"Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)" / Elvis Costello

In these pandemic days, I find it easy to fall into an apocalyptic frame of mind. What if all those dystopian sci-fi movies about alien invasions are simply coming true, and the coronavirus is just a very special sort of alien? What if this was the plan all along: That we'd populate the world with suitable hosts, only to make ready for the Second Coming of the Microscopic Invaders?
 
In 1991, Elvis Costello proved eerily prescient in this track from the album Mighty Like a Rose, with a machine-gun patter of half-explained references and darkly insinuating imagery.

 It's paranoid as hell -- "The man in the corner of this picture has a sinister purpose" -- with  an insistent drum beat, minor key, and cacophonous background instrumentation. The focus is squarely on the observer: "Wake up zombie, write yourself another book," exhorting him/her/you/me "You want to scream and shout my little flaxen lout" ("waxen lout"/ "Saxon lout" in successive verses). And always that urgent refrain: "Hurry down Doomsday, the bugs are taking over."

You want End of Times? We'll give you End of Times in the middle eight:

Forget about Beethoven, Rembrandt and rock and roll 
Forget about Mickey Mouse, Marlboro and Coca Cola 
Forget about Cadillac, Mercedes and Toyota 
Forget about Buddha, Allah, Jesus and Jehovah

In other words, WIPE THAT SLATE CLEAN.

Years ago -- 1977 -- I had a dream that Doomsday was coming. I was living in England at the time, doing grad school, but the dream was a full-on reenactment of the civil defense drills of my Indianapolis grade school. (Duck and cover, run for the fallout shelter, because the Soviet Union is going to bomb us out of existence.) In my dream, the BBC issued a "kiss your asses goodbye" alert. Why on earth the USSR would be bombing the UK in 1977, I didn't stop to question. Dream Me felt 100% certain that this was The End.
 
So what did I do in my dream? 
 
I went for a walk among the Victorian streets of North Oxford, enjoying the spring blossoms on the trees, the birds twittering in the trees, the whole English at-last-winter-is-over gratitude. And I felt the weight lifting off my shoulders. That essay on Samuel Richardson that my tutor was waiting for? No need to write it at all. The do-or-die exams looming three months away? No need to study for them. The terrifying question of finding a job once I had my degree? Oh, honey, neither you nor the jobs will be here in a few hours.
 
And as I walked around in my dream, I felt so free, so relaxed, so relieved. So what if I never got my dream job? So what if I never married and had kids? So what if I never wrote the book that would be read for generations? None of it mattered. I was going to die in an hour or so -- so PFFFT!
 
I've never forgotten that extraordinary sense of peace.
 
And if the coronavirus comes for me now -- if the bugs truly are taking over -- let's just hope I can meet the Doomsday bugs with that same grace.

Stay safe, wear that face mask, be well.

"Oliver's Army" / Elvis Costello


This song just popped into my head around noonish today, Eastern Standard Time.  Seems as good a song to post as anything.

I was a huge Costello fan in 1979, when this song came out on EC's third album, Armed Forces. Well, I still am a huge Costello fan, but I was particularly keen in those years; I couldn't wait for this album to arrive. This track is still the biggest hit single Elvis ever had in the UK, though of course he wasn't primarily a singles artist. But you can see why it hit a nerve in Britain that year, in the dawn of the Thatcher years.

I originally assumed "Oliver" referred to Oliver Cromwell. In the Catholic schools young Declan/Elvis attended, Cromwell -- the harsh Puritan general who wrested power from the Catholic-favoring Stuart monarchy -- must have been painted as a villain.

However, I've later heard that Elvis also meant for Oliver to refer to Oliver Lyttelton, a Churchill crony who helped well-connected men avoid conscription in World War II because of their "usefulness to trade," thus throwing the burden of fighting onto poor unskilled men -- "the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne," all disadvantaged areas at the time.

Either way, it's an anti-war, anti-racism, anti-oppression anthem, inspired, Elvis says, by a visit to Belfast, where he saw in horror raw young boys patrolling the war-torn streets with automatic rifles on their shoulders.  "They always get a working-class boy to do the killing," as Elvis has put it. There's that startling line, "One more widow, one less white nigger" (a "white nigger" was a common term used by Belfast Prods to describe Belfast Catholics) and the couplet "But it's no laughing party / When you've been on the murder mile," Murder Mile being a slang term for a particular violent section of Falls Road in Belfast.

Of course, the song doesn't stop with Belfast.  That would be too particular. No, he wants us to see a bigger pattern, where this sort of thing also happens in Berlin, Korea, Hong Kong, Palestine, South Africa.  Mercenaries, gunfights, and retribution everywhere, while the politicians ordering the killing sit in their luxury office towers miles away, dictating memos and going out to steak lunches. Or, like Elvis and the Attractions in the video, on a tropical beach, being serving umbrella cocktails.

The genius stroke of it all?  Pairing these angry, cynical, allusion-crammed lyrics with a supremely catchy, jaunty radio-ready tune --a real ear-worm -- underlaid with Steve Nieve's sparkling keyboards, drenched in ABBA-like pop chords and arpeggios. You can't help singing along to a song like this -- and maybe shouting the lyrics a little more fiercely when you realize what it's all about. Speaking truth to power.

Today that refrain is haunting me: "And I would rather be anywhere else / Than here / Today."

Sigh.

"This Is Hell" / Elvis Costello

From 1994's Brutal Youth -- one of the many albums I missed in my apostate years when I wasn't paying attention to Elvis Costello.

Mea culpa, mea culpa.

Somewhere in Elvis's  UNINDEXED autobiography/memoir/apologia Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink (yes, I am that geek who's read all 672 pages) I seem to recall that he explains that this song was inspired by a visit to a ritzy resort with his then-wife Cait O'Riordan.  I could spend an hour or so looking it up, but why? The song stands as it is -- and as it is, it's a Dante-esque vision of our modern inferno.

Despite the crunchy dissonance at the beginning, this is a seductively sprightly track, with twinkly splashes of piano and perky tom-toms. "This is hell, this is hell I am sorry to tell you / Never gets better or worse / But you'll get used to it after a spell / For heaven is hell in reverse." But whoever said the devil wasn't an upbeat con man?

We start out in a nightclub, with pouting barmen and a flickering neon sign. At one end of the bar, there's a "failed Don Juan in the big bow-tie" making leering advances; at the other end, our protagonist is making an equal fool of himself: "The shirt you wore with courage and the violet nylon suit / Reappear upon your back and undermine the polished line you try to shoot."  

Well, I'm that EngLit bore who has read Milton and Dante and C.S, Lewis -- and I have to say, EC's vision of Hell is totally in line with the EngLit view of things. Wherein Hell is not just Technicolor flames and physical torments, but also the crippling moments of self doubt--or, as Elvis puts it, "It's the small humiliations that your memory piles up."

And it can happen even in what seems like paradise: "Endless balmy breezes, perfect sunsets framed / Vintage wine for breakfast and naked starlets floating in Champagne,"  (Yes, now I see the resort in this song.) But if something's missing inside you -- in this case, if "the passions of your youth are tranquilized and tamed" -- then even paradise can feel like Hell.

The line that's lodged in my brain on an endless loop? This brilliant couplet: "My Favorite Things is playing again and again / But it's by Julie Andrews and not by John Coltrane." I'm flashing to the great 1967 Stanley Donen film Bedazzled (please, forget the 2000 remake), where the darkly brilliant Peter Cook plays the Devil, and whenever things go rogue, what's his safe word? Julie Andrews!

You can't tell me that my man Elvis hasn't seen that film. I know he has. Just as I know he is intimately familiar with Coltrane's track

So what are your favorite things? Elvis is asking you to choose. What's heaven for you, and what is hell?

And knowing that you may have to live with your choice for at least four years.....

Summer Shuffle June 2016

First of all, I'm freaked out that it's 2016. But I'm moving past that, truly. And offering a panoply of tunes to make your June celebratory to the nth degree. 

1. I'm On an Island / The Kinks
From Kink Kontroversy (1965)
Oh, my man Ray Davies, the presiding genius behind the Kinks. And here, even as early as 1965, he was sectioning off the experiences.  I've heard that he will only ever sing this song on Iceland, the island for which he wrote this tune. Damn, I have a whole cabinet of Icelandic experiences, but Lord if I don't want to go to Iceland ONLY to hear Ray sing it.

2. Wake Up / Alan Price
From Rising Sun (1980)
Alan, you'll never know how much of my life was devoted to chasing you down, But here's a taste -- and a pretty good tune to connect to your iPhone alarm.

3. Man in the Bottom of the Well / Bill Kirchen with Elvis Costello
From Word to the Wise (2010)
Elvis, Nick, Bill. Need I say more? I cannot help but dig those majestic riffs, climbing out of the depths of whatevs..

4. Mondays / Killer Tuesday / Black Uhuru
From Liberation: The Island Anthology (1993)
I do love the random logic of the shuffle. Because how else would we get this exTREMEly copasetic track, which does go on and on, but hey, what else did you have to do with your time?

5. I Swear I Saw Christopher Reeve / Jill Sobule   
From Dottie's Charms (2014)
A Midwestern interlude, courtesy of my girl Jill. Who seriously I just. I've never been there but I know the place like the back of my hand. Check it out.

6. Staten Island Baby / Black 47
How much do we love Larry Kirwan's celebration of the Irish-American  experience?

7. Islands in the Stream /Bonnie Raitt and Nick Lowe
Oh, Bonnie my girl. I so love you. And yet -- you sang this with Nick? I can't even.

8. Birds in Perspex Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
Quirky -- yeah, that's the RH thing.

9. Fire Island / Fountains of Wayne
How much do I love this deeply resonant, yet laidback track? This sums up summer to me.

10. House of the Rising Sun / The Animals
Lord. So much began here. Honor paid to Eric Burdon's iconic voice, but also to the rest of the Animals (including oh yes my hero Alan Price.)

Happy birthday, Elvis Costello!

My Top 25 Elvis Costello Lyrics

So why am I still an Elvis Costello fan, thirty-seven years after that fateful day when I first heard This Year's Model?  (I still owe you, Craig.)

Because I'm a lyrics girl -- and this guy's lyrics still wriggle inside my brain pan as few others do. 

Puns? yeah, he's a punster supreme. But it's more than puns; it's nuance, and allusiveness, and a novelist's nose for character conflict. Every one of these tracks is a finely tuned short story, for those of us willing to devote a morsel of imagination to filling in the blanks.

Oh, and yeah, he gets a pretty solid musical groove on too.

So here are the lyrics; click on links to see previous posts about these songs. (I TOLD you this guy runs deep with me.)  And if you're curious, I'm sure there are YouTube videos of all of these. C'mon, peeps, do I have to do all the work?

________________

And though the passion still flutters and flickers, it never got into our knickers – "Just About Glad" (Brutal Youth 1994)

Don’t get smart or sarcastic He snaps back just like elastic Spare us the theatrics and the verbal gymnastics We break wise guys just like matchsticks.  – "The Loved Ones" (Imperial Bedroom 1982)

I wish that I could push a button and talk in the past and not the present tense And watch this hurting feeling disappear like it was common sense. – "Brilliant Mistake" (King of America 1985)

You either shut up or get cut out, they don’t want to hear about it, it’s only inches on the reel to reel, and radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools trying to anaesthetize the way that you feel – "Radio, Radio" (This Year’s Model 1978)

Why do you talk such stupid nonsense, when my mind could rest much easier?  Instead of all this dumb dumb insolence I would be happier with amnesia – "Riot Act" (Get Happy! 1980)

Let me get this straight -- Did I hallucinate this fine and helpless feeling? – "When Did I Stop Dreaming" (North 2003) 

I was down upon one knee, stroking her vanity -- "Big Boys" (Armed Forces 1979)

I woke up and one of us was crying. – "I Want You" (Blood & Chocolate 1986)

Just look at me, I’m having the time of my life, or something quite like it. – "London’s Brilliant Parade" (Brutal Youth 1994)

Charged with insults and flattery Her body moves with malice Do you have to be so cruel to be callous? "Beyond Belief" (Imperial Bedroom 1982)

So you knock the kids about a bit because they’ve got your name -- "Little Palaces" (King of America 1985)
 
I can’t stand it when it goes to reel to reel, too real too real, I can’t stand when I get those punch lines you can feel – "B Movie " (Get Happy! 1980)

In a perfect world where everyone was equal, I’d still own the film rights and be working on a sequel – "Every Day I Write the Book" (Punch the Clock 1983)

Your mouth is made up but your mind is undone. – "Accidents Will Happen" (Armed Forces 1979)

I’ll build a bonfire of my dreams and burn a broken effigy of me and you -- "Indoor Fireworks" (King of America 1985)

I’m in a foxhole, I’m down in the trench, I’d be a hero but I can’t stand the stench – "Opportunity" (Get Happy! 1980)

I want to chop off your head and watch it roll into a basket. – "Senior Service" (Armed Forces 1979)

I don’t know if you’ve been loving somebody, I only know it isn’t mine – "Alison" (My Aim Is True 1977)

And you know what I do, when the light outside changes from red to blue – "Motel Matches" (Get Happy! 1980)

She’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake – "Watching the Detectives" (My Aim Is True 1977) 

You can’t show me any kind of hell that I don’t know already – "Hand In Hand" (This Year’s Model 1978)

But it’s easier to say “I love you,” than “yours sincerely,” I suppose -- "Big Sister’s Clothes" (Trust 1981)

You lack lust, you’re so lackluster, is that all the strength you can muster? – "Possession" (Get Happy! 1980)

Sometimes I think that love is just a tumor, you’ve got to cut it out – "Lipstick Vogue" (This Year’s Model 1978)\

AND THE ULTIMATE ELVIS COSTELLO LYRIC IN MY HEAD:

I don’t wanna be your lover, I just want to be your victim – "The Beat" (This Year’s Model 1978)
 

And yours?

My Favorite Albums of 2014

Vanishing Act /
Edward O'Connell

I've been a fan of this guy's work ever since I happened across his 2010 album Our Little Secret. What a pleasure to find this new installment of his trademark wordsmithery and power-pop songcraft. Here's a taste:

I've always been a sucker for laid-back rock waltzes, a particularly apt choice for this regret-soaked song about a relationship that can't live up to its promise. O'Connell can work a metaphor like nobody's business, and he masterfully threads imagery of a magician act throughout -- the blindfold, the smoke and mirrors, a "trick to amaze and astound."  He wraps it all up in the chorus:

The years disappear
But is love hiding near
In a heart where it needs to be found
Let nobody see that we're bound
To burn the ropes, 
Break the chains and then kill the magician 
There's no point in wishing 
For a curtain to pull back 
If our love's a vanishing act.

Let's call the whole thing off, in other words, but he uses his own verbal prestidigitation to soften the blow. 

The thing is, it isn't just clever word play, it's intimately tied to hard-won wisdom about how love can slowly veer off the rails, racking up disappointment after disappointment, souring and curdling until there's nothing left. Yes, O'Connell's voice and singing style bear an eerie resemblance to Elvis Costello, and you know in my book that's a huge plus.  But whereas Costello's early deft word play was sometimes empty cleverness, O'Connell's always reflect some psychological acuity.  Music for Grown-Ups, to the nth degree.

Early Elvis was bitter and sometimes downright mean;  O'Connell instead has a gently weary persona of the sympathetic loser, the good guy who's been unlucky at love.  It's a bit of a magic trick to combine that wittiness with true-hearted yearning, but he masterfully pulls it off, track after track -- and it's immensely satisfying.  Engaging head and heart -- that's not so easy to do.  Kudos, Mr. O'C.

"Big Sister's Clothes" /
Elvis Costello and the Attractions

When Trust came out in early 1981, I felt let down. Considering how I'd loved all his previous albums, why did this one leave me baffled and a little bored?  Had Elvis lost his gift, or was it me who'd changed?

A bit of both, I suppose. Maybe it was time to move on. At any rate, I didn't listen to it nearly so much as his others. (Even today, I'm likely to get confused and think that "Watch Your Step" and "From A Whisper to a Scream" are from Armed Forces and "You'll Never Be a Man" is from Get Happy!)

On the Rhino re-issue's wonderful liner notes, Elvis himself claims that there were way too many drugs in the picture when he made this record. Recycling past sounds was no doubt an easy out when inspiration ran dry. But 30 years or so down the road, it doesn't matter any more which albums the songs were on, or whether the arc of his career was consistent. I've since learned that half the joy of being an Elvis Costello fan is watching him get lost in left field for a while, knowing (as I know now) that he'll eventually wander home. 

And since I've been singing "Big Sister's Clothes" in my head all day, might as well give in to it.

  
In keeping with the cynical, jagged tone of Trust (talk about ironic titles), "Big Sister's Clothes" begins and ends with an ugly, grating sonic crunch. When I play it in my head, though, I leave that part off -- it doesn't really seem to belong to the song.

Instead I find myself hooked on its perky syncopated tempo, the beguiling hoarseness of Elvis' vocals, the understated arrangement (it's almost folky), and of course EC's playful trademark puns. Lines like "She's got eyes like saucers / Oh you think she's a dish" or "The sport of kings, the old queen's heart / The prince in darkness stole some tart" or "With a hammer on the slap and tickle" (rhymes with sickle, as in the old USSR hammer-and-sickle logo) -- Elvis never could turn away from a clever pun.

But now that I think about it, the part that's always stuck with me is the chorus. It starts off in a cheery major key, just like the verses -- "But it's easier to say 'I love you'" -- but then shifts into a darker minor key on the second line: "Than 'Yours sincerely,' I suppose." It's as if he's wading into moral ambiguity, and digging up some murky depths indeed. He notes, "All little sisters / Like to try on big sister's clothes," then as he ominously repeats "Big sister's clothes," it sure doesn't sound as if this game of dress-up is all that cute or innocent. It sends a chill through me every time.  

At the time, I assumed this song was about Elvis's first wife, a marriage heading for the rocks. But now I can pick up a political dimension that an American like me wouldn't have gotten at the time: It's really about Margaret Thatcher, who'd just come into power. The woman he's singing about is a hard-hearted hypocrite -- "Compassion went out of fashion / That's all your concern meant," a pretty prescient remark considering what happened in 1984 when the Iron Lady clamped down on the coal miners' strike.

It's pretty muddled satire, though; I'm not sure that "getting" the references would have helped make me like the song any more. (It's interesting to note that this is the only song on the album that producer Nick Lowe refused to put his name to. I would really like to know the story behind that.)

And in the end, all I need is that magic key shift in the chorus to keep me humming it 30+ years down the line.

52 GIRLS

Three Veronicas

Three girls named Veronica -- but oh, how different they are.

"Veronica Sawyer" / Edna's Goldfish

Let's start with the outlier. Edna's Goldfish -- now, sadly, defunct -- was a ska band from Long Island, active 1997-2000, part of the US ska revival that gave us Catch-22, Less Than Jake, and Reel Big Fish (who liked this song so much they did a cover of it).

Though ska is essentially an urban sound, this song's pumped-up tempo and crisp jittery horn section perfectly capture suburban teen restlessness. The kid's looking out his window, he's pacing around his yard, he's cruising the boulevard, he's trying to get into the cool parties. The chorus takes us through the dreaded weekend, from Friday night through Sunday morning, underlaid with that propulsive ska beat. "Just waiting for the afternoon so I can be a kid again..."

So who is Veronica Sawyer? For all you pop-culture mavens, she's the character played by Winona Ryder in the 1988 cult classic Heathers, one of the scariest movies ever made about vicious high-school social cliques. Veronica was the one queen bee smart enough to see how evil it was -- but it almost took her down, too. She may not be a character in this song's scenario, but her story hangs over the whole thing, a cautionary tale indeed.

"Veronica" / Wreckless Eric

So what happens after high school?  If you're the sort of lovable loser that usually populated Wreckless Eric songs, you join the army and get shipped out. And then you miss the girl back home.

In true Stiff Records style, this 1978 track from Wreckless Eric's second UK album The Wonderful World of Wreckless Eric, is defiantly rough and handmade. Eric Goulden's mumbling guttural snarl wasn't vicious like the Sex Pistols or the Clash could be, but it definitely didn't sound like polished pop. And therefore, it was a lot easier to believe that this really was a sad sack private sitting miserably in some barracks, maybe in Northern Ireland, kissing Veronica's picture.

She's not much of a sweetheart -- she's not writing him back, for one thing: "There's been no messages for me from a girl by the name of Veronica." She's not even "my Veronica" -- how well did he know her? (Later he sings, "I don't need a note to know she could be friends with me" -- is she just a pen pal?) Yet he insists "I'm going to this war / I'm gonna fight for my Veronica." Whether she knows it or not, she's become a beacon of home in his mind.

With a howl of sexual frustration, he sings, "I wanna hold her / But I can't because I'm a soldier"  and later, repeatedly, "I'm a soldier, bang bang / I really want to hold her." (Nice double-entendre with that "bang.") That's most of the song, really. The melody isn't much, lines ending randomly on unresolved chords. He doesn't give us any picture of the girl -- "she's my angel" is about the extent of it -- for all we know, he doesn't even remember what she looks like. But his longing, his loneliness, and his terror of the near future? Those are all crystal clear.

"Veronica" / Elvis Costello

Elvis may have been a cynical New Wave punk, but what happened when in 1989 he had a chance to work with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney? Like any of us would, he leapt at the chance. The result was, I now learn to my surprise, Elvis's biggest selling US hit, boosted no doubt by endless re-runs of this video on MTV (remember when MTV could make or break a record?). 

This EC/Macca Veronica is anything but a teenage beauty queen -- she's more like, oh, I don't know, maybe Eleanor Rigby. (Coincidence? I think not.) Stuck in a nursing home, drifting in dementia, in her memory she's still a hot number. "Well she used to have a carefree mind of her own / And a devilish look in her eye." Listening patiently, he pieces together bits of her poignant past: "Well it was all of sixty-five years ago / When the world was the street where she lived / And a young man sailed on a ship in the sea / With a picture of Veronica." Elvis says the song was inspired by visiting his own grandmother in a nursing home -- not the usual stuff of pop hits.

Just as in "Eleanor Rigby," the verses are storytelling patter while the chorus swells and rises wistfully. "Do you suppose, that waiting hands on eyes, / Veronica has gone to hide?" She's like a little girl playing peek-a-boo, happily adrift in her second childhood, untouched by the indignities of the nursing home. "And all the time she laughs at those who shout / Her name and steal her clothes? / Veronica / Veronica." I love how he repeats her name, more urgently the second time, trying to get through to her.

The snappy tempo, the syncopation -- it's far more upbeat than you'd expect from the subject matter, but then, the movie in Veronica's head is pretty lively.  At least as her grandson Elvis imagined it . . . .

26 DOWN, 26 TO GO -- HALFWAY THERE!

52 GIRLS

"Alison" / Elvis Costello

Might as well get this one out of the way. C'mon, you knew I couldn't leave out my Elvis.
 
From his 1977 debut album, My Aim Is True. After all these years, it's amazing to realize that this guy was this good this early.

The intro's spangly riffs are so disarming  -- on an album full of punchy quasi-punk revved-up tracks, "Alison" is what passes for a slow song.  How casually he starts out: "Oh, it's so funny to be seeing you after so long, girl," as if he's just run into her on the high street, shopping at Marks & Sparks.

But tension immediately rears its head-- "And with the way you look I understand that you are not impressed."  Can't you just see her narrowed eyes, her crossed arms?  There is definitely some history here. And, wouldn't you know, he's got some ammunition ready to shoot back: "Well I heard you let that little friend of mine / Take off your party dress." Elvis turns vicious real fast. Oh, the note of betrayal and jealousy, made specific by that flirty little dress. Do we not see that seduction, replayed every time this song comes on the stereo?  Ladies, do we not feel the dirtiness of the sequined straps sliding off our shoulders, the ominous whzzt of the lowered zipper?

"I'm not going to get too sentimental / Like those other sticky valentines," Elvis declares, high-mindedly, but he didn't need to -- we've already guessed that sentiment is off the table. And with a deft bit of word play, he lands another accusatory jab: "I don't know if you've been loving somebody / I only know it isn't mine." What a ball of emotion there -- jealousy, loneliness, hurt, a little voyeurism maybe. (Soon as he uncouples some and body, I instantly focus on the body part.) And the way the melody hovers uncertainly on "isn't mine" -- heartbreak.

And in verse two, it gets even worse -- because, hello, she's not just sleeping with other people, she's married another guy. Don't be fooled by the conversational cadence as he sings "Well I see you've got a husband now." Casual again, eh? But the next image is almost dadaesque: "Did he leave your pretty fingers lying in the wedding cake?"  (I've never looked at a wedding cake the same way since I first heard this line.) Hear how he punches the consonants with vitriol. "You used to hold him right in your hand," he speculates -- a hand job? -- followed by "I'll bet he took all that he could take." He's torturing himself, imagining their pre-marital hook-ups with salacious curiosity. Did they get married because she was knocked up? Elvis makes us wonder. It would certainly make him feel better to think they were forced into it.

Now here comes my favorite part of the song. Shifting upward in key, he bursts out: "Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking / When I hear the silly things you say." The way he hits that word "stop" -- it's like he's slamming his fist into a wall. (I've seen him sing this in concert and completely stop the song on that word, for a least a minute, while the audience goes wild.) He does want to hurt her; the veneer of civilization is perilously thin. And there's a dangerous undercurrent to that next line, too -- "I think somebody better put out the big light." My mom used to talk about turning off "the big light" in a room, meaning the ceiling light, but I imagine Elvis is threatening something else -- maybe even killing her, putting her out of her misery, "'cause I can't stand to see you this way." (Elvis later wrote a song called "The Big Light," on King of America, in which it means a blaze of sudden comprehension and clarity.) He's a master of using sly metaphors to vent dark emotions without committing them openly. Whatever he meant, that line is indelibly engraved in my mind.

Indirect as it is, there's a story here. I picture Alison as the most normal sort of popular pretty girl -- maybe a little loose (she did succumb to his dress-peeling friend), yet not a slut. And not stuck-up, I'm guessing -- chatty, friendly, nice enough, at any rate, to have given young Elvis a reason to count himself among her "valentines." But did they ever sleep together? I bet not; his jealousy has all the power of unsatisfied lust. And now she has slipped away from him, into a normal pretty girl marriage to a guy who's probably perfectly decent, despite Elvis's petulant insinuations to the contrary.

No, she isn't a mere slut -- if she were, Elvis wouldn't be feeling so hurt. And hurt he is indeed, betraying his vulnerable heart in those tender, yearning, desperately sweet choruses. EC could always play the bespectacled geek card, hoping the girls would mistake his nerdy look for sensitivity. "Alison / I know this world is killing you / Ohhh, Alison / My aim is true." In other words, why didn't you pick me instead? And for just a minute, hearing how earnestly he wails her name, even I am seduced. 

But not so fast, Alison. "My aim is true" -- such a perfect bit of double-speak. (So perfect he took it for the title of the whole album.) Sure, his intention is true-hearted, but he's also a dead-eye sniper of love, and he will take her down.

Poor girl.

1 DOWN, 51 TO GO

"Opportunity" /
Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Like Elvis Costello -- a.k.a. Declan MacManus -- I was too was "born in the middle of the second big baby boom," and as soon as he sings that opening lyric he has me. 

This sublime 1980 album, Get Happy,  was conceived as Elvis' tribute to the Stax sound, and he gets pretty close, with Steve Nieve doing his best Booker T on the organ and Bruce Thomas doing a pretty fair Donald "Duck" Dunn on the bass. But like a lot of Elvis's music-geek tributes, it's a slightly self-conscious bit of homage, and the references are solidly 1950s U.K.  But does that bother me?  Oh no it does not.  That makes me like it even more.





Despite the relentlessly perky syncopation and all those chipper organ fills, is this a paranoid little song or what? The chorus, yanking anxiously back and forth between two notes, sums it up: "They shop around / Follow you without a sound / Whatever you do now / Don't turn around." A child of the Cold War, Elvis has that paranoia down stone cold, and I realize listening to this song that I too still kinda conduct my life under this assumption.  Because why not?

And poor Elvis -- all he wants is a little love. In verse one, he's "looking for a little girl, / I wonder where she's gone." After all, in Austerity England, it's his civic duty to procreate: "Big money for families having more than one."  Give the kid a break -- he's just operating as expected.

This being fairly Early Elvis, however, there's no way his Love Object is going to be anything but a ballbusting vampire.  "She was sitting pretty on a velvet cushion / But her bedroom eyes were like a button she was pushing."  Watch out, Elvis!

And soon enough, in the bridge, we get the obligatory love-as-battlefield metaphor: "I'm in the foxhole / I'm down in the trench." Excuse me, but only a kid who grew up in the shadow of a World War would leap so easily to that terminology.  And yet, he's enough of a postwar generation to admit "I'd be a hero, but I can't stand the stench." You'd be surprised at how often those lines jump to mind for me.   Trust me, they fit a lot of situations.

Later verses lose sight of the theme, as Elvis can't resist following a trail of puns and up-ended cliches -- "The Fitness Institute was full of General Motormen" (cross reference the "physical jerks" of "Living in Paradise" on This Year's Model). Still, isn't this why we love Early Elvis? Here comes one of my favorite Elvis lines, for reasons I cannot explain: "The chairman of this boredom is a compliment collector / I'd like to be his funeral director." Countless times these lines have gotten me through boring meetings where I smile and make nice, while in my heart of hearts I know perfectly well that I am NOT a stooge of the Corporation. Herein lies the value of rock and roll.

Is this a major song? No it is not. Is it even a major Elvis Costello song?  No it is not.  But the minute I hear it I am transported, not just to 1980 but to some weird out-of-time dimension where Elvis Costello and I are on the same bizarre wavelength.

This is a song woven deep into my musical DNA, for reasons I cannot even begin to analyze. And when it comes up on my shuffle?  The world falls away, and it's just me and my pal Declan, being paranoid together to a Memphis beat.

The End of Summer Shuffle

Okay, so we've still got a week before Labor Day puts the white shoes back in the closet. Personally I am more than ready to kiss this summer goodbye. Now how about a little traveling music?

1. Antwoman / Robyn Hitchcock
From Jewels for Sophia (1999)
Time to usher in the weekend by blissing out to this surrealistic tone poem, with its fuzzy guitars and raga beat -- "being just contaminates the void," Robyn announces in his ironical Cambridge twang, and you are free to take him seriously or not, at your pleasure. And here enters the voracious and elegant Antwoman, "with her Audrey Hepburn feelers / And her black and white stripes . . . " What does this song mean? If you have to ask . . .

2. Warm and Sunny Days / The Dears
From No Cities Left (2003)
This is how they do indie pop in Montreal -- lushly jazzy and just a wee bit melancholic. Warm and sunny? Well, maybe by Canadian standards . . . But I've gotta say, I could spend a lot of time relaxing by the pool to this one.

3. You're Gonna Miss Me / 13th Floor Elevators
From The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (1966)
And with this one song, Roky Erikson and company invented Trip Rock, lo these many years ago. Brilliant! Love the Durango-like guitar strums. "You're gonna wake up wondering . . . "

4. Secondary Modern / Elvis Costello and the Attractions
From Get Happy!! (1980)
And now, pow! "This must be the place, / Second place in the human race, / Down in the basement / Now I know what he meant . . . ." Ah, the flip side of a British high school education. Drunk on puns, romantic rancor, and Stax soul, Declan and the boys never made a finer album; it's planted deeeeep in my musical DNA. Dig the syncopated petulance of this line:  "Nobody makes me sad like you / Now my whole world goes from blue to blue." Perfecto.

5. My Shadow / Keb' Mo'
From The Reflection (2011)
Get your hips moving to this one. I love how Keb' weaves Delta blues, a little jazz, and indie lyric sensibility. Right on the threshold of losing that girl, still baffled by her desertion -- aw, Keb', she ain't worth it! (Groove on that organ chord progression, like dark movie music. The Shadow knows!)

6. When I See That Girl of Mine / The Kinks
From The Kink Kontroversy (1965)
Wonderful little raw demo -- this is why we love reissues with bonus tracks. Back then, Ray was still trying to peddle his songwriting; Bobby Rydell eventually recorded this tasty little number, but I could definitely hear the Beach Boys doing it. So it's not "Waterloo Sunset" or "Come Dancing" or any of Ray Davies' most iconic and personal tracks -- it's still a jewel of a pop song, full of adolescent yearning and insecurity. If all you can listen to is Bobby R.'s version, try to imagine it with Ray's warbly North London twang -- it's incredibly sweet.

7. Lady Grinning Soul / David Bowie
From Aladdin Sane (1973)
Monumental, heartbreaking -- so many thanks to my Kinks pal Mark for asking me to blog about this one.

8. Film Noir Angel / Johnny Hoy & the Bluefish
From Film Noir Angel (2006)
A tasty shot of Martha's Vineyard dieselbilly, courtesy of train guru Brian. You've gotta trust a music friend who only gives you three music recommendations in  five years and they are all dead on perfect.

9. Com Trol / Bill Lloyd
From Boy King of Tokyo (2012)
Okay, now I'm feeling guilty that I haven't yet written about this delicious new album. I promise I will!  But here's a lovely teaser, with that wacky satiric edge that makes Bill Lloyd's pop music so much damn fun.

10. It's AWonderful Lie / Paul Westerberg
From Suicaine Gratification (1999)
Aw, I was just thinking about how much I love Paul Westerberg, on a recent trip to his hometown of Minneapolis (I have been doing way too much heartland traveling this summer.) And then up dials this acoustic charmer, its brave shrug underlaid with a world of devasting hurt. "It's a wonderful lie, / I still get by / On those . . .. " Don't we all?

The Friday Shuffle

Big summer weekend coming up -- so here's a little music to get you started....

1. Black Lincoln Continental / Nick Lowe
From the sadly out-of-print Pinker and Prouder Than Previous (1988)
"There's only one way to the American dream . . ." Nick throws some rockabilly swing into this Graham Parker-penned gem -- whoohoo! I'm not sure who was backing him on this track, but I bet anything those organ riffs are Paul Carrack, doubled by Kim Wilson on harmonica, and Martin Belmont (who'd played with Graham himself in the Rumour) on guitar. YepRoc/Demon, please reissue this album!!!

2. Picture Book / Ray Davies & the Crouch End Choir
From The Kinks Choral Collection (2009)
I know some Kinks fans thought this album turned old Kinks material into Easy Listening Schmaltz, but I disagree. I think most of it worked beautifully, especially the stuff from the Village Green Preservation Society album. Give the link a listen and see what you think...

3. Blue as Blues Can Get / Chris Farlowe
From As Time Goes By (1995)
Overshadowed by Van Morrison and Eric Burdon, British white soul singer Chris Farlowe never got much exposure Stateside, which is a shame. He shows off his mellower side on this great Delbert McClinton cover -- tasty! 

4. Leaving the City Behind / Georgie Fame
From Georgie Fame (date unknown -- I bought the vinyl LP in 1974...)
Couldn't find a sample for you to listen to -- so I made a video. Because you need this song to play as you drive out of the city for your July 4th celebration. Dig the back-up singers, and those coolcat brushed drums. Pop shading into jazz (portents of Georgie's future direction), and what a light touch Georgie had on the keyboards! 

5. Don't Stand Too Close To Me / The Police
From Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)
No trouble finding this monster MTV hit from the dawn of the 80s. Who could resist that predatory bassline, or the reckless smash of Stewart Copeland's drums.  Sting, the former school teacher, writing about a schoolgirl stalking him -- or is it the other way around? "It's no use, he sees her / he starts to shake and cough / just like the old man in / that book by Nabokov" --  hee hee hee!

6. Sour Milk-Cow Blues / Elvis Costello
From Goodbye Cruel World (1984)
EC's slyly "updating" the old Sleepy John Estes blues song, covered by the Kinks in 1965, with Dave Davies on lead vocals, on The Kink Kontroversy (you can't tell me that Elvis wasn't thinking of that track). But Elvis's song is much meaner (whoa, big surprise) raking some girlfriend over the coals for who knows what imagined grievance. Gee, it was hard to love Elvis for awhile there.

7. Lost in a Dream / Shivaree
From Who's Got Trouble (2005)
Ah, the shivering vocals of Ambrosia Parsley (can that really be her name?)  Deliciously woozy and spooky little track.  Too bad this band broke up -- they had a great distinctive sound...

8. Take Off Your Uniform / John Hiatt
From Slug Line (1979)
I always imagine a diner waitress in a pink uniform, a la Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. JH is still in his Costello wannabe phase in this song, and he's probably satirizing something else -- women in the military? -- but I dig the image of him romancing that diner waitress when she gets home, and I'm sticking to it. 

9. The Reason Why / Ron Sexsmith
From Long Player Late Bloomer (2011)
Philosophical Ron, still searching for the meaning of life. Or what if there is no meaning, he wonders in this song, "as I glance up to indifferent skies" (an obvious "Big sky" reference -- I know Ron is a huge Kinks fan).  So why not just "let the path go hungry / And head at last to country / Or a small town away from here"?  Another getaway tune for your weekend!

10. Angel / The Wood Brothers
From Loaded (2008)
Aw, I love these guys, and I love the way they transform this Hendrix song.  What a great note to end on!

SATURDAY SHUFFLE

A lovely summer night -- crickets chirping, night breezes whispering -- time to blast it all open with some rock 'n' roll!

1. This Is Where I Belong / Ron Sexsmith
From This Is Where I Belong: The Songs of Ray Davies (2006)
Probably the best collection of Kinks covers I know, with dynamite tributes from Fountains of Wayne, Fastball, Minus 5, Yo La Tengo; best of all, this was the album that first introduced me to the work of Bill Lloyd and of Ron Sexsmith, both of whom have since landed several albums in heavy rotation on my music players. Ron delivers this early Kinks tune with such earnestness, I just had to hear more. And that's how it all started...

2. Next To You / Tim Easton
From Ammunition (2006) 
Here's another bit of serendipity -- I discovered Tim Easton through this track on a New West Records sampler, that I picked up who knows where.  Just goes to show you should always listen to those samplers.  I love his slightly scratchy voice, the harmonica, the loping rhythm of this track; sometimes the simplest expressions of love ("Just let me be next to you / I want to understand . . . ") are the best.

3. Look a Little on the Sunny Side  / The Kinks
From Everybody's In Show Biz (1972)
One of my first Kinks albums, Show-Biz holds a special place in my heart; to me, every track is a winner.  Here we get campy Ray mincing about this bouncy little tap dance (that old music hall influence), innocently (HA!) describing the vagaries of the music business. And I do mean vagaries: "Sing 'em the blues and then they ask for a happy tune / And when you start to smile, they say / 'Gimme the rhythm and blues,' and when you  / Give 'em the rhythm and blues, they simply smile and say / 'We didn't want to hear you play, we didn't like you anyway.'"  Well, that's the Kinks' career in a nutshell, no?

4. Keep This Party Going  / The B-52s 
From Funplex (2008) 
I was really sorry that this recent B-52s CD didn't live up to those great 80s albums.  I can't quite figure out why -- this is a fun number (I bet it's a hoot live), but it lacks that extra wackiness that made them the quirky dance queens of New Wave.  All the elements are here -- Cindy and Kate's almost offkey harmonies, Fred's lounge-lizard rapping, over an insistent dance-party rhythm track -- but it just doesn't measure up. Thank god we've still got The B-52s, Whammy!, and Cosmic Thing...

5. I'll Follow the Sun  /  The Beatles
From Beatles 65 (1965)
Okay, I know this now appears on a CD called Beatles for Sale, the British version knocked out in a hurry for the Christmas 1964 sales season.  But the American album I grew up with was Beatles 65, and I played that baby so much, the album cover is now only held together with masses of stiff masking tape. And this little folker is one of my top tracks from this album, a standard-issue kiss-off song sung with that special tender Paul McCartney charm.  "One day / You'll look / And see I've gone / But tomorrow may rain so / I'll follow the sun."  Those odd climbing intervals, that alternation of short lines with a long fluid phrase, and then he reverses it:  "And now the time has come / When so my love / I must go / And though I lose a friend / In the end you will know / Oh oh-oh oh.."  Sheer instinctive genius.

6. Road Trippin'  / Red Hot Chili Peppers
From Californication (1999)
Proving that even a psych-punk-funk bunch of skateheads from California could turn out yearningly beautiful folk-rock -- with strings, even! -- so wistful it'll break your heart.  I like most everything of RHCP I've heard, but to me this album stands head and shoulders above the rest.  One of my favorite albums of the 1990s. Granted, the 1990s, but still...

7. Love Is an Outlaw / Tom Gallagher
From Age of the Wheel (unreleased)
The early and untimely death of my dear friend Tom Gallagher prevented him from ever getting the audience he deserved.  His unreleased album is full of superb tracks like this, with its lazy, loungy beat, plangent guitar riffs, winsome melody, and sage lyrics.  I'm happy to email this track to anybody who's curious: it's how we keep his memory alive.

8. Big Boys / Elvis Costello 
From Armed Forces (1978)
Another Iconic Album for me.  And this song has so many great lyrics, from that opening "I am starting to function / In the usual way"  through " to "Worrying about your physical fitness / Tell me how you got the sickness" and "I was down upon one knee / Stroking her vanity."  So what if it's more clever-sounding than truly wise?  He's drunk on allusive word play, and to me that tempers the Angry Young Man cynicism with his giddy enthusiasm.  I love the thrusting bass and drums giving him his marching orders, and those Steve Nieve organ riffs? Perfection.

9. On a Promise / Fine Young Cannibals 
From Fine Young Cannibals (1985)
The hoarse soulful voice of Roland Gift, matched with the English Beat's David Steele and Andy Cox -- well, Fine Young Cannibals had all the right elements lined up, that canny mix of R&B and ska and New Wave smartness. "She Drives Me Crazy" is IMO one of the best songs of the 1980s, but it was a pretty solid debut album all around, as this brooding track attests....


10. If I Said  / Colin Blunstone
From Echo Bridge (1996)
So what was Colin Blunstone doing all those years between being in the Zombies and being in the Zombies again?  Lots of things, but this solo album is perplexingly lovely -- it should have been a big hit.  This guy has one of these greatest voices in pop music; it's just heartbreakingly beautiful (yes, and sexy as hell).  Sure, he loads it up with reverb and romantic production values, all strings and maracas and a sax solo in the middle eight. It should sound cheesy, but it doesn't, because Colin Blunstone can sell wistful yearning like nobody else in the biz.

(Nearly) WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Back again by popular demand -- for this week at least!

1. Flying / The Beatles
From Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Okay, so it's mostly an instrumental, and a woozy, loungy romp at that, full of organ and bass. But I love it when the Beatles break in with those lusty "La la la las," dissolving into that space-age scrum of random noise--psychedelic, man!

2. Senior Service / Elvis Costello
From Armed Forces (1978)
Vicious jerky rhythms on the verses, insinuating legato choruses, and a riff that roars up the scale like a fighter jet taking off--wowza!  Tons of Angry Young Man aggro here: "I want to chop off your head and watch it roll into the basket . . . ." Nasty as hell, but this song is SO much fun to dance to.

3. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go / Madeleine Peyroux
From Careless Love (2004)
Sometimes I don't even want to hear Bob Dylan's original versions of certain songs. I am quite happy to leave this one with Peyroux's exquisite finger-snapping cover--it's like skipping through Paris with Django Reinhardt in my head.   

4. Gasoline Baby / Marshall Crenshaw
From Jaggedland (2009)
Very few instrumental tracks make the cut onto my iPod, but somehow Marshall's always do. I like to imagine he dreamed this song up while he was at the self-service pump one day -- okay, there's  singing, but it's just variations on "Gasoline baby, gasoline girl, gasoline baby, suck it on down" over and over, with rat-tat drums and a wash of brilliant guitar riffs. Any excuse to listen to Marshall play guitar!

5. I Knew It All The Time / The Dave Clark Five
(1963 single)
Hard to believe this song was just four years before "Flying." One of my fave DC5 numbers, though, with those pounding heartbeat drums (Clark always kept himself high in the mix) playing against a lonesome harmonica. I even love those growly vocals, though it's hard to believe that's Mike Smith. Could it be Dave took over lead vocals on this one?  Anybody?  

6. Love Attack / James Carr
From You've Got My Mind Messed Up (1966)
Same era, but oh, what a different sound! Memphis soul, a slow-dancing seducement that was James Carr's second hit single, peaking at #21 on the R&B charts.  Think Otis Redding with a little extra honey...

7. 36 Inches High / Nick Lowe
From Jesus of Cool (1978)
Oh yeah, and while he was producing Armed Forces for Elvis, Nick Lowe also tossed off his own brilliant LP, lighter on the anger but just as witty. Nick always tucks in a few covers--just to keep himself humble--in this case a Jim Ford gem delivered in lazy, smoky style. It's like he's sitting in a rocking chair, spinning tales of his past as a soldier, a tax man, a king, and why he's only 12 inches high I don't know, but I believe the operative word is "high."

8. Planet of Weed / Fountains of Wayne
From Traffic and Weather (2007)
And speaking of high...how much fun is this track? That fuzztone guitar, the clink of glasses, voices murmuring in the background: It's a ready-made party, in two minutes and 46 seconds. "We've got magazines to read / We've got Doritos to eat / So lay back on the couch / And kick up your feet" -- why, yes, I think I will.

9. Hangin' Your Life on the Wall / Guy Clark
From Dublin Blues (1995)
One of the great storytellers, and totally underrated.  Here Guy duets with Ramblin' Jack Elliott on a wry-but-wise Verlon Thompson song. Like two cracker-barrel philosophers, they recall foolhardy past glories -- as lover, bullrider, baseball player -- chuckling as they push back their Stetsons and put their boots up. "I used to be forever chasing firetrucks / I sure could raise me some hell" -- emphasis on the past tense.

10. Kansas City / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (compilation)
Must be my day for sorta-instrumentals. For years, all I knew was the Beatles' cover of this Leiber/Stoller standard, but now that I've heard Doug Sahm's swinging version--dig that horn section!--I'll never go back. Only problem is, there's just not enough of Doug's soul-shivering singing on this track.  I always want more Doug.

SUNDAY SHUFFLE


First of all, a belated happy birthday to psych-folk-punk troubador and all-around free spirit Robyn Hitchcock.  And now, let's welcome spring!

1. I Feel Fine / The Beatles
From Past Masters, Vol. 1 (compilation)
Ah, 1964 -- the Beatles were in their heaven and all was right with the world.  That jangly lead guitar riff, just slightly behind the beat; John's insinuating vocal, hovering chromatically above an uneasy 7th chord; that alternating backstop of harmonies, in lush major-key resolution -- it wasn't simple, but it was exciting. Does this guy really feel fine?  Maybe, but he doesn't trust it, which is why he keeps repeating "you know, she said so" and "I feel fine."  And what an opener: that single guitar note, warping into feedback (an early version of the "Hard Day's Night" chord strum?) -- they had us at hello.  

2. Good Vibrations / The Beach Boys
From Smiley Smile (1967)
Genius, sheer genius -- a scant three years after "I Feel Fine," and music had traveled light-years. As I said here, one of the great singles of all time. Forty-four years later, it still hits it out of the park. 

3. Alienation's For the Rich / They Might Be Giants
From They Might Be Giants (1986)
Proving once again that there is a place for accordions in rock music.  I love Flansburgh's drunken growl and howl here, the strangled cry of a common working stiff.  Watching Spanish TV, drinking Miller Hi-Life -- nope, he's not alienated or nothing.   

4. Seven Miles an Hour / Marshall Crenshaw
From Miracle of Science (1996)
I like to think of this as Marshall's answer to "Expressway to Your Heart" -- he's stuck at work, watching the clock, longing to get home to his girl (or at least someone he hopes will become his girl). Except when he leaves, the traffic jam he's caught in isn't on a Philly roadway, but on the crowded sidewalks of New York. Ever try to walk fast in New York at 5pm? I can manage about four miles an hour, tops; he's doing seven, AND playing a killer guitar riff.  Please, if you listen to only one song on today's shuffle, listen to this one.

5. Wintertime Blues / John Hiatt
From Master of Disaster (2005)
A jaunty little street-corner buck-and-wing from Johnny H., full of pickin' and grinnin'. But man, can I relate: "There's no spring, there was never any spring / Spring's a long gone thing, there won't never be a spring no more / At least that's the way it feels when your skin is cracked and peeled / And you've been livin' under 60 pounds of blanket and the snow's driftin' up to your window.."  

6. Spiderman / Jill Sobule
From California Years (2009)
Now here is a delicious little bit of Hollywood whimsy -- pair this up with the Kinks' "Hollywood Boulevard."  Our singer's dressed up as Spiderman, riding the L.A. subway to work (no one's ever on the train, of course), working the crowd outside Grauman's Chinese. I love the amiable guitar strum, like something out of a 50's Western.  A sweetly etched cameo about the death of American dreams, the sort of thing Jill does better than almost anybody.

7. Out of Time / Chris Farlowe
From Out of Time (compilation)
Now we're jumping back in time, to 1966, when Chris Farlowe scored a UK hit with this Stones song (lucky they shared a manager).  But oh, what a great blues voice he had. "You're out of touch, my baby / My poor old-fashioned baby / Oh, baby, baby, baby you're out of time."  Of course, in the end he's blowing her off (I told you it was a Stones song), but at least Farlowe sounds a little regretful. Dig the "Soldier Boy" strings in the intro.

8. UK Jive / The Kinks
From UK Jive (1989)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- even weak Kinks albums are full of gems.

9. Down Among the Wines and Spirits / Elvis Costello
From Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane (2009)
Elvis goes old-timey Americana, Dobro and steel guitar and mandolin and all.  What saves this is a tap dancing syncopation that helps him stuff in way more words than any bluegrass song would ever need.  But hey, it's Elvis -- Elvis always needs a lot of words. And it's worth it for a verse like, "Down among the wines and spirits / Where a man gets what he merits / Lives with the echoing words of their final quarrel / The vacant chamber / The empty barrel" -- well, there's a whole novel right there. 

10. Right Now For You / Al Kooper
From I Stand Alone (1968)
Starts with an exploding grenade and gunfire, then a swell of spooky orchestration, heard as if in the next hotel room -- a tasty sliver of this unjustly neglected masterpiece album by Al Kooper. I suppose this is the sort of record that led to the over-produced crap of 1970s prog rock; still haunts and mesmerizes me, though.