“Generals and Majors” by XTC

"Generals and Majors" was Colin Moulding's dispatch from the front line of Black Sea, XTC's 1980 album, and the first single pulled from it. Moulding wrote and sang it as a sardonic poke at military glory, a satire spun from the old saying about what a lovely war it all is, and he sets it to a jaunty new wave march that sounds like a parade with its tongue firmly in its cheek. Steve Lillywhite produced it, with Hugh Padgham engineering.

It was the first XTC single to make the American charts, and it did business in Canada, Australia and New Zealand too. The first copies came as a limited double 7-inch in a gatefold sleeve, the bonus disc carrying Moulding's "Smokeless Zone" and Partridge's "The Somnambulist".

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