I quote the above because I am simply amazed when I listen to "You Tripped At Every Step." It actually strikes me as a rather unusual Attractions performance-- I can't really think of another song they've done that's quite like it-- which makes it all the more amazing that they got it so perfectly on the first attempt! It might well be that this is the single best recording the full Attractions did during their brief 90s reunion-- powerful yet restrained, and full of wit. Bruce, Pete, and Steve are all just so amazing, if you listen to this on headphones you can really hear the way they are all at the top of their game. (Then, of course, there are EC's amazing multi-tracked vocals, a technique that he mostly abandoned after this record, though it was a staple of nearly every record before this. I wish he'd start doing this again, but now that he seems to regard studio recording as something to be done "live" and as quickly as possible, he seems to have lost interest in crafting his own harmonies, preferring the capable work of Davey or Jim Lauderdale. They're great, but somehow there's something magical about the way EC sounds when he sings along with himself. Those early records get a lot of their vocal oomph from the sheer number of Elvises you hear singing...)Unlike their rowdy past, the four musicians treated each other with Alphonse & Gaston courtesy. Clearly each was determined not to be the one who started the fight that broke up the group again. They went into the studio, picked up their instruments and began playing a song called “Distorted Angel.” The first run-through felt tentative. Elvis expressed doubts about Steve’s rather baroque piano part, so for the second take Steve moved to organ. They counted off and quickly landed on something close to their beloved Armed Forces style. Elvis busted a string a few bars in but they kept going.
Listening to a playback, Steve sat off in the corner silently, Bruce and Pete were very enthusiastic, and Elvis had doubts. He said he wondered if in going for a great sound they’d lost the song. Bruce dug a cassette demo of the tune out of his bag and they all expressed amazement at how much slower it was than what they’d been playing. The lyric (about the shame of a little boy who gets caught playing doctor with a little girl) had gone from a poignant lament to a mad jumble.
The producer conceded that the sense of the song had been lost, but that sound was so great... Elvis wondered if there wasn't a way to have both. Looking for that compromise they tried cutting a version with Elvis playing the first verse accompanied only by his acoustic guitar—to establish the story—and the Attractions crashing in on the second. They next tried that same approach with Pete drumming a sort of Egyptian pattern behind the acoustic verse. That went nowhere. Elvis asked Bruce to calm his hyper bass part; Bruce did but on each subsequent take it regained a bit of frenzy. The Attractions kept trying to bust out and Elvis kept trying to hold them down. Finally Pete said loudly, “I thought we were making a rock record!”
Elvis said, “It can rock without losing the meaning of the song.”
Then the courtesies kicked in again — Elvis asked Steve if he was sick of playing the tune, Steve said not at all. Another take and then Elvis asked Pete if he wanted to go on to another number. Pete said no, no,it’s fine. Finally they finished a take that everyone pretended to like and pronounced the day’s work done. The pressure off, they started playing a tricky song called “You Tripped at Every Step,” nailing it perfectly on the first take. From there on, the recording sailed along. “Distorted Angel” was sacrificed for the sake of getting the band past its opening jitters and into their rock ‘n’ roll shoes.
Looking at that first day of recording now, Costello says, “We played like idiots ‘cause everyone was so anxious to get it right. We were trying really hard and everybody was really, really positive and trying to keep on a really up note, but the truth is we were playing really badly because we were playing too hard. When we do that the sound just closes down. We’re aware of it; the harder you hit the drum the smaller it actually sounds, and the bass gets very pointy and you hit the guitar so hard it becomes just distorted white noise—you can’t hear any tone. It was just that everybody was excited.”
Pete Thomas says that the fact that the band nailed “You Tripped at Every Step” on the first take was crucial to morale. “Mitchell just came on the talkback and said, ‘That’s it,” Pete recalls. “When we all stood there listening to it, it couldn’t have been more perfect. It was a real lift for everyone. I think everyone’s little problems fell away and there were four very thrilled chaps looking at each other. That doesn’t happen very often.”
Does anyone else love this song as much as I do? I always felt that it could've been a hit follow-up single in the UK if they'd filmed a decent video for it.
