Incredible new, exciting game!!

lapinsjolis · Post by **lapinsjolis** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 1:27 am

It was Frank Sinatra-I remembered his first wife, Mia Farrow and his widow but forgot the one he couldn't Ava Gardner. I know they had an affair and I'm pretty sure they married.

Now Bambooneedle is pining for Priscilla and Ann Margaret.

Jack of all Parades is about a man who settled for less than love. He is sick of empty relationships and interludes when he meets the woman who fulfills him totally. Yet there is a sense of unworthiness towards her in this song to me because of his past sins. Self-effacing he proclaims his love and offers her his heart. Not a sweet song but I think the sweetest up to then by him. I remember reading in the liner notes of 'Girls, Girls, Girls' it was a rarity, "A love song without an escape clause."

I'm not sure if this was already covered:

Accidents Will Happen

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:22 am

Accidents Will Happen is one of my very favourite EC songs. I imagine it must have seemed like a big leap from the predominantly self-centered you-me nature of his songwriting beforehand. And within the first ten seconds one can see a big leap musically also. I have to admit that on looking at it closely just now, I may have been misreading it. I imagined it was about the girl in a not very commited relationship empathizing somewhat with the guy's increasing ability to seduce someone and hurt "I know, I know", as she had been guilty of it before "I know what I've done", and about her dilemma about whether to leave him or stay (speaking to herself in the last couple of verses). Now I'm not so sure.

Please Stay

Jackson Doofster · Post by **Jackson Doofster** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 5:55 pm

PoP.....i can't believe I've been missing this game...what have i been doing.....??

Please Stay was only the second Elvis track to make me cry (the first was the aforementioned Jack of All Parades). His voice breaks and crackles all the way through. A singing coach would scream. I love the song, but I love Elvis singing it and making it be about MY LIFE at that time. A passionate plea that should be corny, particularly when the hammond organ kicks in. It isn't...it's great.

How about.............

Beaten to the Punch[/b]

Mr. Misery · Post by **Mr. Misery** » Sat Nov 01, 2003 1:57 am

The Attractions sound so great, with Pete and Bruce punching back and forth and Steve's keyboard sounding yelps of pain. EC's voice is full of tension as he narrates the story of a young guy who laughed at the old for their conventions but then became old himself and worried about being supplanted by the young. There is brilliant wordplay, and boxing references worthy of Hemingway: "You go hand in glove"; "You'd better get out now because you'll never go the distance"; "If you've got a head for figures then you'd better count me out." A fearsome track, bursting with ferocious energy and creativity, as is the whole album.

The Human Touch

lapinsjolis · Post by **lapinsjolis** » Sat Nov 01, 2003 2:07 am

I'll try.

It's an expression of disgust of facades and postures. He wants reality and yet has been trapped by the allure of artificially created perfection.

Watch Your Step

Mr. Misery · Post by **Mr. Misery** » Sat Nov 01, 2003 6:14 am

When the album was released this used to be my favorite track, but why play favorites when the entire record is so superb. Some of the lines are artfully enigmatic but the theme seems to be the precarious place of the young, smart, and sensitive in a callous world. The singer is protective, an ally against those who watch and wait to steal or profit from originality. The vocal tone is very intimate, the music langorous with the bass to the fore.

EC performed this on the Tomorrow show back in 1981, but my brother let me sleep through it and told me the next day. I've never forgotten that and mention it every chance I get.

Everyday I Write the Book

A rope leash · Post by **A rope leash** » Sat Nov 01, 2003 5:06 pm

It's been a theme song for me from time to time. I've always thought that it obtained a sort of perfect orbit with the rest of Punch the Clock, in a Earth-Moon arrangement.

It really very elegant, when you think about it. He's writing the "book of Her", and detailing his education in the smooth, detached manner of the high-minded writer. He's nailing her.

Two good videos for this one, too.

Basement Kiss

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Sat Nov 01, 2003 9:04 pm

Rope, "nailing her" ?!?

While on the subject of EIWTB, much prefer the album version to the bonus disc version (which I think is interesting, but rather stiff), unlike what some have said. I hope a good live version of it turns up on the GCW reissue, along with some of the GCW numbers he's been playing lately.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sun Nov 02, 2003 9:50 pm

I think 'nailing her' applies more to Basement Kiss than EIWTB.

I'd never heard either the Wendy James Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears LP nor the EC demos for it until recently, and the two make for a fascinating moment in the world of Elvis. As I recall, he (and Cait, though not sure of the extent of her role), knocked it off 'in a weekend' in response to the epistolary plea of Wendy James for some songwriting genius to save her career. It's astonishing that Elvis not only had the grace (pun intended) to deliver, but also to give her some class stuff. It's fascinating to dwell on the fact that these were songs he didn't write for himself at all (has he ever played any of them live? I'd love to hear this one), but also to what extent he had her in mind in their writing. Presumably a lot, as many of the female protagonists are messed up girls gone astray in the big wide (capital) world. I think another aspect of the story is that this got his desire flowing again to work with the Attractions and to go for the barbed attack of Brutal Youth.

Lucy Grace (transparently ironic as a name) is a rich girl who's fallen into prostitution, or something comparable to it, but doesn't need the money as her daddy is rich, and is only pretending to like the danger. So she's a bit like the Greek girl at St Martin's College in Pulp's magnificent Common People. But what I absolutely don't get are the London refs. She can't show her face in the North End Road in downmarket south London ('a grim thoroughfare that heads north [hence the name] from Fulham Broadway to Olympia', to quote one source) because of the rumours in posh Belgravia, which is presumably where she's from. But what's the connection between the two? Or am I back to front and she's from Fulham, but has been exposed for misdemeanors in Belgravia? No, because of the inheritance. Damn, I was trying to be lucid on this one, and it's absurdly late now. Lapins, Mr M, come and rescue me! I never was copped on about London.

Either way, the chorus is a thing of beauty, with a sense of pathos but also sympathy, with the physical hurts representing her lostness in this world into which she's transgressed. Bruising your lips on a basement kiss is such a succinct line. The middle 8 'Audrey Hepburn hat' bit seems to refer to her father's funeral and her feigning indifference over the inheritance.

What's fun is to play the demo back to back with the Wendy James version. Elvis gives it poetry, feeling, dimension, a sense of a real world, Wendy gives it a crappy lack of vocal technique and the impression that she has even less of clue of what the song's about than me, but the brilliant twist is that she comes across so much as a pathetic creature evoking sympathy that she is more the protagonist than the narrator, so there is something totally gripping about her performance.

Let's stay with the LP, if I may, especially if it gives someone a chance to have a radically different response to the whole thing than me:

Do You Know What I'm Saying?

Boy With A Problem · Post by **Boy With A Problem** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 8:15 pm

The Rolling Stone Review is scathing, still I'd love to get a copy of this:

Elvis Costello howled when Linda Ronstadt ineptly covered some of his songs 15 years ago. So it's bewildering that he would intentionally give the talentless Wendy James, formerly of British glam-trash scavengers Transvision Vamp, an album's worth of previously unrecorded material to sing. While intriguing in concept, these gears don't mesh.

Ostensibly written specifically for James, the material on Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears (secondhand title courtesy Bob Dylan) sounds suspiciously like leftovers from Costello's late-'70s bile file. Blunt, cutting lyrics tricked out with celebrity names and London geography are long gone from Costello's repertoire; the simple melodies reminiscent of the period between Armed Forces and Get Happy!! are equally anachronistic. Though uneven (his triteness filter seems switched off), Costello castoffs of this vintage are still worth savoring; compared to the pious theatricality of The Juliet Letters, fresh sides of old-school Costello, replete with deft pop hooks and agile wordplay, are a treat.

If only he were singing them. Costello's mordant wit challenges really good singers; James is a flimsy pop icon with a small, colorless voice, wobbly pitch and more vanity than skill. Her pallid delivery of "Basement Kiss" (an acoustic echo of "Alison" that owes something to the Rolling Stones' mid-'60s balladry) is downright tragic. She trips on the choppy rhythms and busy roar of "Puppet Girl" and flattens "Earthbound," the album's most moving song. Ex-Attractions drummer Pete Thomas throws off sparks throughout "This Is a Test," two minutes of Kafkaesque romance that open the disc, but James' soggy presence prevents the song from igniting.

James isn't the only culprit, however. "Do You Know What I'm Saying," a grand country waltz, drowns in a florid string arrangement. The Clash-quoting "London's Brilliant" ("digging up the bones of Strummer and Jones" to the chords of "Clash City Rockers") is a dubious novelty. And the banality of "Get down and kneel, turn on your heel, 'cos my ideal is more genteel" ("Fill in the Blanks") is hardly her fault. But other than further contributing to the mystique of Costello's career, this mistake isn't so brilliant. (RS 665)

IRA ROBBINS

Hand In Hand

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 8:19 pm

Thanks for that, BWAP. Great description of WJ and in particular of her 'downright tragic' performance on BK.

Now, who cares to talk about HIH?

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Fri Nov 07, 2003 6:16 am

I found a couple of songs from that album, Do You Know What I'm Saying and The Nameless One, played live here by Wendy James (look under Spain1993, then right click and look at 'properties' to get the names of the songs):

http://www.btinternet.com/%7Ematthew.ames/tvv/audio/

I've got the album and had rarely played it until these songs came up on this thread but am slowly warming to it. I like the combination of her accent and the plaintive tone... "only fingertips from forbidden bliss". It suits most of the material. Nice strings on Do You Know What I'm Saying.

Hand In Hand

lapinsjolis · Post by **lapinsjolis** » Fri Nov 07, 2003 6:17 pm

Though the line, "Don't you know I'm an animal?" would better serve the Annex it's a great lyric from a marvelous song. "Hand in Hand" symbolizes the innocence of romance and the song tells of the inevitable sexual element of such emotions. Another analysis of the awkwardness of the sexuality discovered when you don't have the experience or maturity to back them up. Also contains one of the greatest sentiments put to music: "don't ask me to apologize, I won't ask you to forgive me"

Chemistry Class

Boy With A Problem · Post by **Boy With A Problem** » Fri Nov 07, 2003 9:35 pm

Chemistry Class could be my favorite from Armed Forces - He's absolutely on top of his game with the word play - The line about the final solution, part of his emotional facism theme as well as the scientific meaning of solution. And I love the line in the chorus - "I want a piece of your mind" - when he's halfway talking about a piece of what rhymes with "class". Loads of sexual tension in this one. Elvis at his best.

Pony St.

Mr. Misery · Post by **Mr. Misery** » Sat Nov 08, 2003 2:30 am

LJ, I love the live version of 'Chemistry Class' too--"You're brilliant!" shouts an audience member.

I remember buying Brutal Youth, listening to the opening of this song as I left the record store, and knowing I was going to love the album. There is tremendous energy in the band's performance, and the lyrics of generational conflict are more affectionate than blistering, as in the old manner but with new maturity and mastery. A familiar story of rebels raising rebels questions the very nature of rebellion, with many comic touches--the mother waits up reading Das Kapital while watching Home Shopping Club, the suitors disappoint by being sober and polite, and there are compromising home movies of disco daddy. The pony in the title is youth and so, wittily, the daughter is "flogging a dead horse" by making the same mistakes her parents made.

Veronica

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sat Nov 08, 2003 3:52 am

I love that live chemistry Class too, and the shouting of 'You're brilliant' is so perfect, and so much what I wanted to ddo last night, humbled in the presence of true genius in Birmingham. Actually, I wanted to scream 'I love you', but English reserve took over.

Boy With A Problem · Post by **Boy With A Problem** » Sat Nov 08, 2003 11:55 am

Before the Veronica discussion starts, I have a question about Pony St.

In England, wouldn't it be more usual to hear someone say "She lives in Pony St" ? - but Elvis sings the more North American, "She lives on Pony St." -

Is Pony St a real place or it is a euphomism?

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 7:34 am

No real Pony Streets identifiable on Google, just lots of Elv links. I wouldn't call it a 'euphemism', more a metaphorical idea. It's normal to say you live 'on X street' here. Play 'in' the street, live 'on' it.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 8:23 am

Veronica belongs to the select band of songs that the public would know as a Costello song (like Alison, Pump it up, Olivers Army, etc) and so sometimes gets a harder time than most of his songs. It really is a cracking song though. great bass line, thumping constant drum, and having Paul on the song really adds something as well. The lyrics are typical of Elvis, in that they're about something completely different to that which you might think. I guess most people assume it's about love of a girl, rather than the life of an old lady that is being forgotten with old age. It's ultra-personal as well, probably more so than Alison..I mean, forget about girls, who doesn't love their gran!
My favourite part of this song, is the way it builds up at the end, for his last Veronica to fade away...it sounds like a cry for Veronica.

next song: Toledo

Mr. Misery · Post by **Mr. Misery** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 9:19 am

This has a distinct Bacharach arrangement and sound with his famous flugelhorns, too much so perhaps because I didn't care for it initially and had to learn to love it. The song itself is laden with regret and guilt, the betrayal seems even worse to the narrator than being betrayed might have been. Images of a cradle, happy couples, and the sound of his wife's voice haunt him. The chorus suggests a magnificent paradigm (the Spanish citadel) reduced to an ordinary place (Ohio), much the way other ideals can fail in the face of human frailty.

Alison

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 12:16 pm

Can I just tell you how wonderful Toledo was live on Friday? I've never been that keen, though can identify with the above re learning to love it. Good song, but just a bit too knowingly Bacharachish for me to really relish (much as I lover and respect BB [no not that one!]), but with the simple jazz pick and rhythmic pat on the guitar body (as described, better, by Cope on Denmark), and the flugelhorniness (!) lost for a more stripped down and effective arrangement, the words came out as clearer and stronger, it seemed. Knowing that beautiful Spanish citadel well (I must have visited it at least 15 times, it's so near to Madrid, and so a great place to take visitors, and you can go to the Parador hotel, and sip a drink on the terrace, more or less from where El Greco painted his views of the city), the contrast of Toledo, Ohio, with the original citadel is very potent for me. I don't know Toledo, Ohio, but recall from an earlier board discussion that it's a bit of an industrial dump. As well as the debasement from the beautiful old to the ugly new, and the parallel with the demise of frail humanity as Mr M says with his customary succinctness, for me the song also sets up a contrast of Ohio as worthy but dull, i.e. monogamy, and the Spanish citadel as exotic and spicy, i.e. transgression. Without this contrast, the question of whether 'anybody in Ohio dreams of that Spanish citadel' doesn't seem to make sense.

Interesting that on the LP, the mention, which makes me giggle, on the fade of still having 'Florence, Alabama', but not Paris and Rome, is almost lost due to the fade, whereas live it not only gave the song a fitting and lovely conclusion, but was also extended with adding something about not having New York, Amsterdam (an old/new link in itself) and something I can't quite recall about these all being lonely places.

Sorry for breaking the rules and not doing Alison, but it was such a highpoint on Friday.

girl out of time · Post by **girl out of time** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 3:43 pm

toledo is one of my favourite places in the whole world......back in 1999 i spent about a month in there and, of course, E.C.´s song was often played in my discman......nothing like listening to that song rambling through the streets of TOLEDO........

LessThanZero · Post by **LessThanZero** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 3:54 pm

I thought Toledo was totally bleak and boring...

lapinsjolis · Post by **lapinsjolis** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 12:58 am

'Alison' is so mature for such a young songwriter. A song filled with haunting sentiment it speaks of regret, loss and a shedding of self delusion and idealization. It's needless to say a classic but it is a worthy one.

Clown Strike

verbal gymnastics · Post by **verbal gymnastics** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 9:13 am

Otis Westinghouse wrote:Interesting that on the LP, the mention, which makes me giggle, on the fade of still having 'Florence, Alabama', but not Paris and Rome, is almost lost due to the fade, whereas live it not only gave the song a fitting and lovely conclusion, but was also extended with adding something about not having New York, Amsterdam (an old/new link in itself) and something I can't quite recall about these all being lonely places.

He sang
"But we still have Florence, Alabama
We don't have Paris and we don't have Rome
Or New York or even Amsterdam
None of these lonely towns will be my home"

(although they're cities aren't they?)

Sorry - back to Clown Strike

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