'a newspaper picture..A woman was kissing a child'

[johnfoyle]

I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign

A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain

She spills with compassion, as that young child's face in her hands she grips

Can you imagine all that greed and avarice coming down on that child's lips?

So goes the first verse of Tramp The Dirt Down , Elvis' commentary on Margaret Thatcher.
At the time, 1989, I had a rough memory of the picture , thinking of it being the typical political opportunist tactic etc.

Out of pure curiosity I'd like to see that image again. However , no matter how many image searches I make I just can't find it. Maybe someone here has access to print sources covering Mrs Thatcher and could share it with us.

A long shot..........but you've surprised me before!

It's not this -


Devoted mother and politician: Margaret Thatcher with her children Carol and Mark in 1959

[Otis Westinghouse]

No googlejoy for me either. You'd have thought it was findable if it was, indeed, a particular pic. Maybe he imagined it for the purpose of the song. I couldn't find Thatcher kissing anyone!

[johnfoyle]

Still no joy in finding this. Since Elvis first sang this song on a Irish radio show in June 1987 the image almost certainly comes from the British General Election campaign of May'87. The photographer Tom Stoddart has a number of Thatcher photos from that time in the Getty archive. I e-mailed his site asking if he had taken such a photograph but he replied that he hadn't. I've sent general queries to the photo. depts. of a few newspapers. The Times replied that they don't supply images to the general public ; the others - The Guardian and The Telegraph - didn't reply.

Hopefully someone here may have better luck ; I'll make other inquiries as time allows.

For the moment this image may amuse-


'Margaret Thatcher leads a sing-song in the Bull Inn, Dartford' c. 1950's.

[Lester Burnham]

What lovely sideburns she has...!

[And No Coffee Table]

Still no joy in finding this. Since Elvis first sang this song on a Irish radio show in June 1987 the image almost certainly comes from the British General Election campaign of May'87.

Elvis first sang "Tramp the Dirt Down" in 1987, but he first sang "Betrayal" in 1985. Granted, "Betrayal" doesn't include the reference to "kissing a child," but it does have the line "when you held the lovely face in your hand," which roughly matches "that young child's face in her hands she grips" in "Tramp the Dirt Down" — and seems to be describing the same photo.

[pophead2k]

Are we sure there even was a photograph? Perhaps Elvis was just using poetic license and also using the typical imagery one associates with the campaigning politician.

[wardo68]

Are we sure there even was a photograph? Perhaps Elvis was just using poetic license and also using the typical imagery one associates with the campaigning politician.

I'm inclined to agree with that. EC has never let the truth get in the way of a good story (my favorite being how in '82 he described the house where he wrote "Man Out Of Time" as reminding him of the Profumo scandal, and 20 years later insisting that the scandal had indeed taken place at the house).

Still the image in "Tramp The Dirt Down" is a believable one. Maybe he saw it on the telly.

[johnfoyle]

I still think there was a particular Thatcher/child photo ; I have the haziest of memories of seeing it. Thanks , 'table, for that reminder of 'Betrayal'; I'm inclined to agree with you so that brings the area of search to 1984/85.

A quick , late night look brings up this Jan.'85 image , which isn't what I'm looking for but will do for the moment!

[Otis Westinghouse]

Maybe that's the closest we'll get! Not sure the lyrics would have been quite as effective, though, perhaps more on the them of heartless laboratory testing. I too think there must be a real image that sparked the song.

[johnfoyle]

A Spanish Facebook page in tribute to Thatcher (beyond bizarre - it might be a parody) has this. Elvis has said no one image inspired the 'child' lines in Tramp The Dirt Down. Something like this would surely have been food for thought.




Doing a Google Image search, these are new since the last time I checked this out in 2008 -



Margaret Thatcher, then Education Secretary, meets children modelling clay at Gospel Oak primary school in 1970 Photo: Bob Hope.




Margaret Thatcher gets a kiss at the Nation's Bravest Children's Awards, 18th December 1980.



Baroness Thatcher meets Jonathan Weaver, a pupil at Whitefield School

[History History]

I still think there was a particular Thatcher/child photo ; I have the haziest of memories of seeing it. Thanks , 'table, for that reminder of 'Betrayal'; I'm inclined to agree with you so that brings the area of search to 1984/85.

A quick , late night look brings up this Jan.'85 image , which isn't what I'm looking for but will do for the moment!

Surely, this inspired Monkey To Man

[Top balcony]

Never mind the monkey...

looking at the humans left and right it's certainly "Two Little Hitlers"

Colin Top Balcony

[johnfoyle]

She's dead

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 64521.html

[Jeremy Dylan]

Should we be starting a campaign to get the song to number one?

[the_roofdog]

I think Elvis owes us a drink about now.

[Judge Holden]

And now she's dead. Would not be surprised if Elvis gets some attention over the next few days.

[Mikeh]

In the words of another Elvis/Ross Macmanus-related song - AT LAST

[Man out of Time]

Would not be surprised if Elvis gets some attention over the next few days.

There's a good chance. The phrase "Tramp the Dirt Down" seems to have some currency:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics ... 64876.html

MOOT

[the_roofdog]

And the Daily Mail's deputy political editor, Tim Shipman, replied: "What a stunningly unpleasant tweet."

I assume he hasn't seen any of the rest of Twitter today then...

[John]

They say that Maggie will have a funeral similar to Diana's. Well, Elton sang that song at Diana's so maybe Elvis could sing his little ditty at Maggie's?

[Jack of All Parades]

He is getting pride of place within this MSN article:

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=800936

[Ulster Boy]

In the words of another Elvis/Ross Macmanus-related song - AT LAST

Why - did you think she was immortal? As I posted on the other thread, Costello has on occasion been distinctly uncomfortable about this song. Its of its time. Let it stay there.

[redlandmark]

In the words of another Elvis/Ross Macmanus-related song - AT LAST

Why - did you think she was immortal? As I posted on the other thread, Costello has on occasion been distinctly uncomfortable about this song. Its of its time. Let it stay there.

Hmmm, Costello didn't sound very uncomfortable singing it when I saw it performed in Birmingham, May last year.
Events of today aside, I'd say this song's time could have come again.

[Poor Deportee]

I'm seeing a flurry of references to this song on Facebook and (I gather) Twitter. Dan Savage himself tweeted it. Nice little groundswell of recognition for our lad - a perverse side-effect of Thatcher's demise.

Listening to the song a while ago, I was struck by how it's simultaneously 'of its time' in the sense of being a spasm of protest to current events, but also in a way the eulogy for an entire era. Listened to at 25 years' remove, what the song really amounts to is a heartbreaking lament for the loss of a certain approach to society and politics - the unrecoverable destruction of the 'postwar consensus' around redistribution, full employment, and a general if imperfect commitment to mutual solidarity, to be replaced by the far cruder ethos of greed and crass self-interest that has yielded skyrocketing inequality and the evaporating middle class. It's easy to read the song as a personal attack on Thatcher, but once you see that the song is really using her as the symbol of something much more profound, it acquires a more enduring power - in a way, one of his most effective moments.

[Ulster Boy]

In the words of another Elvis/Ross Macmanus-related song - AT LAST

Why - did you think she was immortal? As I posted on the other thread, Costello has on occasion been distinctly uncomfortable about this song. Its of its time. Let it stay there.

Hmmm, Costello didn't sound very uncomfortable singing it when I saw it performed in Birmingham, May last year.
Events of today aside, I'd say this song's time could have come again.

What I posted on the other thread is worth repeating: I was at the Royal Albert Hall gig in April 1999 when he got a lengthy heckle for NOT doing it; and I recall an interview around that time with Johnny Vaughan (who despite being a self-professed "fan" re-titled it "Tramp down the dirt") in which EC was distinctly uncormfortable about it.

If I can be bothered, I'll dig out the Vaughan interview and post it on Youtube.