Robert Wyatt’s plaintive rendition of Elvis Costello’s poignantly political song Shipbuilding gave Rough Trade their first hit single in 1983.
Sometimes there’s a song that has two distinctly different versions that you love – and you just can’t pick one you prefer.
Of course, you’re always tempted to put the original songwriter’s own recording first; in which case it’s Elvis Costello, who wrote the lyrics for Shipbuilding, with music by Clive Langer.
More than 40 years later, it’s the fragility and poignancy of Robert Wyatt’s version that clinches it for me.
Langer originally composed the song, initially called Ten To Nine, only to decide he didn’t like his own lyrics, and then played it to Elvis Costello – at a party thrown by Nick Lowe – in search of a second opinion.
What he got was not just feedback but an entirely new set of lyrics, which Costello himself described as the best he had ever written, transforming the song into a powerful reflection on the then ongoing Falklands War, with an entirely new title.
It’s a deeply poignant and political affair, articulating the irony of warfare’s effect on the economy: reinvigorating the shipyards closed down by Thatcher in order to build replacements, only to send the shipbuilders’ sons off to war, often to die aboard the very same vessels their fathers had built.
Langer’s original plan was to put out the song as an EP featuring four different versions, one of them by Costello, and another by Langer himself with his old bandmate from Deaf School, Steve Allen.
But after Costello had recorded his vocals, Rough Trade boss Geoff Travis sent the demo to Robert Wyatt on a cassette, suggesting he might like to sing it instead.
“So I tried it out and it sounded good,” Wyatt later recalled. “The musical setting was nothing to do with me. Elvis had already recorded a vocal for it – very good vocal – and it was going to come out in the same form with him singing on it.
“I went in and did a vocal in a couple of hours with Mr. Costello producing, and that was it. I had no expectations of it at all. All I thought about was singing it in tune!”
The musicians were Mark Bedford of Madness on that distinctive double bass, Steve Nieve on piano, Clive Langer on organ, Martin Hughes on drums and Costello himself on guitar.
Wyatt’s version was the first to be released, coming out in August 1982 but flopped until it was re-released the following April on the first anniversary of the Falklands War, giving Rough Trade their first ever Top 40 hit single, sneaking into the chart at No.35.
The single was released in five different sleeves, all featuring sections from two of Stanley Spencer’s series of eight panels entitled Shipbuilding on the Clyde which were painted in the 1940s.
Costello then re-recorded his own version for his 1983 album Punch The Clock, backed by The Attractions – including Steve Nieve again – and a stunning trumpet solo by jazz great Chet Baker.
It’s since been recorded by Suede, Tasmin Archer (who had a hit with her 1994 version), Graham Coxon of Blur (on a 2004 Peel session), folk versions by June Tabor and The Unthanks, and a (dreadful) version for a BBC radio documentary about the Titanic by Hue And Cry.