Long suffering friends of your fatal charm

Elvis Costello - Town Cryer (Imperial Bedroom - 1982)

Aug 22, 2023

Hi Wormheads! Today’s post is a slight variation on the usual Earworms & Song Loops format.
Fellow Substacker
Mitchell Stirling
, who writes the excellent The Run Out Grooves newsletter, invited me to be a guest contributor. TROG (also an excellent acronym) explores the last tracks on great albums in music history, dissecting how the final song perfectly (or imperfectly) fits in the flow with the rest of the album.
What makes for a great last track? Often it’s a song that gives the album a sense of closure. Or maybe it’s something bold, sounding different from any prior track, revealing a glimpse at what’s in store for future albums.
Mitchell’s research into the albums he writes about is impressive, and he often weaves in a personal anecdote or two to give the piece added context.
The titles of his posts always include a line or a phrase from the song he chooses to delve into (a stylistic motif I’ve used here as well).
I had been wanting to write about Elvis Costello’s great 1982 release Imperial Bedroom (one of my all-time favorites), and the last track of the album, “Town Cryer,” perfectly meets all the criteria for a fantastic TROG.
This piece is sprinkled with my patented Earworm and Song Loops special sauce. Hopefully, you find it fun to read, even if you aren’t familiar with the song or album.
And I highly recommend subscribing to Mitchell’s Run Out Grooves newsletter. It’s always a great read.

I was abysmally late to board the Elvis Costello train.

This is surprising, considering how completely ‘hook, line, and sinker’ I fell for punk rock and new wave in the early 1980s.

This omission was due to three main factors:

My friends who turned me on to Wire, Devo, Dead Kennedys, and X didn’t do the same with Mr. McManus.
The few songs I knew — “Alison,” “Everyday I Write the Book,” “Almost Blue” — didn’t resonate with my late-teen/early-20s suburban self.
I found Costello’s voice off-putting in a way I couldn’t quite articulate at the time. (I think it was his dramatic, in-your-face vibrato that I struggled with.)

It was a girl who helped me finally see the error of my ways. Isn’t it so often the case? A cute girl or a boy pulls away your sonic blinders?

It usually goes like this: Someone you have a mad crush on excitedly plays you their favorite album. You haven’t heard it before, but you harbor less-than-positive feelings for that particular band/artist, which makes you nervous. You decide to shelve your preconceptions and give the album a close listen. Perhaps the promise of sex plays a role in your newfound attentiveness, but after a few more listens, your feelings for said band/artist become sourced from the heart and head, and less from the groin. Your enthusiasm is genuine. For the music and the girl (or boy).

For me, this album was Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom.

It was the fall of 1989, seven years after Imperial Bedroom’s release. I’d come to discover the album piecemeal, initially just two songs spread across a carefully curated mixtape. I received the cassette the night of our first official date. A 60-minute Maxell UR-60 with artists and song titles written on the inner cardboard sleeve in gorgeous, loopy, purple handwriting. I had gone with the more generic flowers for my gift.

It’s been a few decades, my memory admittedly a little soft, but I do recall a few of the other artists and songs on the mix: Joni Mitchell (“Blue,” “California,” “Court and Spark”) Simon & Garfunkel (“The Boxer,” “59th Street Bridge Song”), and Indigo Girls (“Get Together,” “Strange Fire”). I want to say Richard Thompson and James Taylor were also featured.

You’d think with such folky company that noted 'angry young man’ Costello would stand out like a sore thumb. But the Elvis songs fit perfectly into this largely acoustic, melancholic collection of tunes.

The song that opened the mix tape, one enthusiastically noted as being her absolute favorite and would become mine as well, was “Human Hands.”

For a songwriter mostly known for his scathing, biting wit, Costello wrote a fair number of affecting love songs, of which “Human Hands” is arguably his best. So often his lyrics are too brainy to sink to heart level, but this one hits both essential organs perfectly.

Whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt
That it's you that I'm dreaming about
Do I have to draw you a diagram?
All I ever want is just to fall into your human hands

That’s about as direct a lyric as you get from Costello. Especially in his early years. And as Elvis continues to write and record excellent new music, Imperial Bedroom becomes ever more a part of those early years.

As a young person in the beginning stages of new love, I related to these words as if I’d written them myself. I couldn’t help but imagine that the nervous vulnerability expressed in the song’s chorus was mirroring feelings we both were having for each other. It’s funny how during times of burgeoning romance, every cheesy love song lyric speaks deeply to one’s fluttering heart.

The other Imperial Bedroom track on the first-date mixtape after “Human Hands” was album closer, “Town Cryer.”

I didn’t play “Town Cryer” nearly as much as “Human Hands.” I would suspect that the song, being the last track on the album, was accustomed to this ugly-duckling treatment. Especially back in the early ‘80s, before CDs became widely available. Before flipping to the next song would become possible with a quick tap of a button.

It was a fool’s errand, fast-forwarding the cassette, hoping to land at the exact start of a desired song. If you stopped too soon or too late then the mood could be ruined. It wasn’t worth the risk.

My reason for not giving “Town Cryer” its proper due (until purchasing the CD at Streetlight Records a few months later), was that the song just prior to “Town Cryer” on the mixtape was Indigo Girls’ “Strange Fire.” As much as I tried (and believe me, I tried) I simply couldn’t get behind that tune. I still can’t.

As I said, this was 1989, or as I like to call it, “the year that I became a true Elvis Costello fan.” It just so happened that the day I walked into Streetlight to buy Imperial Bedroom, Costello’s brand new album, Spike, was featured in a “new releases” display.

So I bought both. And a man’s world was forever changed.

I don’t want to make any grand claim that Imperial Bedroom is my favorite Elvis Costello album. Some days it is. On other days it might be Spike, This Year’s Model, Painted From Memory, or The River in Reverse. What Imperial Bedroom has over all those great albums, though, is being the first. My first. And the first always holds a special place, a deep heart pocket, where nothing that follows can ever quite reach.

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I never got to experience Costello’s sonic evolution. Imperial Bedroom was the first album I listened to front to back. I had no idea that the production, by Geoff Emerick (Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s, Badfinger, Supertramp, Jeff Beck, UFO, and so many more), was a huge step forward for EC and the Attractions. I assumed the lush production, strings, horns, and layered vocals were de rigueur for him. It was only later, after backing up and buying the previous five albums, that I came to appreciate the evolutionary leap taken with Imperial Bedroom.

Even with all the orchestration and Emerick’s slick production, Costello’s trademark literary bite and The Attractions’ unpredictable sonic detours are found aplenty on the album. The shark-edged lyrics swimming just below calm, deep blue waters (“Little Savage”); the harsh reality of a dying marriage couched amid a samba beat and accordion (“The Long Honeymoon”). And album stand-out, “Man Out of Time,” keeps the flourishes to a minimum, sounding like a logical progression from the increasingly melodic and dynamic songs found on Trust.

It’s not a concept album, but the act of crying (and not crying) is peppered all over Imperial Bedroom. If you think of the album as a multi-course meal, “Tears Before Bedtime,” the second song, could be thought of as the first course, with album closer “Town Cryer” the dessert. Crying to start, crying to end. A bit of crying in the middle too.

Album opener, “Beyond Belief,” to belabor this metaphor, would be the amuse bouche, a tasty first bite that effectively guides the listener into a 50-minute feast of sonic flavors.

“Town Cryer” is clearly a play on the more recognized historical image of the town crier. According to Wikipedia:

The town crier was used to make public announcements in the streets. Criers often dress elaborately, by a tradition dating to the 18th century, in a red and gold coat, white breeches, black boots and a tricorne hat.

In English-speaking countries, they carried a handbell to attract people's attention, as they shouted the words "Oyez, Oyez, Oyez!" before making their announcements. The word "Oyez" means "hear ye," which is a call for silence and attention. Oyez derives from the Anglo-Norman word for listen (modern French, oyez, infinitive, ouïr, but has been largely replaced by the verb écouter). The proclamations book in Chester from the early 19th century records this as "O Yes, O Yes!"

"Town Criers on Hastings Pier. 1980s" by Phil Sellens is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Costello chooses not just an alternate spelling (cryer/crier), but an alternate definition of crying. He’s referring to sobbing, to expressing one’s feelings both unabashedly and abashedly. After the song’s narrator begins by telling the listener: “I'm the town cryer/And everybody knows/I'm a little down/With a lifetime to go,” he ends up shutting off his emotions in the ensuing chorus:

I'm never going to cry again
I'm going to be as strong as them
They say they'd die for love
And then they live it out
They'll give you something to cry about
And suddenly you really fall to pieces

The song starts off simply, just Steve Nieve’s gorgeous piano melody for two bars, and then the rest of the band — Pete Thomas on drums, Bruce Thomas on bass — join in along with Elvis’ vocals. The orchestration builds 30 seconds in, starting with the horns and then the strings. By the time the 2nd verse kicks in, the orchestra has taken front and center, with sharp violin blasts to accentuate Costello’s emotionally rich vocals.

When Elvis croons the song’s last line — “They're so teddy bear tender and tragically hip” — the word “hip” drops what feels like two octaves, the sudden baritone imbuing the line with a creepy gravity, a finality that befits the album’s last word.

The song is not over though. As a denouement, the band continues on — the strings, trumpet, piano, bass, and drums playing in perfect harmony, each getting a moment to shine. Their combined instrumental force not letting that bummer of a vocalist have the final say. The perfect ending to an arguably perfect album.

Regarding the girl who turned me into an Elvis Costello fan 34 years ago? Sadly, that romance was short-lived. But I’m happy to report that we remain close to this day, both of us long-suffering friends of Elvis’ fatal charms.

I want to recommend another amazing music-themed Substack newsletter. One that is also closely tied to today’s topic of discussion.

That Fatal Mailing List

Matt Springer

discusses all things Elvis Costello. Here’s how Matt describes it:

“That Fatal Mailing List is a regularly-scheduled publication devoted primarily to exploring the songs of Elvis Costello, one at a time, in random order. And there’s other EC stuff as well.”

One of my favorite essays of his is this recent one, featuring Punch the Clock (1983) closing track, “The World and His Wife.”