The Music Next Door...

#29 Elvis Costello - ‘Pump It Up’

“Out in the fashion show / Down in the bargain bin / You put your passion out under the pressure pin / Fall into submission / Hit-and-run transmission / No use wishing now for any other sin”

Mr. Macmanus has created loads of great music over the years (even if I find his current Americana fascination a bit tiresome), but he has never created anything better than this. That pummeling organ riff is brilliant, and combined with his increasingly angry vocals, it just works perfectly. It’s quite shocking to compare this song to the stuff he was doing only a year earlier (‘Less Than Zero’, etc.) to realise how far he had come as an artist.

#42 Elvis Costello and the Attractions - ‘(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea’

“She gave a little flirt, gave herself a little cuddle / But there’s no place here for the mini skirt waddle / Capital punishment - she’s last year’s model”

Brilliant - almost perfect. Snide and acerbic. The drum fill intro, the faux-reggae bassline, that wonderful guitar hook. Amazing.

#46 Elvis Costello - ‘Radio Radio’

“I wanna bite the hand that feeds me / I wanna bite that hand so badly / I want to make them wish they’d never seen me”

Costello released a string of brilliant singles in the late ’70s, and this is one of the best. Clover’s adequate, but rather limp backing from his first album is replaced by the muscular, garage-ish pub rock of the Attractions - the abilities of which are exemplified on this single by Bruce Thomas’s agile bassline and Steve Nieve’s amazing organ work.

As per usual, Elvis’ lyrics are just perfect, acerbically (and somewhat ambiguously) capturing the love/hate relationship so many of us have with the radio.

#61 Graham Parker and the Rumour - ‘Discovering Japan’

“As the tears dropped sideways down her face / I woke up talking in the tongue of a different race / And as the flight touches down my watch says 8:02, but that’s midnight to you”

This single is amazing. The riff is perfect. The lyrics manage to convey a kind of ambivalent nostalgia without ever coming across as trite.

I find it rather unfortunate that Parker never reached anywhere near the levels of success and notoriety that his pub-rock contemporary Elvis Costello did.

#67 Elvis Costello - ‘Less Than Zero’

“Calling Mr. Oswald with the swastika tattoo / There is a vacancy waiting in the English voodoo”

Elvis Costello really dislike fascists, it would seem, judging by the number of songs he recorded in his early years covering this subject. Of those, this is probably the best (or at least the catchiest). The lyrics make reference to Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, a party that managed to gain a substantial degree of popularity prior to World War II. He was also the father of Max Mosley, the former F1 CEO who was caught engaging in concentration camp-themed orgies.

Anyway, it’s kind of shocking that a song this good was performed with backing by Clover, who would go on to basically become the News to Huey Lewis (urgh).

Also, Bret Easton-Ellis’ first book is named after this song. It isn’t very good.