Elvis Costello Fan Forum

(If assonance is the right word. All I mean is, the way the vowels and consonants are spaced to create a bit of a thrill of pleasure. Not the same as favourite lyric, necessarily.) Er...I think you mean alliteration. Assonance is as memorably described by Rita in Educating Rita as 'getting the ryhm...

1. Get Happy!! By a country mile, and clearly the greatest long-player of popular music ever recorded. Most of Elvis' other LPs are still miles better than anybody else's, but there is clear blue water between this and the rest. An astonishing achievement that thrills me to this day, and probably th...

Only just caught up with this one but I think it's fabulous. Much as I love Look Now and respect its towering achievement, I still have a nostalgic thrill when he uses his 1978/1979 sneer, and I think he does it on the third verse/chorus of this. Lovely stuff, and I hope we hear more snippets from t...

This is a minor quibble, though, about a song that probably stands with 'Isabelle in Tears' as an obviously classic composition on this gorgeous record. I agree with this, except to say that although 'Stripping Paper' is a work of genius which few other songwriters/performers could even get close t...

Final thought. I’ve read a few posts thinking that this is the start of a new era. I’m not so sure. Jimmie confessing his crimes so firmly and dictating his final will? The painting of Jimmie as EC by EC? The enigmatic last song? Who is the overriding Godlike artist giving verses and painting pictu...

Speaking of throwing ashtrays . . . I'm reminded of " And it`s all here and now, she hit him with that paper-weight Eiffel Tower ." from Crimes of Paris. ...and of course 'Isabelle' is followed by 'Adieu Paris'. I guess by the time you've been writing intricate lyrics about disintegrating...

Wonderful analysis of the song. Thank-you.

I agree it's not a black and white song, and at least makes some attempt to understand what drives men to behave the way Jimmy does. Older men, facing mortality ("the clock on the wall tick tocks the time away"; "Allow me to just dictate my dying will") often react by seeking co...

This has surely been noted before - and if so, I apologize - but 'Burnt Sugar' feels like a lyrical sequel to 'Long Honeymoon.' Could be the same character cast. The songs in this collection I'm not hearing are Dishonour the Stars, He's Given me Things, and Hush. I really believe the former is just...

Poor desperate Jimmy is so skilled at pretending to care about the women he wants to lay that "He asked her boyfriend's name, then her whole family tree," and, as usual, he gets what he thinks he wants. But it's another hollow, unsatisfactory win. Keep telling the women you leave in your ...

So I've spent the week playing the LP as much as I can. I did go through a phase of thinking it's all a bit samey and 'why doesn't he play the electric guitar any more?' and all that. But having let the songs embed a bit, they start to separate out in your mind, and on Friday I woke up with all thes...

I'm also one of the unlucky who pre-ordered from Amazon and have now been told Tuesday (seriously? FFS). Fortunately I am setting off in the next few minutes to spend an alcohol-fuelled lost weekend in Birmingham with a close friend, and he has been able to acquire his copy from HMV Birmingham via t...

Neil. wrote:Crikey! First listen, 'Burnt Sugar' is a far cry from the haunting, tormented torch ballad feel of the live recording I know. Oh well, will give it some more listens!

Wow. It is fantastic. This and 'Under Lime' are really firing me up for the LP.

In terms of its delivery (and despite that it's a rather obvious gag), I'm a sucker for 'dancing the hesitation [----------] waltz'.

Inspired/reminded by this thread, and with vague memories of having seen this (back in the early 90s?) I decided to give it a try. Wow. It is utterly hopeless, clearly unplanned and make-it-up-as-we-go-along, and everyone's drunk. But it's loads of fun. Drink enough tequila and you'll have a great e...

Oh, Elvis is certainly adventurous - only a loon would deny that. What I'm saying is that he mostly ignores contemporary sonic pallettes and options, in stark contrast to the EC who materialized with the Attractions and had a cutting-edge sound for a while. At some point in the early '90s he seems ...

That's weird. If it's real, then the official site has been listing the wrong bonus tracks on the vinyl edition for the last six weeks. If it's not real, then where did that list of bonus tracks come from? It's an intriguing list, all co-writes with well-known songwriters ("Everyone's Playing ...

Agree, it was a very sympathetic slot for him, and he handled it really well. The fact that Mel's in a musical even gave him a seamless link to talk about 'A Face in the Crowd' without it feeling bolted-on. I think the publicity build-up for the LP has been really well thought-out (so far, at least)...

Elvis's appearance on BBC Breakfast will appear on this page soon: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bjcdsg . A brief but effective appearance, and of course they concentrated on the cancer op. He made an amusing swipe at a certain newspaper! Yes, 'I won't name it, but you see it in the sky in the...

I thought he seemed in good shape and good-humoured. A veteran of chat-shows, he had obviously worked out that this was a light entertainment spot rather than an in-depth interview, and he rolled with the punches (the banal questions, the 'Pump It Up was the first record I bought', the intended-to-b...

I really, really hope and pray this album is judged on its musical merits and not on -any response to Elvis' health. These comments about the cancer are melodramatic and sentimental - which Elvis has always managed to avoid in his writing with aplomb, wit and honesty. Me too, but I honestly don't t...

Hawksmoor, that sounds about right. But I think I read that Adele and Ed Sheeran shift copious amounts of CDs too. So are these CDs bought by the over-50s in category C who buy them for their nieces and nephews? (I guess I can't expect you to know everything!) LOL, I don't know everything, in reali...

In the new world of streaming and digital downloads, does anyone actually buy these things anymore? I guess they must do, otherwise record companies wouldn't put them out. But I can't imagine who those people are. If you want to see who they are, have a stroll around your local supermarket on a Sat...

It's also worth pointing out that some of the songs on The Delivery Man are linked. Good point. Wasn't that vaguely intended for a musical/theatrical presentation of some kind before Elvis got bored/lost interest/couldn't raise the finance/whatever? And there's the Hans Christian Anderson thing, of...

Didn't EC mention at some of the IB shows that "Long Honeymoon" is a sort of sequel to Watching the Detectives? Maybe I'm mis-remembering. That's what he said. The TV's still on, but it's just showing "snow"...and it's not Christmas. And the boy.....he's gone. So the gist would ...