(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Brinsley Schwarz
from the album The New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz |
|||||
| Released | 1974 | ||||
| Recorded | April-May, 1974 | ||||
| Genre | Rock | ||||
| Length | 3:34 | ||||
| Label | United Artists | ||||
| Writer | Nick Lowe | ||||
| Producer | Dave Edmunds | ||||
| The New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz track listing | |||||
|
|||||
"(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" is a 1970s song written by English musician Nick Lowe and recorded in the best-known version by Elvis Costello & The Attractions.
The song was originally released in 1974 on the album The New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz by Lowe's band Brinsley Schwarz; this version was included on Lowe's 2009 compilation Quiet Please... The New Best of Nick Lowe.
The Elvis Costello & The Attractions version was first issued as the B-side of Lowe's "American Squirm" and was credited to Nick Lowe and His Sound. At the time Lowe was Elvis Costello's producer, and he produced this track as well. When the song became a hit, it was quickly appended as the last track to the U.S. edition of Costello's album Armed Forces.
According to Will Birch's seminal book on pub rock No Sleep Till Canvey Island, the royalties from Curtis Stigers's version of the song made Lowe independently wealthy. Stigers's version appeared on the soundtrack album for the film The Bodyguard, which sold 17 million copies in the United States alone.
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Elvis Costello's 1979 version of the song as the 284th best song of all time. In 2008 Costello performed a version on the song on Stephen Colbert's A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! with Colbert, Feist, Toby Keith, John Legend, and Willie Nelson.
Punk rock band, Down by Law, covered the song for the compilation, Before You Were Punk.
Also in 2004, A Perfect Circle included a remake of the song on their album eMOTIVe.
A version was sung PJ Olsson & Salman Ahmad for the theme of the television series Aliens in America.
In the 2003 film Lost in Translation, Bill Murray's character sings a karaoke version of the song.
Kris Roe covers the song acoustically on The Ataris 2004 live album Live At The Metro.
