AUDIO: Elvis Costello Releases New Protest Song ‘No Flag’
Stern Show veteran says he recorded the tune earlier this year in Helsinki
June 5, 2020
Legendary songsmith and Fred Norris-favorite Elvis Costello takes aim at religion, government, and consumerism in his blistering new protest song “No Flag.”
Released Thursday with an animated lyric video, the tune arrives just a week before Costello is scheduled to join fellow Stern Show veterans Brandi Carlile and Gary Clark Jr. for “Perfect: Songs of Protest and Memory,” the latest installment of a concert series put on by Rosanne Cash and Carnegie Hall.
Costello recorded “No Flag” in February while in Finland. “I wanted to go somewhere nobody knew me. So, this is ‘The Helsinki Sound,’” he explained in a statement accompanying the new video.
Elvis and his band the Imposters dropped their most recent album, “Look Now,” in 2018. In 2015, meanwhile, the rock legend joined the Stern Show to discuss his memoir “Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink.” During that interview, he also opened up to Howard about everything from songwriting with Sir Paul McCartney to a surprise performance of his classic tune “Radio, Radio” on “Saturday Night Live.”
