13 October 1984
‘The War Song’ because its makers felt that, of all songs about war, this was the definite article? Or ‘The War Song’ because even its makers felt too self-conscious and embarrassed by it to give it a proper title? Oh, definitely the latter.
Even by the standards of trite ’80s issue songs—that is, by the standards of ’80s Paul McCartney singles—’The War Song’ is stunningly fatuous. “War, war is stupid! / And people are stupid!” was a big hit in our school playground, where we replaced the word ‘people’ with the classmate name of choice. How actual grown-ups wrote, made and green-lighted this, then also made the video (below) featuring catwalk models, stage-school children and Culture Club sitting on a tank, all to the ‘calypso’ setting on a rinky-dink keyboard, without anyone thinking they themselves may come out of it looking stupid—well, it beggars belief. But isn’t that just like war: no one shouted stop.
