song interpretations

guidedbyvoices · Post by **guidedbyvoices** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 10:57 am

Is it uncool to ask and discuss what people take some of Elvis's lyrics might mean? I've been here over a month and don't see anyone discussing his lyrics and possible interpretations, and since his lyrics are so strong but sometimes just ambiguous enough, well, I just wanted to see if discussing them were taboo for some reason?

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 11:02 am

Not taboo so much as done to death. I'm sure no one would mind if you revived old threads, though.

guidedbyvoices · Post by **guidedbyvoices** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 11:21 am

Thanks! I'll look for some old threads first. Reason it popped into my head was 2 fold. I was breezing through a song interpretation site that took Alison too literally, the whole "I only know it isn't mine" they took to mean a baby. But I'd read recently someone else talking about it stting how brilliant the line "I only know you're loving some BODY I only know it isn't mine (ie my body)" and as much as I'd heard the song (and never felt the line meant a baby) I never thought about that, and it totally made me fall in love wit one of the most obvious EC songs all over again

SweetPear · Post by **SweetPear** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 6:58 pm

Now that my ipod is all loaded up it's so easy to listen to anything I want, anywhere I want. I've been listening to IB.......and Guidedbyvoices, you must have been reading my mind. I've been wondering about some of the lyrics to Man Out of Time that have always driven me crazy.

Without looking for the liner notes and such, what's this song about?
And more specifically~
What is a tupenny, hapenny millionaire
looking for a fourpenny one?

and

What does the line Just three french letters and a German sense of humour mean?

TheComedian · Post by **TheComedian** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 12:10 am

The Elvis Costello Home Page has a great resource for lyric references:

http://elviscostello.info/faq/lyrics.php

The Man Out of Time note from that FAQ:

Man Out of Time - 'French letters' is UK slang for condoms; "German
sense of humor" refers to someone who has no sense of humor.

'Dutch Courage' = military slang for using alcohol (gin in
particular) to muster up courage. Origins in the 1600s
when the British Royal Navy were surprised by losses to the
Dutch, and had to ascribe the military disasters to something.

The line "a tuppenny ha'penny millionaire looking for a fourpenny
one" is probably a reference to the Victorian bourgeois/nouveau
riche. A "fourpenny knee trembler" is Victorian slang for a
quickie with a prostitute.

"Are you looking for a fourpenny one?" is a UK expression
meaning "Your behaviour is likely to induce me to punch you",
so a fourpenny one is a punch (Paul.Kennett@taywood.co.uk)

Knightsbridge = fashionable district of London.
Traitor's Gate = in former times in England those
convicted of treason were beheaded and had their heads
displayed here at the Tower of London.
Contains allusions to Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five'
(jason@grendel.astr.cwru.edu)

scarpering = running away (strowger@dustbin.demon.co.uk)

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 2:46 am

Dutch anything is also likely to mean fake (e.g. Dutch oven, Dutch treat). I mean, that Navy story could also be true, or related, but it is a more general linguistic phenomen.

so lacklustre · Post by **so lacklustre** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 6:13 am

They are both right, it is false courage induced by alcohol.

SweetPear · Post by **SweetPear** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 6:14 pm

Really interesting....thanks guys (and girls).

This is so amazing to me about Elvis.....a song like MOOT, written (worded) like that with all the references and meanings....it just amazes me as to the reaches of his knowledge, despite all the experiences he's shared with us through his music. I mean, there's some stuff you just can't fake.

How 'accomplished' of a person do you think he is? I've read he's a news junkie and I know he hasn't a college education......what do you think?

Fishfinger king · Post by **Fishfinger king** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 7:10 pm

A lot of the differences you're discussing are just down to vagaries of geography and upbringing. As a late 40s Anglo Saxon male brought up close to London, EC's use of colloquiallism is just what I've always been used to. Looking for a fourpennny one has never needed an explanation for me. Surely you can over-analyse? Part of the appeal is the sense of not quite knowing what things mean. He's a clever writer of lyrics - isn't that enough?

SweetPear · Post by **SweetPear** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 9:03 pm

Yes, you're right, Fishfinger King, it's quite enough for me. I guess I just got carried away with my American imperialist thinking.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:26 pm

The liner notes on MOOT do give some detail on what the song is generally about, and I remember being gratified that the interpretation was in line with it, cos it is a dense and at times slippery song. Without digging out the detail, he was in a country hotel in Scotland, which I think had been used by a real politician embroiled in some affair scandal as a bolt-hole. Hence the idea of a politician on the run, 'so this is where he came to hide'. The lines of the chorus are quite odd, though, they almost seem like they come from another song, though perhaps it's just more the slipperiness of whose point of view we're exposed, which is something he often plays with to cleverly disconcerting effect. 'To murder my love is a crime' - sung from the politician's point of view? 'But will you still love a man out of time' - why 'but'? Which 'you'? 'Man out of time' - dislocated, out of sync.

I'm sure there are loads more interesting EC lyrics that haven't been discussed in the 2.5 years I've been a regular. GBV: over to you!

guidedbyvoices · Post by **guidedbyvoices** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:33 pm

So I keep forgetting to post this but forget.

Song #1 I'm curious about: Toledo

What does the thing about Spain's Toledo vs Ohio's Toledo have to do with the verses, which are about a one night stand? The best I can figure out is that to his wife (or whomever the primary woman is), originally he was the knight in shining armor, fancy citadel, and now that he cheated, he's Ohio.

alexv · Post by **alexv** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:58 pm

You can interpret these lyrics many ways, as EC endlessly points out. My take on the Toledo lines is that the song is about betrayal but also about the lovers' failure to connect with each other, so that it's difficult for the betrayed one to know about the betrayal. They don't connect, and the line about Toledo is meant to show how people in these two cities don't understand about the other's existence, i.e. no connection there either. It also allows EC to throw in a putdown of Ohio's Toledo by comparing it unfavorably (alas, correctly) to Spain's Toledo. I take the first reference to "anyone living in Toledo not knowing that their name doesn't carry very well" to mean those living in Spain not knowing that the name of their city is attached to an ugly, industrial midwestern city in the US.

pophead2k · Post by **pophead2k** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:13 pm

As a general response to a lot of interpreting of particular lines etc:

I know there are a lot of songwriters on the board, myself included. I'll be the first to say that some of my songs just have words or images that sound cool- but carry little, if any, literal meaning. Now I'm not in any way trying to compare my crappy little songs to Elvis' stuff- but having written more than 300 songs, I'd be willing to bet that he has more than his share of imagery for imagery's sake. Thus a neat turn of phrase doesn't necessarily carry a meaning that is integral to the overall meaning of the song. This would lead to his "everyone should get their own meaning from it" type comments. Just an idea- carry on!

guidedbyvoices · Post by **guidedbyvoices** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:09 pm

a couple people have mentioned similar things, so I just want to clarify...

My favorite band writes songs called Tractor Rape Chain & Burning Flag Birthday Suit, uses lines like "Light me bloodclot" or "I met a non dairy creamer" because they sound right instead of make sense. Or the Beatles "the movement you need is on your shoulder." So I get that not everything means anything. And I get that Elvis likes his lyrics impressionistic - what a song means is what it means *to you*.

My point here was to get other people's interpretations, not end all be all defining synopsises (synopsi?). I don't want the plot to Detectives written out, I like that it's vague. But something like Toledo, well, EC doesn't seem like someone who'd write a song like that and *not* want you to tie the chorus to the verse. Alexv had an interesting insight I'd never considered before, and it's stuff like that I'm looking for.

pophead2k · Post by **pophead2k** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:10 pm

Oh yeah- I think its a great thread and I'm always fascinated by what people interpret songs to mean. Don't get me wrong- its a great exercise. I've learned great things looking at what people think the songs mean. I guess I was just advocating a 'macro' as opposed to 'micro' view. Cheers!

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 5:39 pm

More thoughts on the Toledo chorus:

"It's no use saying that I love you" because those words have been overused and become a cliché far removed from their original meaning, like "Holy Toledo" (echoing earlier stuff like Pretty Words and Pidgin English, especially the outro)

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:32 pm

guidedbyvoices wrote:synopsises (synopsi?)

Synopses, like crises or analyses.

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 11:03 pm

GBV, don't hesitate to start a thread on any EC song and ask away.

so lacklustre · Post by **so lacklustre** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 4:03 am

Apart from Kinder Murder

.

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 5:56 am

We could have a debate about that one...

johnfoyle · Post by **johnfoyle** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 4:18 pm

http://diasinger.blogspot.com/2005/04/l ... ellos.html

Bobby Gilles

Lyric Analysis: Elvis Costello's (Everyday) I Write The Book
LET'S DO THIS:

Everyday I write the book - Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Don't tell me you don't know what love is
When you're old enough to know better
When you find strange hands in your sweater
When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

Chapter One we didn't really get along
Chapter Two I think I fell in love with you
You said you'd stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three
But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

The way you walk
The way you talk, and try to kiss me, and laugh
In four or five paragraphs
All your compliments and your cutting remarks
Are captured here in my quotation marks

And I'm giving you a long look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

Don't tell me you don't know the difference
Between a lover and a fighter
With my pen and my electric typewriter
Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel

And I'm giving you a long look,
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.

First let's look at the complex rhyme scheme. Costello shows us how to work outside the box of standard ABAB or AABB writing. The chorus is only two lines, AA (they rhyme with each other). By keeping it so short, it has enabled him to write more verses, yet he can still insert the chorus between each verse, hammering home his theme.

The first verse is ABBCD. But although only the second and third lines rhyme (BB) we get internal rhymes in lines four ("dreamboat/ footnote") and five ("mission/ editions").
The second verse has one less line than the others -- perhaps it could be called a bridge (although bridges usually occur toward song's end). No line rhymes with another, so we can say that the end rhyme scheme is ABCD. Costello isn't eschewing rhymes, though -- he provides an internal rhyme within each of the four lines.
The third and fourth verses are both ABBCC, slightly different from the first verse. In the third verse, we have another kind of internal rhyme: the last word of the first line ("walk") rhymes with a word in the middle of the second ("talk").

What we can take from all of this is the knowledge that songwriters are not so limited with rhyme choices as would appear. You have more choices than 1. rhyming at the end of each line, and 2. no rhymes. You can always forego end rhymes while still getting the qualities that rhyme brings by providing internal rhymes.

This is not a masterpiece -- it's gimmicky, and Costello would admit that. But it's a very good song, one that has been covered by many artists (I am most familiar with mandolin king Sam Bush's version). Tons of songs provide the same theme: someone is claiming to be the love of another person's life, even if the other has eyes for a lesser rival, or is in some way overlooking their true soulmate. But no one has said it quite like Costello in this little ditty.

So many clever lines:

"When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions"

Of course we've all been there (if you haven't, you're lucky or very young and inexperienced). We know how much love is in our heart, how much we care, how much we can give or perhaps have given. But the object of our desire has eyes for another, a "dreamboat," although that dreamboat is no more than a "footnote," a person of inconsequence who cannot match our devotion. Perhaps it is someone who is less of a spiritual match or has less in common with our beloved, but they look better, or drive a nicer car, or any number of superficial things. Costello captures all of this in one clever metaphor. He does much the same in the last verse:

Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel

How delightful! And how tragically true it often is in human relationships. We choose a blob of insignificance that comes in a pretty package over someone who could be the whole she-bang to us.

So what seemed to be a little gimmicky song turns out to offer some profound truths about the human condition. This is why Costello is an Artist Who Matters.

lostdog · Post by **lostdog** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 4:23 pm

Yuck.

stormwarning · Post by **stormwarning** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 6:21 pm

I'd like to see his analysis of Party Party.

"The rhyming pattern is AA, AA, AA, AA, AA, AA throughout. Costello, himself going through an alcoholic period of his life, was subconciously delivering the message, via a series of rhyming couplets which all focused on teenage drunkeness, that it was time to get professional help for his post-teenage alcoholism".

-- copyright Mr. S.Warning 2005

Hey, maybe I could do this for a living ?

johnfoyle · Post by **johnfoyle** » Sun May 01, 2005 4:38 am

http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/2005/04/29.html

Elvis vs. Reality (TV)
by
Dave Cullen

No, not talking about some ratings war. Not even talking about that Elvis. The good one, not the dead one.

Heeheehee. I actually like both elvi, but I never fail to snicker at the expression, and since Mr. Costello is so clearly the good-er of them, it sort of fits anyway.

Hennyway.

Elvis. Allison, specifically. One of his first songs and still one of his finest. Just belting out of my lungs out of nowhere over breakfast this morning. (Man, what's with me and breakfast today?) Must have been trigged by the Loving somebody title of my last post, but my memory really gets strong a couple lines later, with the tragic chorus:

Allison
I know this world is killing you,
Oh, Allison
My aim is true
My aim is true
My aim is true.**

That's a chorus that really demands to be belted, but then I had to quiet down with one of the verses:

Well I see you've got a husband now
Did he leave your pretty fingers lying in the wedding cake
You used to hold him right in your hands
Ah, but he took, all that he could take*

God, how I loved that part. Careful girl--or guy--he's only going to take so much.

But is he/she? Twenty-odd years now I have lived with that truism in my head, but I'm not sure I've seen it. So many old married couples together one or both of them still taking it on the chin. My parents for example. (I'll decline to comment here on who's taking, who's given. Luckily they never read anything I write, unless published in a reputable journal.)

Immediately, the reality shows sprung to mind. A little of Survivor, but particularly the Amazing Race. We have seen the most gruesome couplings, many of whom are not yet locked into the commitment, and who not only have the experience to warn them away, but a tape of the experience.

Who the hell gets that lucky? To see it documented in cold, hard videotape. He/she treats me like total crap. And/or he brings out the absolute worst in me. We're horrible together. We'd like to announce our engagement.

That's how these bitter mismatches all seem to end up.

Is it a perverse demographic? Perhaps the egomania inherent in so many people drawn to engage in reality shows and even more prevalent in those actually cast, carries with it the related gene of blindness to ones own strengths and weaknesses.

Plausible.

But the main value in reality shows has never been in proving phenomena, but illustrating it. The sample size is far to small, and the subject pool too distorted to prove anything. But the power to illustrate--I have found that to be quite extraordinary.

The data on couples taking it on the chin is all around us. But we quickly grow oblivious to the pervasive, like the oxygen we're sucking in this very moment. Elvis Costello wrote a song so powerful he convinced me to shut my eyes to the obvious for 20 years.

No. Most people don't reach their breaking point. Allison has been married to that poor sap my entire adult life.

Thanks, Amazing Race. I never would have seen it without you.

---

* There seems to be some disagreement on that last lyric line. The two sites I checked out had it differently, and both different than my ear tells me. So I went with mine. Alternates:

- But did you give more than he could take

- I bet he took all that he could take

The latter sounds a lot more likely--contestant #1 alleges three times the number of syllables actually pronounced by Elvis prior to the first 'he'--and #2's site came up first on google, but I refused to direct you to someone who spelled the freaking title wrong. In the title and throughout the song. (One l. You won't normally find me playing the spelling nazi, but this is Allison, for God's sake.)

---

**My Aim Is True.

Oh, to ever write a line that good, a title that great. Can't really ever hear that song without a long wistful reflection on the title. His very first, his very best.

(Which has always struck me more than slightly sad, too. Still my favorite Elvis album, far and away his best title, the opening line of the whole thing is one of my all-time favorites by anybody . . . Peaked a little freaking soon.)

(The line is, "I used to be disgusted /now I try to be amused." Save me, that one. Plus I get to snicker over the followup: "But since their wings have got rusted / You know the angels want to wear my red shoes." -- Thanks to Catastrophile for the heads-up on my lyric screw-up.)

Allison gets the song title, but that line captures the album title. Will I ever hear a line so sweet and so viscious at the same time? I could swear there was a third meaning, but at the moment, I can only find two: how earnest his intentions are, and how precise the aim of his gun. Man. Kind of gives me the shivers.

(Hey, sort of the theme of the bible, too, isn't it? Man, I've got God on the brain this morning. But isn't that the big tension of that book: the angry, spiteful God always threatening to smite you at any moment, and the kind, loving earnest God, whose intentions are always true?)

I know this world is killing you.