Today’s slow drag is with “Charm School,” from “Punch the Clock,” released in 1983. The songwriting is credited to Elvis Costello. Housed on the same album with the very famous “Every Day I Write the Book,” “Charm School” follows a rare pattern in Elvis Costello pieces, up to this point anyway, of framing a conversation between the first person and the second person, with little hedging or third party interference to turn its aim on. Men made out of monkeys Men made into mice Happy days are here again And all the drinks half price A girl with a trick and a man with a calling In this first verse, a verse where the protagonists are deftly introduced, a girl with a trick, a man with a calling, remnants of idiom busting are found in the second line, “men made into mice.” It goes past the question of which you are, man our mouse, as it plots the trajectory of what the modern day man will eventually evolve into. Trying to make a living out of your downfalling Trying to make a living out of anything at all Didn't they teach you anything except how to be cruel In that charm school The straight forward truthtelling of this chorus is punctuated by the melodic query of cruelty. It only takes a few words to cut right to the heart of the matter. You and I as lovers Were nothing but a farce Trying to make a silk purse Out of a sow's arse Saying "Why don't you watch me" Hardly speaking sotto voce Although it’s difficult to pinpoint precisely, it’s a verse like this that helped spark my linguistic curiosity. First, the blunt honesty with no mitigation of “you and I as lovers, we’re nothing but a farse,” followed by the idiom busting “make a silk purse out of a sow’s arse” that introduced this American to British slang by way of an old Scottish saying about a sow’s ear, and finally sliding into a sexy Italian ending with a device that attracts more attention by speaking quietly for emphasis, “sotto voce.” Sexy, perplexing, and world expanding. This might seem small, and it probably is, it’s the small things that add up to so many big events, as evidenced by this one clever verse. I've got a notion / I've got an angle Take your dreams and promises And put them through the mangle They say it's hell to finance too And I just want to romance you Put them through the mangle sounds like a wonderful overstatement, a hammer to fly; smash your dreams and give up your hope, when in reality it’s just an old way of washing clothes, of wringing out water. A mangle is a “pair of closely spaced rubber-faced rollers geared together, turned by hand, and used to squeeze the water from clothes after they were washed. A wringer replaced twisting the wet clothes by hand, and in turn was replaced by spin drying.” The word “wringer” might sound more humane than the word mangle, when in reality, they are all exactly the same thing. This is just another great example of how words matter. It does feel as if mangle has the potential to generate a deeper visceral reaction than mere hand wringing. In this perpetual nightclub I'll be yours eternal Though the hours are long And the noise infernal Just one shameful act or sometimes two We make believe we're making do Perpetual, eternal, infernal. These well-positioned words comingle to express time and place and the feeling of slight optimism in the face of adversity. I wonder what the shameful act or sometimes two could be? It’s fun to keep guessing. Trying to make a living out of your downfalling Trying to make a living out of anything at all Didn't they teach you anything except how to be cruel In that charm school — Dig it Again, this has been a slow drag with “Charm School” from 1983’s “Punch the Clock.” It’s a wonderfully dissonant piece that’s wedged among many other influential songs on his eighth album that would go on to help solidify Mr. Costello’s wide range of talents. And that’s it for today’s slow drag, my friend. We danced our way through that pretty fast, didn’t we? Thank you for listening. I encourage you to re-listen to Episode 11 of “Slow Drag with Remedy,” “Blow the Whistle,” a slow drag with “King of Thieves,” and Episode 38, “His Tribute of a Rose,” a slow drag with “The Greatest Thing,” as well as episode 53, “Telling You What’s What,” a slow drag with “Mouth Almighty.” All three of these episodes are slow drags with more gems from “Punch the Clock.” So, until next time, adieu, my little ballyhoo.
Show Notes:
---------------------- Appreciation written, produced, and narrated by Remedy Robinson, MA/MFA Twitter: https://twitter.com/slowdragremedy Instagram: Slow Drag Remedy Email: [email protected] Podcast music by https://www.fesliyanstudios.com Rate this Podcast: https://ratethispodcast.com/slowdrag ---------------------- Elvis Costello Wiki Resource, “Charm School”: http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Charm_School “Charm School”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoK19qiftb0 References: “You Can’t Make a Silk Purse out of a Sow’s Ear” origin: https://wordhistories.net/2016/12/28/silk-purse-sows-ear/ “The Mangle” Definition: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Mangle+(machine) Episode 11 of “Slow Drag with Remedy,” “Blow the Whistle,” a slow drag with “King of Thieves”: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/slowdragwithremedy/id/11574305 Episode 38 of “Slow Drag with Remedy,” “His Tribute of a Rose,” a slow drag with “The Greatest Thing”: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/slowdragwithremedy/id/13850447 Episode 53 of “Slow Drag with Remedy,” “Telling You What’s What,” a slow drag with “Mouth Almighty”: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/slowdragwithremedy/id/15663395 Comments are closed.
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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 |