Two Little Hitlers

Elvis Costello

Why are we racing to be so old?
I'm up late pacing the floor
I won't be told
You have your reservations
I'm bought and sold

I'll face the music
I'll face the facts
Even when we walk in polka dots and checker slacks

Bowing and squawking
Running after tidbits
Bobbing and squinting
Just like a nitwit

Two little Hitlers will fight it out until
One little Hitler does the other one's will
I will return
I will not burn
Down in the basement

I need my head examined
I need my eyes excited
I'd like to join the party
But I was not invited
You make a member of me
I'll be delighted

I wouldn't cry for lost souls, you might drown
Dirty words for dirty minds
Written in a toilet town

Dial me a Valentine
She's a smooth operator
It's all so calculated
She's got a calculator
She's my soft touch typewriter
And I'm the great dictator

Two little Hitlers will fight it out until
One little Hitler does the other one's will
I will return
I will not burn

A simple game of self-respect
You flick a switch and the world goes off
Nobody jumps as you expect
I would have thought you would have had enough by now

You call selective dating
For some effective mating
I thought I'd let you down, dear
But you were just deflating

I knew right from the start
We'd end up hating
Pictures of the merchandise
Plastered on the wall
We can look so long as we don't have to talk at all

You say you'll never know him
He's an unnatural man
He doesn't want your pleasure
He wants as no one can
He wants to know the names of
All those he's better than

Two little Hitlers will fight it out until
One little Hitler does the other one's will
I will return
I will not burn
I will return
I will not burn
I will return
I will not burn


Lyrics submitted by Mopnugget

Two Little Hitlers Lyrics as written by Elvis Costello

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

Two Little Hitlers song meanings
Add Your Thoughts

5 Comments

sort form View by:
  • +1
    General Comment
    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!
    razajacon May 11, 2005   Link
  • +1
    General Comment
    Who knew the Holocaust could be made into a perfect metaphor for every relationship I've ever been in? Thanks, Armed Forces!
    hinthinton February 26, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment
    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.
    montresoron October 29, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment
    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 ;)
    yaizzeron January 24, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment
    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.
    dracsmithon October 11, 2019   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

More Featured Meanings

Album art
Zombie
Cranberries, The
"Zombie" is about the ethno-political conflict in Ireland. This is obvious if you know anything of the singer (Dolores O'Riordan)'s Irish heritage and understood the "1916" Easter Rising reference. "Another head hangs lowly Child is slowly taken And the violence caused such silence Who are we mistaken - Another mother's breaking Heart is taking over" Laments the Warrington bomb attacks in which two children were fatally injured on March 23rd, 1993. Twelve year old Tim Parry was taken off life support with permission from his mother after five days in the hospital, virtually braindead. "But you see it's not me It's not my family" References how people who are not directly involved with the violence feel about it. They are "zombies" without sympathy who refuse to take action while others suffer.
Album art
Sunglasses at Night
Corey Hart
In the 1980s, sunglasses were a common fashion for people who wanted to adopt a "tough guy" persona (note all the cop shows from that era -- Simon & Simon, Miami Vice, etc. -- where the lead characters wore shades). So I think this song is about a guy who wears shades as a way of hiding his insecurity after learning that his girlfriend is cheating on him. He's trying to pretend that he's a "tough guy" to hide the fact that his girlfriend's affair is disturbing him.
Album art
System
Mel And Kim
Just listening for the 784,654th time....and it's just perfect in every way. Just incredible. The only reason it was remade was to scoop up a boatload of money from a more modern and accepting audience. But it is a completely different song than the other one that sounds slapped together in a few takes without a thought for the meaning. This song captivates me still, after 50+ years. Takes me to the deep South and the poverty of some who lived thru truly hard times. And the powerful spirit of a poor young girl being abandoned to her future with only a red dress and her wits to keep her alive. She not only stayed alive, she turned her hard beginnings around, became self sufficient, successful and someone with respect for herself. She didn't let the naysayers and judgers stop her. She's the one sitting in the drivers seat at the end. So, not a song about a poor girl, but a song of hope and how you can rise up no matter how far down you started. There is a huge difference between a singer who simply belts out a song that is on a page in front of them, and someone who can convey an entire experience with their voice. Telling not just a story with words, but taking you inside it and making you feel like you are there, with their interpretation.
Album art
Anti-Hero
Taylor Swift
I believe this is another amazingly on point and nuanced commentary on the insanity that follows emotionally abusive relationships. The abuser has no anxieties, no emotional pain, or salience/memory for that matter, so the survivor appears to be the crazy one, obsessed with the abuse and that buzzword that seems to ignite arguments about diagnosing people without a degree, etc. funny how you say the words domestic violence, abuse, abuse survivor and boom the subject changes. Anyways, I especially relate to her midnights becoming afternoons, complex PTSD often leads to this phenomenon, whether due to purposeful sleep deprivation by the abuser, or just hyper vigilance associated with the PTSD, along with the fear of facing people, especially your loved ones, who Never actually understand, even if they try, because all they see is you, on fire, screaming about the arsonist that no one ever sees, and who has been spreading lies about your alleged mental instability, deceptive personality, etc. the whole time. While the last thing survivors need is more blame, our society supports a narrative that blames the objectively innocent party because the blatantly guilty party has spent their entire lives fabricating a persona and we’re just being human, and human psychology is quite counterintuitive especially in the context of trauma. Look at Amber Heard. Vilified and not believed, regardless of what any abuse survivor could recognize as a fellow survivor instantly. But Johnny depp is a malignant narcissist, a man, and wealthy as all get out. It’s sick.
Album art
Mad Hatter
Avenged Sevenfold
Matt Shadows their lead singer says the song was written as per request from the developers of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Watching the initial trailers for the game & looking at production sketches reminded him of the 'S-Town' podcast & its main protagonist, John B. McLemore. Matt also comments specifically on the lyrics: "I decided that the lyrics would shadow McLemore's life." In 2012, antiquarian horologist John B. McLemore sent an email to the staff of the show 'This American Life' asking them to investigate an alleged murder in his hometown of Woodstock, Alabama, a place McLemore claimed to despise. After a year of exchanging emails & several months of conversation with McLemore, producer Brian Reed traveled to Woodstock to investigate. Reed investigated the crime & eventually found that no such murder took place, though he struck up a friendship with the depressed but colorful character of McLemore. He recorded conversations with McLemore & other people in Woodstock. McLemore killed himself by drinking potassium cyanide on June 22, 2015 while the podcast was still in production. In the narrative of the podcast, this occurs at the end of the second episode; subsequent episodes deal with the fallout from McLemore's death while exploring more of McLemore's life & character.