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Rating: I have always had a controversial relationship with Elvis Costello, I've loved all his contemporaries (Joe Jackson, Graham Parker, Andy Partridge, for example) or at least I was able to form a more or less definitive opinion about them... but not about him.
For days I've been re-listening to many of his albums, appreciable, varied, and well-played but... but they're missing the songs! In most cases, they're nice but nothing more, such criticism does not touch the lyrics, often admirable, as Paul McCartney says Costello is "wordy," a stream of words...
A partial exception for "My Aim is True" or "Imperial Bedroom," complete instead for "Punch the Clock"... which I find truly spot on. A small POP masterpiece, unique in its genre, although for some it recalls similarities with the Madness of the period, especially for the use of horns.
Costello has never sung better than on this record, he even makes a simple "la la la la" enjoyable, but everything fits here.
Many songs are little classics, the horns, the piano, the bass, the drums all top, the production... even the vintage cover!
Many classics, certainly "Shipbuilding" perhaps his best track ever but also the two singles and "Pills and Soap."
This album was my first approach with Costello, after delving deeper I never managed to fully appreciate him again, also because I bought a compilation and this is often the wrong way to deepen the knowledge.
It always leaves me with a sense of incompleteness or rather you appreciate the tracks when you listen to them, but afterward, you don't remember them anymore.
Not Punch the Clock! It remains one of my favorite albums of all time.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
02 Everyday I Write the Book (03:53)
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
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
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 longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday
Everyday I write the book
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 longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday
Everyday I write the book
Everyday, everyday, everyday
Everyday I write the book
Everyday, everyday, everyday
Everyday I write the book
Everyday, everyday, everyday
Everyday I write the book
06 ShipBuilding (04:53)
Is it worth it
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boy's birthday
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon we'll be shipbuilding
Well I ask you
The boy said 'DAD THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE ME TO TASK
BUT I'LL BE BACK BY CHRISTMAS'
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of this shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture postcard
Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyards
And notifying the next of kin
Once again
It's all we're skilled in
We will be shipbuilding
WITH ALL THE WILL IN THE WORLD
DIVING FOR DEAR LIFE
WHEN WE COULD BE DIVING FOR PEARLS
10 Mouth Almighty (03:05)
This town belongs to you and your tricks of confidence
All the pavements for miles around are littered with your footprints
Now every girl I get close to seems to be wearing your perfume
And the clock strikes the letters of your name
Both midnight and noon
But I used to shoot my mouth off
Till you'd had enough of me
Once or twice nightly
I know I've got my faults
And among them I can't control my tongue
But if you didn't believe me
Why did you have to leave me
With my mouth almighty
Mouth almighty that's what I've got
Mouth almighty telling you what's what
Mouth almighty
I wish I'd never opened my mouth almighty
so I threw away the rose and held onto the thorn
Crawling round with my crooner cufflinks and my calling card cologne
But the realization of being replaced starts to tell tales across my face
Without a soul to talk to or a hair out of place
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