soap opera

[Birchy]

What prompted Elvis Costello to write "Pills and Soap", and why did he call himself The Imposter for this one?

[andy hughes]

First the title - it refers to the lines "Children and animals two by two, Give me the needle, give me the rope, We're going to melt them down for pills and soap." Costello is a passionate socialist, with a vehement hatred of the Tory Party under Margaret Thatcher. His vitriolic lines refer to his imagined scenario of the callousness with which they would destroy the defenceless and 're-cycle' them in a virtual modern Final Solution. As for his temporary name change - The Imposter - Costello's label F-Beat was underoing distribution problems, and with the General Election looming, Costello planned to release a limited edition of the single and delete it on the eve of the Election. To speed up the process, he formed his own label - Demon, and signed himself to it as The Imposter to avoid contractual problems with F-Beat, and to get the single out in time to sell before the Election date. As it turned out, the single was not deleted, and became a Top Twenty hit.