. While attempting the daily chores such as emptying the dishwasher, hanging out the laundry or walking the dog, my thoughts have often wandered and allowed his bearded visage to emerge in mind’s eye, stoical and almost impossible to read.

It’s not the first time in my life I’ve been bothered in this way. Back when I was in journalism college, my head tutor persuaded me to buy a different newspaper every day of the week – “it’s the only way you’ll learn to adapt your tone for different audiences”. So began the only period of my life where I bought The Sun and faithfully noted its contents, all in the hope that it would get me better grades (I appreciate that some readers may note the obvious irony here, or may share my Dad's concerns about failing to boycott the paper).

Bushell struck me as a strange figure even then, at the very height of his fame; a comedy and light entertainment nerd trapped in the body of a police constable, always one wink and guarded friendly gesture away from an outraged warning bark. Besides rants about immigration, leftie morons and “pillocks” at Channel 4 and the Beeb, he also held very specific and haunting obsessions on unlikely subjects such as the lack of variety shows on television and ageism in the entertainment industry. As I pored over his thoughts on the latter two matters, I realised how out of place they seemed. Most Sun readers probably couldn’t have given two figs about them – they were Bushell’s personal bugbears being given the maximum audience possible at the peak of his career. Whether I agreed with him or not, I had to conclude that he cared, which is more than can be said for many columnists who tend to seek out the most contentious viewpoints to generate "engagement".

Back in 1982 while he worked at Sounds magazine, “Oi!” was another uniquely Bushell-shaped obsession, seemingly born of a desire to make things happen rather than advance his career. While many music journalists have tried to build a name of themselves by creating distinct music scenes, Bushell’s pushing of the “Oi!” banner felt narrower than most. The central idea seemed to be to bring punk rock into the ownership of disaffected working class youth in unfashionable parts of Britain, putting it in direct opposition with most music journalists at that time, who seemed to want to further the aims of post-punk and art-punk bands.

You could argue that “Oi!” played out Bushell’s alternate reality fantasy, the answer to the question “What would have happened if Sham 69 had been the ultimate victors of the punk movement?” while the rest of the writers at IPC Towers were asking the same deluded question about The Fall, Wire or The Slits. Bushell’s argument does have fairness and legitimacy behind it, however; if punk was supposed to have been a tolerant home for all the outsiders, why were the struggling, unemployed youth in dull  towns and cities like Derby, Redcar, Redditch* and Margate often being left out of the media story? 

In answer to this question, the “Oi!” compilation series was born, which took the chemical ingredients of punk, exposed them to a bunsen burner, and boiled them down to their key essence, their remaining powder – anger and amateur three chord rock and roll. Somewhere along the way, the movement also attracted a fascistic element which many of the groups didn’t quite work hard enough to shake off, meaning that as soon as the subgenre is mentioned nowadays, one of the first things journalists feel inclined to do is address the issues it attracted. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this has left enough of a bad taste for the genre to be ignored by almost all the articles or documentaries covering punk rock since.

Suspicions about “Oi!” were big enough by 1982 that the playwright Trevor Griffiths staged (and televised) the production “Oi For England”. The plot revolved around an initially shadowy figure known as The Man offering promising punk bands who fit his own (fascistic) political ideas career-changing slots at a festival. It’s important to note that The Man was obviously supposed to be a representation of the powers-that-be, desperate to cause unemployed and directionless post-industrial youth to fight minorities rather than the system. Bushell’s later career as a well-paid right-wing tabloid hack did make the play seem astonishingly prophetic, though, meaning that when I finally got hold of a printed copy of the script in the early nineties, I assumed it was actually directly about him.

I could be forgiven for this presumption given what a go-to figure he was during the early eighties. Blitz were from New Mills (close to Derby) and initially saw what they thought was an ally in Bushell, sending him demo tapes in 1981 in the hope of getting exposure. Bushell, an avowed socialist at this point, was deeply impressed with their work and offered them a chance to sleep in his family home on a London council estate while attempting to establish their career, also giving them slots on his “Oi!” compilation series.