Today’s slow drag is with “My Little Blue Window,” from “When I was Cruel,” released in 2002. The songwriting is credited to Elvis Costello. It’s possible to consider this one of the smaller pieces on this album because it is set among a redwood forest of complicated pieces. Deceptively kind or deceptively cruel, “My Little Blue Window” rounds the edges of harsh words with its deft sense of melancholy and acquiescence. This is a calling card Maybe it will be a farewell note The poison fountain pen now requires the antidote And if I avert your gaze And I should become a shrinking flower Just punch me on the arm This could be our finest hour A poisoned pen, that instrument deployed by the anonymous, has now had its author exposed. The calling card as a farewell note suggests that this is very possibly a brief encounter that somehow changes everything. Filled with the false bravado that hides behind our facades has now crumbled into a feeble staring match. The balance of power has shifted, but from what into what? The rhyme scheme in this first verse brings a rush of imagery cascading from a great height. The first line is a slant rhyme with the sixth line, card/arm, the second and third lines couple up with note/antidote, and then the fifth and seventh lines, flower/hour, send us on our way. The middle line, line four of this seven-line verse, “and if I avert my gaze,” is left to its own devices. The act of expressing affection through child-like acts, a punch on the arm, takes us out of the grown up world into a world where love affairs actually reside, regardless of what outside appearances may convey. Romantic interactions, or at least I hope, will never feel entirely devoid of wonderful wishful thinking and silly mating rituals that are far too childish for adults to indulge in. Till now this was my view But I'm counting on you How am I ever going to make you see? Nothing in this ugly world comes easily I want you to be... My lovely hooligan Come by and smash my pane Till I can see right through My little blue window Once an ethnic slur, hooligan is now commonly associated with troublemaking football fans. It’s one of those words that doesn’t need a definition, as just the sound of it represents its definition. And, of course, the strategic homophone of a window pane with that of physical or emotional pain is inspired. It’s not about relieving pain, it’s about obliterating a pain until it starts to feel like a different pain altogether. In the right frame of mind, this combination of verse and chorus is simply beguiling. Young love. How simple yet thought to be so complicated. In another frame of mind it might just be the hallmark of the “been there, done that,” feeling, ala “Pump It up.” Affection has taken on a competitive quality. Is it too much to conjecture that, since “nothing in this ugly world comes easily,” someone is being asked to work for their affection? Run riot, smash stuff up, mix things up enough that it takes the narrator out of the work-a-day funk they might find themselves in. This is a fingerprint Maybe you will feel a fond caress But when you start to speak Are you tempted to confess? Here again is affection, a light touch of a fingerprint that proffers a hint of a threat to take a firmer grip. There’s a lovely bored quality to this exchange, an idle threat that stands on the edge of completion, the subtext of which seems to beg for more entertainment than a mere touch can provide. Well, I was a gloomy soul Never thought I’d see a brighter day The dark interior Blows those silver clouds away Is this the confession that had been requested in the verse above? Who is the gloomy soul? Is this meant to convey there are no silver linings to this story? Or is it an explanation of why there needs to be a troublemaker lingering where affection fails? It’s all rather Shakespearian in its use of double entendre and innuendo, really. As with the multiple meanings of Juliet’s plaintive appeal, “O happy dagger! This is thy sheath,” this dark interior certainly seems as if it has more than one or two meanings itself. Depending on your mood, it can be as wholesome or as menacing as you’d like. It’s what gives pieces like this, and others, such as “Indoor Fireworks” it’s longevity and appeal. Its meaning teeters back and forth from the ruthless to the well intended so eloquently. After all, as the man said, “nothing in the ugly world comes easily.” Till now this was my view But I'm counting on you How am I ever going to make you see? Nothing in this ugly world comes easily I want you to be... My lovely hooligan Come by and smash my pane Till I can see right through My little blue window — Dig it Again, this has been a slow drag with “My Little Blue Window” from 2002’s “When I was Cruel.” It’s a smaller piece with about as much subtext as actual text. It’s as sweet as you’d like it to be, and as anti-social as you’d like it to be. The hooligan is a lovely one, after all. This piece could very well embody a sense of boredom, but has done so in a way that is itself far from boring. On the contrary, this piece keeps shifting and changing what it is trying to convey. And that’s it for today’s slow drag, my friend. Thank you for listening. I encourage you to re-listen to Episode 2 of “Slow Drag with Remedy,” “You Only Wanted to be Famous,” a slow drag with “Alibi,” Episode 42, “A Creature of Habit,” a slow drag with “Tart,” and episode 49, “Every Twisted Grudge,” a slow drag with “Soul for Hire.” All three of these episodes are slow drags with more gems from the complicated and complex “When I was Cruel.” 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 Email: [email protected] Podcast music by https://www.fesliyanstudios.com Rate this Podcast: https://ratethispodcast.com/slowdrag ---------------------- References: Elvis Costello Wiki Resource, “My Little Blue Window”: http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/My_Little_Blue_Window “My Little Blue Window”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXgWe6yGw5g “9 Shakespeare Innuendos”: https://www.vox.com/2015/4/23/8479871/shakespeare-dirty-jokes “Hooligan” as an Ethnic Slur: https://qz.com/1306921/world-cup-2018-hooligans-is-an-ethnic-slur-in-history/ Episode 2 of “Slow Drag with Remedy,” “And You Only Want to be Famous,” a slow drag with “Alibi”: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/slowdragwithremedy/id/11068049 Episode 42 of “Slow Drag with Remedy,” “A Creature of Habit,” a slow drag with “Tart”: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/slowdragwithremedy/id/14276159 Episode 49 of “Slow Drag with Remedy,” “Every Twisted Grudge,” a slow drag with “Soul for Hire”: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/slowdragwithremedy/id/15206756 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 |