SUBBING IT OUT

Elvis Costello Says He’ll Retire ‘Oliver’s Army’ Over N-Word

Costello said he would rather drop the song entirely than further censor it.

Elvis Costello is retiring one of his most controversial songs. The legendary crooner said he will no longer play his 1979 song “Oliver’s Army,” his biggest British hit, after years of self-censoring the song over its use of the n-word when describing British soldiers. “If I wrote that song today, maybe I’d think twice about it,” he told the Telegraph. “That’s what my grandfather was called in the British army—it’s historically a fact—but people hear that word go off like a bell and accuse me of something that I didn’t intend.” Costello spent his last few tours performing an alternative verse on censorship in place of the lyric, but he said he felt annoyed by radio stations continuing to play the song with the word bleeped out. “They’re making it worse by bleeping it for sure,” he said. “Because they’re highlighting it then. Just don’t play the record!”