A Case for Song: So Like Candy

[Poor Deportee]

Much of the craft - and fun - in a pop lyric consists in the variations and games the author plays with its central conceit. Mr. Costello has a gift for this (think of the numerous turns through which he steers the phrase 'Almost Blue'); and it's an especially important art when a song's origins clearly reside in formal inspiration rather than a more confessional emotional urgency.

This song is one of the best moments on Mighty Like a Rose, and I thought it might be neat to attempt a closer look at how it works, with special attention to the song's central pun. I apologize in advance for trying anyone's patience.

Here lies the powder and perfume
The pretty clothes are scattered 'round the room
And it's so like Candy

Well, powder candy is of course that fairly frightening stuff we sometimes bought in packs as kids. My preferred variant came with a little stick you could use to shovel the powder into your face - the phallic implications of that I'll leave alone, though I doubt Elvis would. Of course there's also an echo here of 'nose candy,' as in cocaine. As for 'pretty clothes' being like candy, this speaks to a decidedly vibrant colour palette! She's as tacky as candy is. Naturally the entire verse also doubles as a general analogy for what Candy is like: she makes messes.

Here lies the lipstick and the face
The coloured tablets keep it all in place
And it's so like Candy
So like Candy

'Here lies the face' - a no-doubt-knowing nod here to the famous line of his co-author on this song, as Eleanor Rigby left her face 'in a jar by the door.' As for the coloured tablets being like candy, little need be said. The wider image at play, definitely echoing Sir Paul's earlier song, is of a person whose identity is manufactured and prone to dissolution. If 'nose candy' is just an echo in the earlier verse, drug addiction is surely lurking closer to the foreground here. She's bad news in Technicolour.

What did I do to make her go
Why must she be the one
That I have to love
So like Candy

He loves her 'like candy.' The narrator is cast in this light as a sort of greedy child - with the irrationality that entails - and it's also quite a tactile (not to say tacky) idea, given what we do to candy. Addiction and candy don't quite go hand in hand, but there's definitely an affinity between the greedy, dependent consumption given in both.

Here lies a picture of a girl
Her arms are tight around that lucky guy
And it's so like Candy

And in her eyes a certain look
I thought I'd seen the last of long ago
And it's so like Candy
So like Candy

The double-entendre, fully established, is allowed to fade somewhat here; if the 'picture' is 'like candy,' well, one can at best imagine that it's colourful eye-candy, as it were (the interplay between 'eye' and 'eye candy' being implied rather than stated). The real point of this verse is the obvious one, the way Candy is holding herself, the look in her eye, and how she relates to 'that lucky guy.'

I remember the day that picture was taken
We were so happy then
But that's so like Candy

-happiness being like candy? Sweet, temporary, ultimately empty? An interesting thought -

She seemed so sweet to me I was mistaken
Yep, candy seems sweet. Here the song's fundamental pun comes crashing in at its most obvious.
Oh no not that again

I'd like to put in a word for what I always assumed was a McCartney line. A cheap rhyme but one whose sentiment any veteran of heartbreak can ruefully identify with. EC emphasizes the humour via his comically overstated delivery.

But that's so like Candy
She just can't face the day
So she turns and melts away

C/candy melts in the sun, of course she/it does (leaving a sticky mess, one might add). One could find a gothic turn here - vampires etc. - but the principal echo is of the 'powder' of line one and the 'face' that is barely kept in place to begin with.

Here lie the records that she scratched
And on the sleeve I find a note attached
And it's so like Candy
"My Darling Dear it's such a waste"
She couldn't say "goodbye", but "I admire your taste"
And it's so like Candy

'Taste' again rings the lyrical bell while giving us one of EC's signature kiss-off lines. Can a note be 'like candy,' though? Not in any interesting way beyond the lyric's general argument that Candy is tempting but bad for you.

Is it a masterpiece? Of course not...but it's a lot of fun!

[Jack of All Parades]

Near one hundred views and yet not a single comment. Shameful. Your commentary on the lyric play ['at play'] here requires no forbearance. It is delightful and it rightfully pays a playful homage to the fun aspects of this writer and this particular song. I know of no contemporary song writer, outside of Mr. Dylan, who can wring more meaning out of a solitary word and its repetition than Mr. Costello. The song may be slight but you rightly point the way that those connotations of 'candy' bounce around this song in more than predictable ways.

Thank you for providing a toe hold back into this album for me. I still do not regret consigning this album to a new home in Vancouver[it is fun to think that as you might be playing it, EC could well be hearing that play on the wind in his part of your joint town]but I am grateful you have provided a means of re-entry for my ears. Your kind of thoughtful and engaged listening I will pay attention to any day over mind numbing renumerations of set lists. There can be no doubting the melodious buoyancy of "So Like Candy"; you, PD, have entertainingly demonstrated how it is that this buoyancy comes out to play. Bravo.

[stricttime81]

This is a great song from a criminally underrated album.

When EC played this on A&E Live By Request, he changed the lyric as follows:

"My Darling Dear it's such a waste"
She couldn't say "goodbye", but "You've got lousy taste"

Lol. I've never heard him make this lyric change anywhere else, and always wondered if this was a subtle dig at the audience members who requested only the most obvious EC hits.

[docinwestchester]

A wonderful song. My favorite performance by far is the one from SNL in 1991. T-Bone Wolk and G.E. Smith are perfect compliments to the EC's vocals. I really like brief instrumental jam at the end. But who are the 3 mysterious male backup vocalists?



Also, here's a rehearsal video, which I'd never seen before today:

http://vimeo.com/8300370

Interesting to watch how he conserves his voice here.

[And No Coffee Table]

I've never heard him make this lyric change anywhere else, and always wondered if this was a subtle dig at the audience members who requested only the most obvious EC hits.

He made the same change on Letterman in 1997.

[stricttime81]

I've never heard him make this lyric change anywhere else, and always wondered if this was a subtle dig at the audience members who requested only the most obvious EC hits.

He made the same change on Letterman in 1997.

Thanks! I guess it wasn't a dig at the audience then, but very funny nonetheless!

But why is EC dressed as Ali G? lol

[Ulster Boy]

Wasn't Candy a pet name for Bebe Buell?

[Poor Deportee]

Near one hundred views and yet not a single comment. Shameful. Your commentary on the lyric play ['at play'] here requires no forbearance. It is delightful and it rightfully pays a playful homage to the fun aspects of this writer and this particular song. I know of no contemporary song writer, outside of Mr. Dylan, who can wring more meaning out of a solitary word and its repetition than Mr. Costello. The song may be slight but you rightly point the way that those connotations of 'candy' bounce around this song in more than predictable ways.

Thank you for providing a toe hold back into this album for me. I still do not regret consigning this album to a new home in Vancouver[it is fun to think that as you might be playing it, EC could well be hearing that play on the wind in his part of your joint town]but I am grateful you have provided a means of re-entry for my ears. Your kind of thoughtful and engaged listening I will pay attention to any day over mind numbing renumerations of set lists. There can be no doubting the melodious buoyancy of "So Like Candy"; you, PD, have entertainingly demonstrated how it is that this buoyancy comes out to play. Bravo.

Thanks for the kind thoughts, Jack! And you seem to have sprung this thread to life, so I appreciate that too. MLAR has indeed found a home chez moi; I don't deny that chunks of it are unlistenable, but I continue to enjoy much of what has to be EC's most demented album

[bronxapostle]

A wonderful song. My favorite performance by far is the one from SNL in 1991. T-Bone Wolk and G.E. Smith are perfect compliments to the EC's vocals. I really like brief instrumental jam at the end. But who are the 3 mysterious male backup vocalists?

could it be the ALESSI BROTHERS on the right??
https://www.google.com/search?q=best+of ... 1000%3B992