The most poignant protest song from the 1980s was written by Elvis Costello – about the Falklands War – or the War of Thatcher’s Face as I like to call it.

Shipbuilding was a minor hit for former Soft Machine member Robert Wyatt – wheelchair and all. Wyatt had been paralysed after a fall from a window. When he had a 1970s hit with I’m A Believer (more famously a hit for The Monkees) the producer of Top of the Pops is supposed to have said the wheelchair was, “not suitable for family viewing.” Wyatt “lost his rag but not the wheelchair.”

Like Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart’s Last Train to Clarksville – also recorded by The Monkees – the lyric of Shipbuilding is subtle, not overtly stating its theme.

Robert Wyatt: Shipbuilding

I was watching “Prog at the BBC” last week. It featured the usual suspects – except for me Soft Machine always tipped too far over into seemingly improvised tootling to be prog.

But they also showed Atomic Rooster.

Atomic Rooster?

Fair enough their drummer Carl Palmer went on to become a member of those highpriests of the overblown, ELP, but Atomic Rooster themselves were more or less straightforward rock (even if the Wiki link above does say they were a “progressive” rock band.)

As witness Tomorrow Night, the track played on the programme (by which time Palmer had already left):-

Atomic Rooster:€“ Tomorrow Night </center.