ELVIS COSTELLO SLAMS AMERICAN PRESIDENT WHILE ACCEPTING ROYAL HONOR:
“It would be a lie to pretend that I was brought up to have a great sense of loyalty to the Crown, let alone notions of Empire. I used to think a change might come but when one considers the kind of mediocre entrepreneur who might be foisted upon us as a President, it’s enough to make the most hard-hearted ‘Republican’ long for an ermine stole, a sceptre and an orb,” he said in the statement.
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His agreement with his mother’s remark about Theresa May isn’t the first time he’s jumped ugly on a prime minister. Back in 1989, he sang about dancing on the grave of Margaret Thatcher. Somehow I don’t think Elvis Costello would have been any match for the Iron Lady. The song was titled “Tramp the Dirt Down”.
While the Corbynization of the Labour Party is nigh complete, I’m not at all sure why Theresa May nominated Costello for a “gong:” As Avi Shamir of the Times of Israel wrote in 2016, “Roll Over Roger Waters – and Tell Costello the News:”
Back in 2010, Costello caved in to Waters/BDS pressure and cancelled his two Israeli show dates. He may not be a proven anti-Semite like Waters, but he does have one damning racist remark in his portfolio. Way back in 1979, Costello, then an up and coming young rock star, was sitting in a hotel bar in Columbus, Ohio with blues singer extraordinaire Bonnie Bramlett, of Delaney and Bonnie, when he infamously called Ray Charles a “blind ignorant n*gger.” This earned him a smart slap on the face from Bramlett, lots of bad press, a ton of hate mail and racist baggage that he has been trying to discard ever since. My guess, maybe as late as 2010 Costello figured he could somehow cover up his racist image with a handy politically correct cosmetic makeover, i.e. by hopping on the Israeli boycott bandwagon.
It worked well enough to win an OBE, it seems.