Elvis Costello - "Peace In Our Time", part One (live 1984)

Here is Costello's 1983 song that takes the frame of Neville Chamberlain's short-lived 1938 Munich rapprochement with Herr Hitler and turns it nicely into a modern protest song about the omnipresent national security state that was growing up in Margaret Thatcher's Britain and Ronald Reagan's America---in the latter case Reagan's refusing to sit down with anyone from the Kremlim's "Evil Empire", the Gipper's anti-Nuclear Freeze policies, and his FBI's domestic surveilance of peace groups.

In the battle between freedom versus security, I believe the folks who govern us will choose the latter nearly every time if they can get away with it.
Looking back over two-plus decades to an era of security cameras all over big city streets like London and the endless paranoia some in America have over protesting some of the knottier parts of the Patriot Act, this song seems more relevant than ever.


"Peace In Our Time"
Out of the aeroplane stepped Chamberlain with a condemned man's stare
But we all cheered wildly, a photograph was taken,
as he waved a piece of paper in the air
Now the Disco Machine lives in Munich and we are all friends
And I slip on my Italian dancing shoes as the evening descends

And the bells take their toll once again in victory chime
And we can thank God that we've finally got
peace in our time

There's a man going round taking names no
matter who you claim to be
As innocent as babies, a mad dog with rabies,
you're still a part of some conspiracy
Meanwhile there's a light over the ocean
burning brighter than the sun
And a man sits alone in a bar and says "Oh God,
what have we done?"

Chorus

They're lighting a bonfire upon every hilltop in the land
Just another tiny island invaded when he's got
the whole world in his hands
And the Heavyweight Champion fights in the
International Propaganda Star Wars
There's already one spaceman in the White
House what do you want another one for?

Chorus