portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Friday, December 29, 2023

Elvis Costello ‘Everyday I Write The Book’ : Retropopcult

Records Bought When They Came out no.369



A work of genius IMHO but read on from retropopcult




this is fascinating . . .  found in the ex-jukebox bins when it came out ( I couldn’t afford to get it anywhere else! but it was a picture sleeve, as was my I Don’t Want to Go To Chelsea) still playable today!



"Everyday I Write the Book" is a song by Elvis Costello, from Punch the Clock, an album released in 1983 by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.  

It peaked at #28 on the UK Singles Chart and was their first top 40 hit single in the US, peaking at #36 on the Billboard Hot 100. 

Costello said "Everyday I Write the Book" was "a song I wrote in ten minutes almost as a challenge to myself. I thought, maybe I could write just a simple, almost formula song and make it mean something. I was quite happy with it and tried to do it in a kind of lovers-rock type arrangement and I wasn't happy with it and then ended up putting this other kind of rhythm to the song, which was written originally as a kind of Merseybeat knock off...I invested less emotionally in it than any other songs from that time yet it's the one that everyone warmed to." 

The music video was directed by Don Letts and has been called a "classic MTV hit" and features footage of Elvis Costello and the Attractions performing in a studio with female backup singers Claudia Fontaine and Caron Wheeler dressed in African clothing. Their performance is mingled with footage showing celebrity lookalikes of Prince Charles and Princess Diana of Wales, Charles incongruously doing household chores and Diana watching television in a middle class home.  Costello later commented he had "no idea" of the reason for the interspersed royalty scenes, which were, he says, the director's idea.


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