Green Shirt

About Green Shirt

"Green Shirt" is a song written by new wave musician Elvis Costello and recorded by Costello with his backing band the Attractions. The song appeared on Costello's 1979 third album, Armed Forces. Lyrically inspired by the influence of the National Front and the Quisling Clinic in Wisconsin, "Green Shirt" features a vocal recorded by Costello after a "night of carousing". "Green Shirt" was not released as a single at the time of its 1979 release, but in 1985 it saw single release to promote The Man: The Best Of Elvis Costello. The single reached number 68 in Britain. Since its release, the song has been lauded by critics as one of Costello's best album tracks and has made several appearances in Costello's live setlist. more »

Year:

1979

2:42

47 Views

Playlists:

#1

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There's a smart young woman on a light blue screen
Who comes into my house every night
And she takes all the red, yellow, orange and green
And she turns them into black and white

But you tease, and you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself but somebody's gonna get it

Better cut off all identifying labels
Before they put you on the torture table

'Cause somewhere in the "Quisling Clinic"
There's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes
She's listening in to the Venus line
She's picking out names
I hope none of them are mine

But you tease, and you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself but somebody's gonna get it

Never said I was a stool pigeon
I never said I was a diplomat
Everybody is under suspicion
But you don't want to hear about that

'Cause you tease, and you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself but somebody's gonna get it

Better send a begging letter to the big investigation
Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?

You tease, and you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself but somebody's gonna get it

You can please yourself but somebody's gonna get it
You can please yourself but somebody's gonna get it

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Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello (born Declan Patrick MacManus, 25 August 1954) is an English singer-songwriter. He began his career as part of London's pub rock scene in the early 1970s and later became associated with the first wave of the British punk/New Wave movement of the mid-to-late 1970s. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader than that of most popular songs. His music has drawn on many diverse genres; one critic described him as a "pop encyclopaedia", able to "reinvent the past in his own image". more »

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