Smash Hits, May 26, 1983

Bibliography   72 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UK & Ireland weeklies UK & Ireland magazines UK & Ireland newspapers US newspapers US rock magazines US music magazines US magazines US alternative weeklies European magazines European newspapers Canada  •  Mexico  •  Asia Australia  •  New Zealand South America  •  Africa Blogs  •  Fanzines  •  Books Online publications Smash Hits   1978 December 1979 January 1979 February 1979 February 8 1979 February 22 1979 April 5 1979 May 17 1979 November 29 1979 December 27 1980 January 10 1980 January 24 1980 February 7 1980 March 6 1980 March 20 1980 April 17 1980 May 15  1980 June 12   1980 September 4 1980 October 16 1980 December 11 1981 January 8 1981 January 22 1981 March 5 1981 June 11  1981 October 1 1981 October 29 1982 January 21 1982 April 15   1982 June 10 1982 June 24  1982 July 8 1982 August 5 1982 September 16   1982 December 9   1982 December 23 1983 March 17 1983 May 26 1983 June 9 1983 June 23  1983 July 7 1983 July 21 1983 August 4 1983 September 15 1984 January 5 1984 April 26 1984 June 21 1984 July 5 1984 August 16 1984 October 25 1985 April 24   1985 May 8 1986 February 26 1986 August 13 1986 August 27 1986 September 24 1989 February 22 1989 March 8 1989 May 16  1991 May 29 UK & Ireland magazines  Arena Backhill Bang Bass Player Big Issue Brighton Magazine Buzz Magazine City Life City Limits Classic CD Classic FM Classic Pop Classic Rock Country Music International Cut Dark Star Dazed & Confused Emma Encore Eve Fab 208 The Face Flexipop Folk Roots Fresh GQ Get Rhythm Gramophone Guitar Guitar & Bass Guitarist Hi-Fi News & Record Review Hi-Fi World Hot Press In Dublin International Musician Jamming! Lancet The List Loaded Making Music Marxism Today Midweek Mojo Music Music Maker Music Technology Music & Video, May 1980 Music Week New Manchester Review New Statesman No 1 Noise! Opera Now Penthouse Phaze 1 Punter Q magazine Record Business Record Buyer Record Collector Record Hunter Rhythm Rock On RTÉ Guide Saga Select SFX Shindig The Skinny Songlines Sound International Sound On Sound Spectator Star Monthly Sun Zoom Spark Superpop Studio Sound Time Out Top Of The Pops Total Guitar Tracks TV Times Uncut Vive Le Rock Volume Vox Vulture Hound Waitrose Weekend What's Happening The Wire The Word ZigZag 19 magazine — Shipbuilding The writer and the song Ian Birch "The song came about this way. Clive Langer had written the tune specifically for Robert Wyatt and he gave me a tape of the backing track without any vocal other than a very vague melody line. "We were on tour in Australia and this was at the height of the Falklands War. We were getting these very third-hand reports through the Australian press which I think are world famous for being very sensational. You know, British troops were being napalmed and ships were being blown up every day. It really was alarmingly dramatised. "They say when you're away, you can see things in a different light. This 'shipbuilding' idea popped into my head. I wrote the lyric quite quickly. I didn't hone it down that much. Normally when I write, I change a lot but this came almost as a complete thought. "I rang Clive up from Australia and said, I've finished the song but I'm not entirely certain you're going to be pleased with it. I wouldn't read him the lyrics over the phone because I always think if you do that then you'd be a poet and not a songwriter. "The idea came about purely from the notion of these ships going down and life being lost. "It's very easy to fall into the trap of writing a very poignant song about war but that's been done to death over the years. Nobody ever thinks of the consequences of death and destruction on people back at home except in a sentimental way. "So I thought I'd take up the more ironic aspect of it. That shipbuilding in this country is in a terrible state and has caused a tremendous economic decline in the areas where it was really important like Clydeside, Tyneside, Northern Ireland and Merseyside. "I could see a point if the war had carried on where fathers would have been getting their jobs back to build ships to send their sons to die and that's really all the lyric is about. "You get a conflict between those people who are glad to be working again and those people who see the futility of it. It's just a tragedy. "The last line was quite important. I didn't want the song just to stay totally within the bounds of realities and commodities. The first part of the song talks about commodities and the second about realities. I thought that there would also be some sort of aspiration to something a bit better. The idea of the line is that there must be something better to do than ending up in the water for some other purpose than drowning. That's what I currently think. I don't know what crossed Robert's mind when he sang it. Tags: Shipbuilding  •  Clive Langer  •  Robert Wyatt  •  Merseyside  •  Northern Ireland << >> Smash Hits, May 26 - June 8, 1983 Ian Birch talks to Elvis Costello about "Shipbuilding." Images Page scan. Photo by David Bailey. Cover and contents page.

External links

• Wikipedia: Smash Hits
• Flickr: Brian McCloskey 
• Flickr: Michael Kane 
• worldradiohistory.com
• archive.org