Elvis Costello: Twist and turns trivia

[BrutalYouth]

Two EC songs share the same lyric "When your tough and transparent as armored glass."

What are these two songs?

*No Prizes

[migdd]

Easy one.

Suffering Face
Crimes of Paris

[BrutalYouth]

Good job.

Elvis has won how many grammys and has received how many nominations ?

[ramalama]

I stopped watching the Grammys the year Elvis lost Best New Artist to Taste of Honey for Boogie Oogie Oogie

[thepopeofpop]

Elvis has one Grammy (with Burt Bacharach) for "I Still Have That Other Girl" which was in 1999.

As for nominations, there are quite a few. I will list them all because otherwise you may think I am wrong. The years listed indicate the year that the award was presented:

1979 - Best New Artist.

1992 - Best Alternative Music Album (Mighty Like a Rose)
- Best Album Package (Mighty Like A Rose)

1999 - Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals (I Still Have That Other Girl) - WON

2003 - Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (45)
- Best Rock Album (When I Was Cruel)
- Best Alternative Music Album (Cruel Smile)

2004 - Best Engineered Album - Non Classical (North)

2005 - Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (Let's Misbehave - From the DeLovely Soundtrack)

2010 - Best Contemporary Folk Album (Secret Profane and Sugarcane)

That's 10 nominations - although 2 of them are technical. So 8 artistic nominations.

[And No Coffee Table]

There are at least five more:

"God Give Me Strength" was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals.

"Monkey To Man" was nominated for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.

The Delivery Man was nominated for Best Rock Album.

"The Scarlet Tide" was nominated for Best Song Written For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media.

The River In Reverse was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album.

[Dr. Luther]

I stopped watching the Grammys the year Elvis lost Best New Artist to Taste of Honey for Boogie Oogie Oogie

Yeah -- that was a dark night indeed.

[thepopeofpop]

There are at least five more:

"God Give Me Strength" was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals.

"Monkey To Man" was nominated for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.

The Delivery Man was nominated for Best Rock Album.

"The Scarlet Tide" was nominated for Best Song Written For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media.

The River In Reverse was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album.

I thought The Delivery Man might have been nominated, but I couldn't find it. So at least 15 nominations and 1 actual win. That's a ratio worthy of Randy Newman.

[BrutalYouth]

What do you guys think is the coolest worded or more peculiar EC lyric?

(No correct answer just curious)

[Ypsilanti]

That's an interesting question, B.Y.
Perhaps this isn't an answer, exactly, but one thing I notice is sometimes Elvis places unusual words near each other in songs--not as a rhyme, but I think, just to display them, as if he's saying, This word makes me think of this other word". One example would be "Clown Strike", where he writes...

And it's pandemonium
For the humble and the mighty
You don't have to tumble for me
Even a clown knows when to strike

Tell me what you want of me
Or are you terrified of failure
Put on a superstitious face behind all this paraphernalia

I don't feel those words appear together by accident. "Pandemonium" doesn't even figure in a rhyme--he could have chosen any number of alternatives which would have fit the song just fine and conveyed the same meaning. I've noticed several examples of this--and it's always words that are out of the ordinary--not so common in everyday usage, which makes them easy to notice.

[Top balcony]

Not at all sure it's the answer to your question, but I've always loved the fun in this verse from "World and His Wife" :

To tell the truth our Mum ran off with someone else's father
Went for two weeks' holiday in Taramasalata

... I've always been a big fan of Greek food.


Colin Top Balcony

[sulky lad]

But obviously not Greek defenders - sympathies Colin but not as much as I need when I'll be crying tomorrow at 6 !!
I love Elvis' ability to use unexpected words in his lyrics, too many to mention but the couplet from "All The Rage"
Alone with your tweezers and your handkerchief, you murder time and truth, love laughter and belief seems like an amazing put down - you destroy precious things that can never be recaptured much worse than material destruction !

[Jack of All Parades]

The writing technique Ypsilanti mentions is I believe borrowed from Jesse Winchester and others[most notably for me, Robbie Robertson] and EC made mention of it during Jesse's recent visit on Spectacle this season when EC commented on the insertion of 'victorian' within the song "The Brand New Tennessee Waltz". It is a concerted effort to draw attention to a phrase or line by the songwriter. EC often employs it in a song.

For me the 'coolest worded' song by EC is perhaps the simplest, "Fallen", as I am of the school that 'less is more' just like Jesse:

" All the leaves are turning yellow, red and brown
Soon they'll be scattered as they tumble down
Although they may be swept up so invitingly

I never did what I was told
I trampled through the amber and the burnished gold
But now I clearly see how cruel the young can be

You can convince yourself of anything
If you wish both hard and long
And I believed that life was wonderful
Right up to the moment when love went wrong
I gaze up at the tree-tops and laugh
I need somebody to shake me loose
I want to know what happens next
'Til I don't care at all
There I go
Beginning to fall

Just like that insertion of 'victorian' by Jesse in his song, the insertion of 'amber' in the line freezes the moment of pain from lost love for the protaganist in the song-just like being stuck in amber, causing him/her to pause in time, no longer the unruly child who would gleefully disrupt the accumulated leaves upon the ground. The realization that you can only fool oneself so long is heightened by the insertion of the verb 'shake' and then just as the action of that verb begins the protaganist is freed from his pain and can begin that fall which is liberating and cathartic and is mirrored in the syllabic breakup at the end as the leaf descends erratically.

Have always been struck by how much this lyric effort by EC mirrors another lyric by the poet, Richard Wilbur, in his poem "Piazza Di Spagna, Early Morning"

I can't forget
How she stood at the top of that long marble stair
Amazed, and then with a sleepy pirouette
Went dancing slowly down to the fountain-quieted square;

Nothing upon her face
But some impersonal loneliness,-not then a girl,
But as it were a reverie of the place,
A called-for falling glide and whirl;

As when a leaf, petal, or thin chip
Is drawn to falls of a pool and, circling a moment above it,
Rides on over the lip--
Perfectly beautiful, perfectly ignorant of it.

EC, too, catches that fall in his lyric. And a lovely one it is.

[alexv]

Some good EC lines can be found here:

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... 91&start=0