A Tonic for the Troops was The Boomtown Rats' second album and included the hit singles "She's So Modern", "Like Clockwork" and "Rat Trap".
The album featured dark themes in an often upbeat, pop-punk style. One of the album's tracks, "(I Never Loved) Eva Braun" was described by one critic as "the happiest, cheeriest, best upbeat song about Hitler ever written." Other tracks featured subject matter including suicide ("Living in an Island") and euthanasia ("Can't Stop").
"She's So Modern" reached number 12 on the British pop charts. The album's title was taken from a line in this song: "And Charlie ain't no Nazi/ she likes to wear her leather boots/ 'cuz it's exciting for the veterans and/it's a tonic for the troops."
The most commercially successful track on the album is "Rat Trap," which made it to Number 1 on the British pop charts. "Rat Trap" was the final cut on the UK version of the album and the opening cut on the US version.
Read more about A Tonic For The Troops: Personnel
Famous quotes containing the words tonic and/or troops:
“You are done for—a living dead man—not when you stop loving but stop hating. Hatred preserves: in it, in its chemistry, resides the “mystery” of life. Not for nothing is hatred still the best tonic ever discovered, for which any organism, however feeble, has a tolerance.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“But, where the road runs near the stream,
Oft through the trees they catch a glance
Of passing troops in the sun’s beam—
Pennon, and plume, and flashing lance!
Forth to the world those soldiers fare,
To life, to cities, and to war!”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)