Today’s slow drag is with “Watch Your Step,” from “Trust,” released in 1981. The songwriting is credited to Elvis Costello. Presented in a cadence that seems to compliment a hangover’s preferred volume, the level and restrained, “Watch Your Step,” takes us through a day in the life. Every day, every night, right up to the goodbye. Don't say a word / Don't say anything Don't say a word / I'm not even listening I read in the papers about their escape They're just two bitter kids from a bunch of sour grapes You better watch your step Whether directed either inward, outward, or a at an angle, the admonishment to watch your step serves many purposes and is difficult to argue against. Who are these sour grapes that the bitter kids are from? With such a keen metaphor, it doesn’t seem to matter much; just know you’ve been warned. And the rhymes; anything/listening, escape/grapes. These combinations come from the fifth major album of Mr. Costello’s career, the fifth in a span of four years, mind you. The roots of his poetic genius were showing right from the start. Watch who's knocking on your front door Now you know that they're watching What are you waiting for? Think you're young and original Get out before They get to watch your step Door/for/before, and a bevy of “you” thrown in for fun, the rhymes are clever and the scheme isn’t rigid; this verse leaves a lovely paranoid and indestructible quality in its wake. The first verse advised to watch your step, now it’s someone else watching it for you, whoever this “you” is, you think you’re young and original. Who hasn’t needed to get out before we’re found out? This line is cutting and recognizable at any age and station. Every day is full of fun And family spies They're making heroes out of fall guys They say it's good for business From Singapore to Widnes You better watch your step Family spies and fall guys. It’s a joy to recognize how complicated the English language is when two words with wildly different spellings, spies/guys, nevertheless rhyme. Widnes is a small town in Lancashire, roughly 25 miles inland from Liverpool, in the North-West of England. The town is best known, Mr. Google tells us, for its smell, given all the chemical factories in the area. Incidentally, there’s a park called “Spike” in the town. It’s an artificial island, that, in less than eight years after “Trust,” will go on to be the title for Mr. Costello’s 12th spectacular major album. Although, the connection between these two seems tenuous at best. Broken noses hung up on the wall Back-slapping drinkers cheer the heavyweight brawl So punch drunk they don't understand at all You better watch your step This fantastic, pugilistic cyclone swirls around references to violence, baying crowds, the drunk and the punch drunk and the wonderful blurring of the two. This third verse finds the narrator calling once again on “you” to watch your step. The message is coming into sharper relief as it moves from the general to the more specific now. Every night Go out full of carnival desires End up in the closing time choirs When you're kicking in the car chrome And you're drinking down the Eau de Cologne And you're spitting out the Kodachrome You better watch your step Look at this wide range of accusations in one verse, from vandalism, to alcoholism, to even espionage by virtue of the name Kodachrome. Kodachrome was the brand name for a type of analog film that was developed in 1935 and discontinued 75 years later in 2010 when the market passed it by. Now its vestiges remain frozen in the amber of yellowed photo albums and in the references made in pieces such as this one. Paul Simon’s 1973 song “Kodachrome” reminds us that, “everything looks worse in black and white.” What also endures are the choice rhymes in this verse: desires/choirs, another rhyming pair with dissimilar orthography, as well as the clever identical rhyme the car chrome/Kodachrome, with eau de cologne wedged in between to tamp down the lilt. And, of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the cunning twisting of the expression “carnal desires” into a fun house style carnival desires. Bye I send you all my regards You're so tough / You're so hard Listen to the hammers falling in the breaker's yard You better watch your step You better watch your step Ooh, watch your step Though the advice is to watch your step, it seems the narrator has another, better idea to just get the hell out. You might be tough and hard, but he’s no fool. He knows where this saga is headed. The kicked-in car chrome of the previous verse becomes an entire scrap yard, or salvage yard, or junk yard as a breaker’s yard is known in American English. A cautionary tale, perhaps. The piece takes us through the day and through the progression of not taking this sage advice. — Dig it Again, this has been a slow drag with “Watch Your Step” from 1981’s “Trust.” On its face, “Watch Your Step” can seem idle, speculative, and told from a distance. A slow drag with a linguistic bent, however, reconfirms how it is a lyrical, dynamic, and complicated piece that fits together to create a puzzle of ingenious rhyme schemes, a chronical of daily lives and the escalating peril not watching your step can lead to. In a word, brilliant. And that’s it for today’s slow drag, my friend. Thank you for listening. I encourage you to re-listen to Episode 18 of “Slow Drag with Remedy,” “Rowdiest but Slightest,” a slow drag with “Luxembourg,” as well as Episode 41, “Money’s Gone Already,” a slow drag with “Clubland.” Both episodes are slow drags with more precious gems from “Trust.” So, until next time, adieu, my little ballyhoo. Comments are closed.
|
AboutSlow Drag with Remedy is an Elvis Costello podcast appreciation. It's an exploration of linguistics, language, poetry, and clever wordplay as framed by the peerless poetry of the modern-day master, Elvis Costello. Slow Drag by Song
Poor Napoleon Alibi Church Underground The Big Light Georgie and Her Rival Joe Porterhouse No Hiding Place 20% Amnesia All This Useless Beauty Let Him Dangle King of Thieves Damnation's Cellar Stripping Paper Pidgin English Riot Act Bedlam The Quickening Art Luxembourg Chemistry Class Living in Paradise My Mood Swings Waiting for the End of the World Little Atoms Two Little Hitlers Crimes of Paris You Tripped at Every Step Needle Time Men Called Uncle Peace in Our Time The Loved Ones I Almost Had a Weakness Our Little Angel Invasion Hit Parade Turpentine Miracle Man A Voice in the Dark The Greatest Thing Satellite Hand in Hand Clubland Tart Glitter Gulch Stations of the Cross Science Fiction Twin Possession This Sad Burlesque Flutter and Wow Soul for Hire After the Fall Blue Chair Monkey to Man Mouth Almighty Watch Your Step ...This Town... Distorted Angel Worthless Thing No Dancing Miss Macbeth Charm School Poor Fractured Atlas Brilliant Mistake My Little Blue Window Suspect My Tears Coal Train Robberies Fish 'n' Chip Papers I Hope You're Happy Now Man Out of Time 13 Steps Lead Down Go Away Sweet Pear The Name of This Thing is Not Love Jimmie Standing in the Rain The Deportees Club The Birds Will Still Be Singing Starting to Come to Me Pay It Back Five Small Words Pretty Words Radio Silence Human Hands Night Rally I'll Wear It Proudly Motel Matches Drum and Bone Harpies Bizarre Nothing Clings Like Ivy Why Won't Heaven Help Me Next Time 'Round The River in Reverse A Room with No Number Clown Strike The Invisible Man My Most Beautiful Mistake All the Rage The Town Where Time Stood Still Episode of Blonde e of Blonde No Flag A Slow Drag with Josephine That Bridge I Burned Sour Milk Cow Blues You Little Fool Spooky Girlfriend Suit of Lights There's a Story in Your Voice Dishonor The Stars The Other Side of Summer Mischievous Ghost They're Not Laughing at Me Now White Knuckles Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind? Black and White World The World and His Wife
God's Comic The First to Leave Green Shirt The Man You Love to Hate Lip Service American Gangster Time Blame It on Cain The Spell That You Cast Lipstick Vogue The Difference Stella Hurt Tears before Bedtime |