Elvis Costello - Shipbuilding Live

This version is just almost perfect. I like the way Elvis changes just a few things with the melody in every live performance.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Elvis
• Costello
• Shipbuilding
• Live

[2ruedas2]

i went to see my dying father in Birkenhead, there was a destroyer in Camell Laird's shipyard for the first time in 15 years, the Falklands disgrace was in full swing, my dad died, many men died. Thatcher won her grubby little war, at a very high cost in human life, she got reelected and proceeded to divide British society more deeply than any other leader before or since (at least since Charles 1) And that is what this song is about, Elvis' family is from Birkenhead.

[psiclick]

a thing of beauty is a joy forever

[2ruedas2]

Amazing performance, but the song has nothing to do with Health and Safety! It is about the Falklands Conflict. Another perspective Robert Wyatt's version, if you have any doubts the song is anti thatcher and political, well if it wasn't Robert Wyatt would not have recorded it!

[timridley1]

@2ruedas2 A song that means something and is so so beautiful.

[junysaerus]

i love elvis costello this is awesome he went to the same secondrey school as me i stood behind him in a record shop and wanted to tell him how brilliant he was but i felt abit embarrased and did not want to invade his privacy!great voice brilliant junysaerus

[JuleszzC]

Brillant - my family comes from Gloucester MA, Before my time my family depended on the fisihing industry - so many still do depend on it. Loved Elvis Costello before this song but this song feels personal and is so poetic that it's a personal favorite My friends and I drove many miles in the 80s to see Costello play live. Moved South since then but would travel to n recapture that adventure. Again, brillant!!

[Emmett006]

I love the bass on this live version. So much so that the single version sounds a bit sterile without it. But then this live version just cries out for that trumpet solo.

I think this song is really about 'Heath and safety'. It's about how many men die unnecesarily leaving their wives and children to fend for themselves. Shipbuilding, mining and building are dangerous jobs.

I really enjoy risk taking, For me it's one of the last things we have to difine us as men, but life moves on...

[pedro19611969]

2011 and we still "shipbuilding" in Afghanistan

[compass61]

I don't dislike this take but I much prefer the album version with the late Chet Baker playing trumpet.

[burleq]

The great musical genius of my generation. Makes me prouder than punch! The clock-

[theamazingivysmith]

The bass in this song. <3