In The Army Now

I actually think this song is one of the few good Status Quo songs, didn't realise it wasn't actually wrote by them though.

At times you get a feeling that in place it's trying to copy bits of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall with the line

'Sergeant calls: "Stand up and fight"'

being very similar to Pink Floyd's line where the teachers screaming at the kids "Wrong do it again!".

Only thing I don't understand in this song is the lines

"Now you remember what the draft man said, nothing to do all day but stay in bed".

Obviously the soldier they're on about in this song is really gullible as I can believe that these army recruitment guys (the drafts men) do mislead to get recruits, but surely this soldier should have realised that whilst fighting a war he's not going to be spending all day in bed?

As for people discussing which war it's on about - it is about the Vietnam war, the answer is actually in the words - fourth verse - "Smiling faces on the way to 'Nam, but when you get there no one gives a damn". So clearly the soldier was on his way to 'Nam (short for VietNAM).

I think though it may have been released a number of years after 'Nam though because it took a few years for the truth to come out about the Vietnam war, songs like Paul Hardcastle's 19 were also about Vietnam but were released a few years later. This could also be the reason for the line about the drafts man lying to him, as many in 'Nam were very young and gullible, but quite hard to believe that anyone going in the army could be so absolutely gullible that they believe they could stay in bed all day in a war.

This song is an Anti-War song.

We can see this by reading the lines "your finger's on the trigger but it don't seem right". This shows that in the army you are to kill people, but it doens't seem right, because an average person doens't just kill a man so simply. This is about the U.S. Army trying to get you to join the army to be the "Hero", making you feel special, but once you get there, "no one gives a damn", meaning that you are just a piece in a death machine, easliy broken and replacable.

This song means alot to me because I'm a soldier in the army now... In my country the boys must serve 3 years in the army and the girls 2 years. Something in this song doesn't make sense, Status Quo is a British band, why do they actually sing about the U.s army?

Its a cover of "You're In The Army Now" originally recorded by the Bolland brothers from Holland.

shut the fuck up

At first it was 1 of the worst status quo tracks ive listened too nut it actually has alot more meaning then mosta the other songs its got a pretty easy meanin really. i dunno wot war i guess it cud be vietnam i think it was made round then.

this song is one of the worse songs ever written

This is The Quo trying (for reasons best known to themselves) to play prog-rock and failing at every clod-hopping step of the way. It was a huge hit, possibly because it sounds totally unlike any other Quo song. As previously mentioned, it is a cover (so at least Messrs Parfitt and Rossi didn't actually WRITE this piece of mammoth poo), and it dates from more than 10 years after the END of the Vietnam war, so clearly that's not it. The best bit is the drum fill immediately after the "hand grenades flying over your head" line. Subtle as a sledgehammer...