Two Little Hitlers Lyrics
Who knew the Holocaust could be made into a perfect metaphor for every relationship I've ever been in? Thanks, Armed Forces!
There are allusions to the Holocaust and probably to the Nazis as well in the song, but, in case you're not aware, the song title is Two Little Hitlers, not Two Hitlers. A little Hitler is a British term that originated as an insult against lower ranking bureaucrats (civil servants) who have little authority but do have the power to harass people in petty ways by, for instance, delaying approval of their project, or even by simply making people wait needlessly in a line.
There are allusions to the Holocaust and probably to the Nazis as well in the song, but, in case you're not aware, the song title is Two Little Hitlers, not Two Hitlers. A little Hitler is a British term that originated as an insult against lower ranking bureaucrats (civil servants) who have little authority but do have the power to harass people in petty ways by, for instance, delaying approval of their project, or even by simply making people wait needlessly in a line.
I especially liked this song back when I was regularly spinning this disk; in particular because of the dry humor ("It's all so calculated/She's got a calculator/...")
These are such nice descriptions of sundry component attitudes that go into a certain kind of relationship mentality; the jealousy, the one-upsmanship, the shallow linking of emotional "connection" with pop culture ("Pictures of the merchandise"), disappointment as de rigeur, the valuing of quantity over quality ("She's got a calculator"). I'm tellin' ya; this song is a little jewel box!
Exactly. As long as your unable to see and treat the other person as a human being and merely objective them, there will be no real love, and as time passes the self-centeredness can only lead to bitterness, hating the things they once picked out together that "would make them happy" instead of figuring out how to make each other happy. By hating those things hides a metaphor of contempt and disappointment with each other.
This song is probably a reply to producer Nick Lowe, who has produced several of Costello's records. Lowe has a song on "Jesus of Cool" (that name was not allowed in hypocritic USA, where it instead is called "Pure Pop for Now People") called "Little Hitler" Two Little Hitler MUST be a twice as good song ;)
There's some very clever wordplay that I've admired since I first heard this song! Like many female high school students in the '70s, I had to take a typing class in high school; the ideal was to learn to "touch-type," that is, to type without needing to look down at the keyboard. You can type a LOT faster by touch-typing; if you can reach 100 words per minute, you can keep up with someone speaking if they don't go too fast. The British used to use "typewriter" to mean not just the machine, but the person who operated it.
On the other hand, a "soft touch" is someone that it's easy to get favors or money from.
So, "she's my soft touch typewriter" can mean that whoever this verse's "she" may be, she's a soft touch (somehow I doubt that he wants to borrow money from her) and the phrase goes on to blends that expression neatly with "touch-typewriter," a very skilled typist. The kind of typist who can keep up with dictation--so, "I'm the Great Dictator" suggests, at one level, that she's his secretary, possibly one with whom he's having an affair (which wasn't difficult to persuade her to do, because she's such a soft touch.)
At another level, of course, The Great Dictator plays right into the Hitler imagery, since it can also refer to the Chaplin movie satirizing Hitler and the Nazi movement.