We Are Going to Melt Them Down For Pills and Soap

Elvis Costello’s Pills and Soap is a brilliant song. It’s probably the greatest Costello tune about what he most feared as an artist: subtle annihilating oppression. Costello was always singing about that concept, especially on his album Armed Forces. A listener could always hear that terror in the back of his voice; almost as if someone were pointing a gun at the back of his head. Costello’s voice is one of trepidation against how his homeland of England is being run and managed. The reason I like his vocal voice more than say the English punk rebels of the 70’s is that it has more weight to it—there’s more of a vocal range there, which means emotions like fear and anger (especially of the political variety) are made more acute and real. This artist is not faking his emotions. The strange thing about Pills and Soap is that the song is incredibly calm and soothing to listen to; almost like a great Jazz record. It’s only after the audience realizes what Costello is singing about that the tune becomes truly terrifying. What he is singing about is manipulation of the highest order; manipulation with a smiling face.

Many great musical artists of the time (at least the ones that showed they cared an inch about politics) were afraid of the implications of Reagan’s politics, and how many were buying his message. The English equivalent was fear against Margaret Thatcher. Artists like Costello feared that this woman was ushering in an age of subtle fascism; the kind that supposedly accommodates everyone, when in reality it turns those noble spenders and consumers and hard workers into products. The co modification of flesh is what Costello sung about in his early songs. However, it’s ironic that in Pills and Soap Costello sings the tune as if he were responding to this whole procedure in a soothing way. That’s what the song’s about; the comfort that this form of propaganda gives to the working class individual, and how this sort of phenomenon is unexplainable. Costello’s anger is startling because it is so calm.

The song is incredibly catchy; almost as if it were a child’s ditty. That’s where the song gets its terrifying nature from. Costello’s propagandistic statement is that Fascism can be so endearing, so comforting a statement. This is a much more complex song that punk songs of protest of previous years, ant that may be because it doesn’t sound like a form of protest. It sounds like a song of transfixation; almost as if you are under Thatcher’s spell. The singer sings as if he is under that spell, in order to alert others to wake up. Costello’s form of propaganda is a subtle one, in much the same way that Thatcher’s form of propaganda was subtle. That’s what truly makes this song terrifying. This is now the only way to fight the beast, is what Costello is basically telling his listener.

“They talked to the sister, the father and the mother
With a microphone in one hand and a chequebook in the other
AND THE CAMERA NOSES IN TO THE TEARS ON HER FACE
The tears on her face
The tears on her face”

Right away, the singer is telling the listener what the situation is. There is no situation; it’s just business as usual, and that’s what’s so terrifying about updated fascism. Our notions of reality are becoming simply commonplace forms of usury. Costello is singing about how he can’t really do anything about the situation. The only thing he can do is lament about it; this song is Costello’s last ditch effort before he gets sucked in to this mess. (That’s not really what actually happened to the singer; he still remained very political, but that is how the song’s tone feels). He’s not singing songs of protest anymore; he’s simply watching this scene on television like everyone else, and trying his best in his zombified state to sing about the injustice of the situation. This song is the subtlest form of propaganda—the subtlest form of anger—that I have ever heard. The singer loses himself in the role of the working class stiff being used, in order to fully embody that stiff’s feelings. The song is propagandistic and yet its not, because the singer loses himself in the process. That’s really the ultimate statement of propaganda, in my opinion. “You can put them back together with your paper and paste, but you can’t put them back together You can’t put them back together.” The song is a modernist statement on its subject matter; it shows that even the singer can lose out to the concept that he is against.

Here’s an interesting fact to learn: the song was released in England in 1983 around the time that Thatcher was reelected as Prime Minister. The song was withdrawn from circulation on election day. However, what really interests me is that this song also came out around the same time that Prince Charles and Diana married. There’s our “lord and lady muck.” Who’s our lord and lady muck now? A popstar/neurotic by the name of Britney Spears. It seems that as this song becomes older, the meanings behind it become more true because our culture becomes more debased; there are greater and greater instances of distraction to keep us from looking at the truth. Our forms of royalty have boiled down to an even worse commodity product. How does this affect our self esteem as a culture? It doesn’t, and that’s the whole point of Costello’s song.