Man Out Of Time

Pretty self-explanatory
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Wolverinefan
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Man Out Of Time

Post by Wolverinefan »

I only came across MOOT quite recently when I bought my first EC album (I know, shame on me!) having only known EC's singles until that point. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, as I probably sound a bit dense, but I don't quite understand what this song is about. :?: It seems to be about some MP going to the red light district and cheating on his wife with a prostitute, but then again what exactly does the chorus refer to, and why does Elvis sing "To murder my love is a crime"?

I'd be grateful for anybody's thoughts. I asked my friend (very keen, long standing EC fan who bought all his records years ago) if she understood the lyrics and she's puzzled by them too. (Maybe the board member who goes by the name of this song would be a good person to explain it to me?) I feel like such a novice around here, but never mind, I'm surely in the right place!
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Top balcony
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by Top balcony »

Hi Wolverinefan

Here's a link to other people's thoughts on this song: http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/131852/

I've cut and pasted the one which intrigues me most :


I joined this site only so that I could add to this page.

Ever since I heard this song over twenty years ago, I had a conviction that it was about only one thing, actually, one person.

Roberto Calvi.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Roberto Calvi (Milan, April 13, 1920 - London, June 17, 1982) was an Italian banker dubbed by the press as "God's Banker", due to his close association with the Vatican. Calvi was the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano which collapsed in one of Italy's biggest modern political scandals, and his death in London in June 1982 has been the source of enduring controversy.

His body was discovered exactly two weeks to the day before the realease of Costello's 'Imperial Bedroom'.

The first three stanzas (above) seem to describe Calvi's whereabouts in the last few hours before his death, before he was discovered hanging from Blackfriar's Bridge in London'.

"So this is where he came to hide
When he ran from you "

- Calvi was being chased, and was caught before his assailant hanged his body

"In a private detective's overcoat
And dirty dead man's shoes "

- Calvi was discovered wearing an overcoat and loafers.

"The pretty things of Knightsbridge
Lying for a minister of state "

- Calvi may have spent his last hours in this part of London. There's also a double entendre here:

1 ) Calvi was lying FOR a minister of state, ie. he was covering up for a minister of state
2 ) The pretty things were lying for a minister of state, which may refer to a prostitution scandal

"Are a far cry from the nod and wink
Here at traitor's gate "

Traitor's gate is a few bridges down the Thames from where Calvi's body was found. This may refer
to where he was murdered. There is speculation that Calvi was murdered elsewhere, and brought to
Blackfriar's bridge, as reference to P2 - a Mason sect.

"'Cause the high heel he used to be has been ground down
And he listens for the footsteps that would follow him around "

- Calvi was being followed on the night he was killed

"To murder my love is crime
But will you still love
A man out of time "

- Calvi was a 'man out of time' because he had no time left in his life, or alternately because he was part of one (or three, or four) organizations started a long, long time ago...

"There's a tuppeny hapenny millionaire
Looking for a fourpenny one "

- This may be a reference to two men who partnered to have Calvi killed... a 'fourpenny one' may refer to a man who was worth 41 million pounds sterling (at that time)
With a tight grip on the short hairs
Of the public imagination "

- This verse refers to the huge sensation that the case called.

"But for his private wife and kids somehow
Real life becomes a rumour
Days of dutch courage
Just three French letters and a German sense of humour "

- Reference to how Calvi got from Italy to England, via Germany, France and the Netherlands.

"He's got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge
He stands to be insulted and he pays for the privilege "

- This may be a reference, again, to the prostitution scandal and some kind of extortion. The moneyed classes are known to pay for sexual humiliation, insults and so forth...

(chorus)

"The biggest wheels of industry
Retire sharp and short "

- Perhaps another reference to three men involved in the conspiracy: a retired man, a sharp man, and a short man involved in industry.

"And the after dinner overtures
Are nothing but an after thought "

- This may refer to a meeting that happened that fateful night.

"Somebody's creeping in the kitchen
There's a reputation to be made
Whose nerves are always on a knife's edge
Who's up late polishing the blade "

- It sounds like this refers either literally or figuratively to the mercenary who was hired to kill Calvi

"Love is always scarpering or cowering or fawning
You drink yourself insensitive and hate yourself in the morning "

- It sounds like this could be a description of Calvi - always fleeing, cowering or fawning. And the last line, perhaps a prescription for all of us to drink and forget about such awful things.

I have always had this strong feeling that this was what the song was about. When I found this site, I looked up the release date for the album and realized that Calvi's body was found two weeks to the day before the album was released that sealed it.

This is exactly the type of scandal that Elvis would write about, but how could he have known ? The records would have been on their way to the shops by the time this transpired.

My own view is that this is all probably wide of the mark, but it got my attention and away from my work, hey ho back to the inbox.

Colin Top Balcony
Poor Deportee
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by Poor Deportee »

That's quite an interesting analysis. I'm not sure it really captures the emotional burden of the song, however, which is perhaps better unveiled by Costello's own account of being existentially lost at sea and self-disgusted while on tour. I am not particularly gifted at untangling the 'meaning' of songs (I tend to respond viscerally rather than cerebrally to the feeling in song lyrics), but fundamentally this song seems to trade on a core tension between public persona and personal betrayal.

The two are linked inasmuch as the protagonist carries off deception in both realms ('lying for the minister of state'), but the real shame resides in the personal betrayal (the private wife and kids - 'traitor's gate' here ringing truer to me as a metaphor for the place where he commits his deed of personal betrayal and thus risks 'murdering' his love). At heart, then, the song seems to concern the moral depravity that can come with fame/wealth/power. If we want to grasp the song, translating the details of the narrative seem to me less pressing than isolating this, its thematic heart.

You can see where this would resonate with an EC who has systematically betrayed his high school sweetheart through debaucherous years on the road as a 'star.' But, being the artist he is, he doesn't write a diary entry, he refashions this experience into something more narrative, and (typically of him) connects his personal hang-ups to wider social and political concerns. His personal torment becomes generalized in the form of a vague and evocative story about the very personal corruptions that follow on the heels of power and fame.

The chorus is ambiguous. 'To murder my love' - 'love' as in 'his lover?' I'm inclined to think not; more 'love' in the sense of the emotion itself - and 'a man out of time' - meaning what? My first thought when I heard it was that he was one of these people better suited to another age ('born in the wrong century' as it were), but perhaps a more literal rendering (he has run out of time) makes more sense: much of pathos of the song centres on the idea of the jig being up. He's caught out for the fraud he is. So the chorus may be, in effect, saying: I don't want to have destroyed our love through my own betrayal, but now that I'm caught out, tell me - have I?
When man has destroyed what he thinks he owns
I hope no living thing cries over his bones
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Poor Deportee wrote:That's quite an interesting analysis. I'm not sure it really captures the emotional burden of the song, however, which is perhaps better unveiled by Costello's own account of being existentially lost at sea and self-disgusted while on tour. I am not particularly gifted at untangling the 'meaning' of songs (I tend to respond viscerally rather than cerebrally to the feeling in song lyrics), but fundamentally this song seems to trade on a core tension between public persona and personal betrayal.

The two are linked inasmuch as the protagonist carries off deception in both realms ('lying for the minister of state'), but the real shame resides in the personal betrayal (the private wife and kids - 'traitor's gate' here ringing truer to me as a metaphor for the place where he commits his deed of personal betrayal and thus risks 'murdering' his love). At heart, then, the song seems to concern the moral depravity that can come with fame/wealth/power. If we want to grasp the song, translating the details of the narrative seem to me less pressing than isolating this, its thematic heart.

You can see where this would resonate with an EC who has systematically betrayed his high school sweetheart through debaucherous years on the road as a 'star.' But, being the artist he is, he doesn't write a diary entry, he refashions this experience into something more narrative, and (typically of him) connects his personal hang-ups to wider social and political concerns. His personal torment becomes generalized in the form of a vague and evocative story about the very personal corruptions that follow on the heels of power and fame.

The chorus is ambiguous. 'To murder my love' - 'love' as in 'his lover?' I'm inclined to think not; more 'love' in the sense of the emotion itself - and 'a man out of time' - meaning what? My first thought when I heard it was that he was one of these people better suited to another age ('born in the wrong century' as it were), but perhaps a more literal rendering (he has run out of time) makes more sense: much of pathos of the song centres on the idea of the jig being up. He's caught out for the fraud he is. So the chorus may be, in effect, saying: I don't want to have destroyed our love through my own betrayal, but now that I'm caught out, tell me - have I?

Exceptional take-I really appreciate your dissection of the 'chorus'- yes the'jig' is up. So many of his lyrics are couched in that dynamic of 'public' vs 'private' persona- as much as EC continuously disavows such readings in his liner notes- he frequently wants it both ways-"it is not me but yet it is". Anyway a solid calling out of one's self and one's actions and their public and private reverberations. God! that is one solid album still after all these years and listens. 8)
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
Wolverinefan
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by Wolverinefan »

Thanks very much for the replies - lots of good theories there and I'm still trawling through the other discussion thread.

Colin Top Balcony - very interesting stuff about Roberto Calvi and I can see why people might think the song is about him, even if the timing of the release of the record would seem to make that unlikely. So, a senior banker behaved badly, his bank collapsed and then he ran away in an effort to escape the consequences... some things never change! :roll:
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by Poor Deportee »

Jack of All Parades wrote:
Poor Deportee wrote:That's quite an interesting analysis. I'm not sure it really captures the emotional burden of the song, however, which is perhaps better unveiled by Costello's own account of being existentially lost at sea and self-disgusted while on tour. I am not particularly gifted at untangling the 'meaning' of songs (I tend to respond viscerally rather than cerebrally to the feeling in song lyrics), but fundamentally this song seems to trade on a core tension between public persona and personal betrayal.

The two are linked inasmuch as the protagonist carries off deception in both realms ('lying for the minister of state'), but the real shame resides in the personal betrayal (the private wife and kids - 'traitor's gate' here ringing truer to me as a metaphor for the place where he commits his deed of personal betrayal and thus risks 'murdering' his love). At heart, then, the song seems to concern the moral depravity that can come with fame/wealth/power. If we want to grasp the song, translating the details of the narrative seem to me less pressing than isolating this, its thematic heart.

You can see where this would resonate with an EC who has systematically betrayed his high school sweetheart through debaucherous years on the road as a 'star.' But, being the artist he is, he doesn't write a diary entry, he refashions this experience into something more narrative, and (typically of him) connects his personal hang-ups to wider social and political concerns. His personal torment becomes generalized in the form of a vague and evocative story about the very personal corruptions that follow on the heels of power and fame.

The chorus is ambiguous. 'To murder my love' - 'love' as in 'his lover?' I'm inclined to think not; more 'love' in the sense of the emotion itself - and 'a man out of time' - meaning what? My first thought when I heard it was that he was one of these people better suited to another age ('born in the wrong century' as it were), but perhaps a more literal rendering (he has run out of time) makes more sense: much of pathos of the song centres on the idea of the jig being up. He's caught out for the fraud he is. So the chorus may be, in effect, saying: I don't want to have destroyed our love through my own betrayal, but now that I'm caught out, tell me - have I?

Exceptional take-I really appreciate your dissection of the 'chorus'- yes the'jig' is up. So many of his lyrics are couched in that dynamic of 'public' vs 'private' persona- as much as EC continuously disavows such readings in his liner notes- he frequently wants it both ways-"it is not me but yet it is". Anyway a solid calling out of one's self and one's actions and their public and private reverberations. God! that is one solid album still after all these years and listens. 8)
Thanks, Chris. It's a strong record albeit not one that has ever fully roped me in - another case where the cerebral polish seems to rebuff me ever so slightly. But part of my problem may be that I have it in the 'first generation' CD version with all the dismal sound that that entails. I should have bought the remasters when I had the chance.

As for Man, there's some really nifty writing here. Consider

The high heel that he used to be has been ground down (wordplay foreshadowed by the reference to 'dead man's shoes' and echoed by 'footsteps' in the same verse)

or, my favourite self-pitying crack,

He stands to be insulted and he pays for the privilege :lol:

A classic bit of jaundiced Elvis, that - and one that neatly captures both the life of the politician ('standing for office') and the pop singer, perfectly suiting the ambiguities of the narrative.

The general worldliness of the lyric really builds on a tone or persona he first began to develop in Trust, one of decadent yet incisive sophistication. 'Clubland' really kicks this off, to my mind, while 'Beyond Belief' might be its apogee. Eventually it slides over into slightly ponderous and pious moaning about cultural mediocrity ('All this Useless Beauty'). But when it works, it really works.
When man has destroyed what he thinks he owns
I hope no living thing cries over his bones
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Jack of All Parades
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Poor Deportee wrote:
A classic bit of jaundiced Elvis, that - and one that neatly captures both the life of the politician ('standing for office') and the pop singer, perfectly suiting the ambiguities of the narrative.

The general worldliness of the lyric really builds on a tone or persona he first began to develop in Trust, one of decadent yet incisive sophistication. 'Clubland' really kicks this off, to my mind, while 'Beyond Belief' might be its apogee. Eventually it slides over into slightly ponderous and pious moaning about cultural mediocrity ('All this Useless Beauty'). But when it works, it really works.
Oh so true. I would only add that I think he continues it forward, powerfully focusing on the more personal aspect on "King of America" and "Punch the Clock" and into aspects of "Spike". What you note is a thesis I have spun around in my head for decades. Someday I would love to try to commit it to paper. This album also marks the apotheosis for me of that persona-allusions to Cole Porter[the urbane sophisticate] were made when it came out. If they hold, and I am amongst those who think they do, it is examples like you site that point the way. He makes the 'cad' so human and even agreeable by managing to 'pin' down and shed a lyrical 'laser' light on that individuals actions and morals and the repercussions they cause. That run from "Get Happy" thru "Spike" is one of extreme sophistication as EC works his way through the points you have made.

You are right as well to want to seek out the remastered IB, as well as others. They really pay off the investment.
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by GoonSquadP2 »

i tried to post this last Sunday but i wasn't able to get on to this board.

the calvi situation has come up yet again, with another scandal in the vatican bank.

when i found the above reference to EC and his exploratory song "man out of time" - i noticed that he is now calling himself the pope of pop
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by verbal gymnastics »

Wasn't the Pope of Pop one of his pseudonyms in 1985?
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by FAVEHOUR »

verbal gymnastics wrote:Wasn't the Pope of Pop one of his pseudonyms in 1985?
Yes. He was billed that way for a club appearance at the Chakadoobie Club in London in April of that year.
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by krm »

Pope of Pop add, as it was reprinted in Groothuizens going through the motions!
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Re: Man Out Of Time

Post by thepopeofpop »

"The Pope of Pop"? What a crazy pseudonym!

:lol:
--Paul--
Now put on your ironic dancing shoes
And dig my brand new rhythm and hues:
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