“(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” by Elvis Costello & the Attractions

Nick Lowe wrote "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?" back in 1974 for his band Brinsley Schwarz, who cut it for The New Favourites of... Brinsley Schwarz and saw the single go nowhere. Elvis Costello and the Attractions got hold of it, and in their hands the question stops being a musing and turns into a demand shouted from the barricades. Their version first slipped out in 1978 on the flip side of Lowe's own single "American Squirm", and it caught on so well that it was added to the American edition of Costello's 1979 album Armed Forces.

Costello sings it like a man who's genuinely furious that he has to ask, spitting the words over his own guitar while the Attractions go at it full tilt: Steve Nieve piling on organ, piano and synthesizer, Bruce Thomas's bass driving hard and Pete Thomas pounding the drums like he's trying to break through the floor. Roger Bechirian engineered. The sarcasm is scrubbed right off it, the conviction cranked all the way up, and what comes out is an earnest, full-blooded punch-up of a record.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.