I Want You

[when i was cruel]

Sorry if it turns out that this is redundant but how do we feel about one of his most realized songs ever ? Plus has anyone ever heard Steven Page's cover of it with the Art Ensemble ? If you wanna hear a super creepy version, that's the one to look for. I would post it but it would be illegal.

[johnfoyle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG2mqgms3yM

[Neil.]

I think the original Elvis version is a great recording, great vocal, great playing... but I almost can't bear to listen to it, because it addresses the madness of sexual jealousy so well: it's a horror song more than a love song. So though I couldn't actually say I 'like' the song, I think it's a brilliant piece.

Wow, this Steven Page version has some great instrumentation on it. Not sure his voice is up to the crazy flipout bit, but perhaps it doesn't matter!

[when i was cruel]

Yeah his voice has slightly declined, SLIGHTLY ! Since he did all those drugs he kind of went a little wayside on the vocals.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Interesting cover. Give me Elvis's voice (as noted, especially wen it intensifies), but I do like the arrangement. And it's so totally Elvis's song, hearing it by someone else make you hear it somewhat more objectively. It is an astonishing piece of writing. I would almost never listen to the recording these days, but there was a time when I couldn't get enough, in a certain mood. It is fully realised, as you comment - few songs capture an intense psychological state so vividly. Didn't the chump Bruce Thomas say something nauseating about finding it embarrassing in the studio to hear Elvis expose himself this way? Can't find a ref.

It comes into its own when you see him play it live. I'll never forget the moment in the Hammersmith Apollo on Sept 13 2002 when it seemed the show was over with Pump It Up but then he embarked on IWY, his face picked out in a small beam of light. I swear I didn't breathe till it was over. The power of this was brought back to me when having an anticipatory chat with a colleague recently about seeing Elvis here in May, and he said the only time he'd seen him before was Bristol Colston Hall, Nov 21 1994, when he opened with it. Wowee! He said it was mindblowingly powerful. Few artists could have such an effect.
http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... 1994-11-21

[when i was cruel]

I just realized what a dick Bruce Thomas is for that, it is pure emotion how is that embarrasing ? I would like to say that I've seen him live but I never have... One day.

[redsfan720]

The recording of the song is masterful. It's brutal, haunting, lurid ... astonishing.

[Ulster Boy]

For me, it became a great song when I heard it live at the Royalty in 1986. He changed the vocal, going high and anguished on the "did you call his name out as he held you down?", and then finished off with the off mic, no band vocal.

[History History]

I just realized what a dick Bruce Thomas is for that, it is pure emotion how is that embarrasing ?

I recall seeing Elvis performing this song live as Bruce was taking the piss behind his back.

[Wolverinefan]

Well, if that's the sort of thing Bruce used to do on stage no wonder Elvis doesn't want to work with him anymore - what a moron! I read somewhere that when Elvis and the Attractions were inducted into the Hall of Fame, a journalist asked Elvis whether he and Bruce would be playing on stage together at the event. Apparently Elvis gave a reply along the lines of "No, I only work with professionals!" Says it all really.

Back on topic, this song is just extraordinary and when Elvis played it at Cornbury recently it was absolutely spellbinding. They used a sort of echo effect on some of the vocals, which created a kind of surround sound effect. At times it felt as though Elvis was actually just behind us, singing the words over our shoulders. The audience was deadly quiet and many of us were swaying from side to side in unison, getting totally lost in the moment. The performance was almost hypnotic and by the end it almost felt like a drug induced trance.

This song is intense, erotic and at times disturbing, but it's also totally captivating. If it were a film it would need a double X certificate!

[Wolverinefan]

The recording of the song is masterful. It's brutal, haunting, lurid ... astonishing.

Forgot to say, beautifully put, redsfan.

[Poor Deportee]

This song is really the apotheosis of the persona that defined the first half of EC's career. (He has not quite been able to develop a convincing replacement persona for Elvis 1.0, but finally seems to be settling into a sort of spiky version of The Beloved Entertainer, informed by, but not defined by, the kind of sneering self-loathing that fuels this masterpiece). Anyway: absolutely a great track, one of the greatest of his entire career, brilliantly executed on record as well as live...a riveting excursion into a disfunctional emotional and mental landscape.

Did you call his name out as he held you down??

ranks with one of the most unsettling, climactic (ahem) moments in his canon. And in general, unlike earlier 'stunt' songwriting exercises (such as the appalling pun on 'final solution' in 'Chemistry Class'), this isn't just EC being outrageously precocious - this number really does fuse the masterfully sophisticated with the exceedingly visceral. Generous and inarticulate? Not exactly!

[Wolverinefan]

PD, you write beautifully. I have to confess I only recently discovered this song, because until this year I had only been a casual fan of EC, having enjoyed his singles many years back, but never having bought any of his albums until recently. (I feel somewhat embarrassed admitting all that, amongst such hard core, long term fans, but there's no point in trying to fake it around here!)

I also like the previous post where somebody said the song was more of a horror song than a love song - for me it's both. Speaking as a woman, I think that if somebody had written that song about me and performed it with such intensity, I'd probably be very flattered but fairly frightened too! You could use the song as the key piece of a modern day opera, which culminates in a crime of passion. Hell, it's a mini opera in itself in some ways, in much the same way as Bohemiam Rhapsody was for Queen.

So, as a relative newbie to much of EC's vast back catalogue, what other songs would you recommend to me?

[Poor Deportee]

There's definitely an undercurrent of violence in the song...but for my money it works best as a tour through the mind of a tormented and demented cuckold rather than a murderer. The latter scenario takes it too far into the realm of melodrama. I tend to think of most of EC's disfunctional narrators as fantasizing about power, control and violence rather than actually commanding these - this is truer to their basically self-loathing and impotent nature, part of what makes them so rivetingly pathetic and, it must be said, resonant.

As for other songs to recommend...the list is long and I'll bet this thread now turns into a bunch of lists. To forestall that I'll make a single suggestion: 'Suit of Lights' from King of America.

[Wolverinefan]

Recently came across this extraordinary version, sung by Fiona Apple, with EC accompanying her on the guitar:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=rela ... AJ2HK2Epqs

What an amazing performance and EC must rate her highly, to let her sing it. Fiona looks so intense, so totally disturbed that the phrase bunny boiler doesn't even begin to describe how she comes across, but at the same time it's a brilliant renditon. For me the original still has the edge, but even so this cover is pretty imressive.

[veronicacostello]

I found what has become my favorite live performance of I Want You - footage from the "Tim Festival" on YouTube.
It starts of as nothing super special but at about 3:00 or so it takes off. It's about 10 minutes in length


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6pkW23vpKM