No Flag

This thunderous rock song features lyrics from the perspective of someone feeling alienated from society. No time for this kind of love No flag waving high above No sign for the dark place that I live No God for the damn that I don't give Costello wrote the song in early 2020 and released it on June 5, by which time it had taken new meaning in the era of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter.

Costello recorded the song in February 2020 in a Helsinki, Finland studio. He sang and played all the instruments on the track: guitar, bass, organ and drums. Explaining his decision to record in the Finnish city, Costello said, "I wanted to go somewhere nobody knew me. So, this is 'The Helsinki Sound.'"

The song seemed ever more prescient after the protests following the police killing of George Floyd. However, Costello told The Independent he's no clairvoyant; rather, the tribulations of 2020 are nothing new. "There's some days when there is no hope, no philosophy, no theology, no deity gives me solace from the feeling of hopelessness that I have, but you don't stay there very long. It's been a summer of turmoil, for a number of reasons, between the pressures of the pandemic and brutal events that then trigger protest and reaction and violence, all of that stuff you can take sides on, things you can't avoid seeing, [but] I'd already written all of that. All of those things were already happening, they're just in focus now because of all the conditions."