156: Nilsson, ‘Without Her’

Nilsson – ‘Without Her’

Nilsson – ‘Sleep Late, My Lady Friend’

Nilsson – ’1941′

Nilsson – ‘Cuddly Toy’

Nilsson – ‘You Can’t Do That’

If you don’t know Harry Nilsson’s music, both as a composer and as a performer, you’re in good company; but you’re missing something rare and fine. John called him his favorite American artist. Paul called him his favorite American group. Jimmy Webb called him the best singer of the generation. Randy Newman compared his melodic talent to that of McCartney, Schuman and Elton John.

Ironically, neither of singer-songwriter Nilsson’s two biggest hits were originals – his beautiful reading of Fred Neil’s beautiful ‘Everybody’s Talking’ and his overblown performance of the Badfinger faux operatic kitsch anthem ‘Without You’.

But they’re not The Point (that was a pun – it’s the name and central metaphor of a full-length children’s cartoon for which he wrote the lovely, whimsical score). The point is that from 1967 Harry Nilsson (he went by his surname only in the beginning) created some of the finest music of the finest era – “Pandemonium Shadow Show”, “Ariel Ballet”, “Harry” and “Nilsson Sings Newman”, and then two more valued by many people other than myself, “Nilsson Schmillson” and “Son of Schmilsson”.

Nilsson then embarked on the fast track to self-destruction till his death at 53. But that’s a different story, one beautifully told in the wonderful 2010 documentary “Who is Harry Nilsson (and Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?)” by John Schienfeld. Today we’re going to focus on the first step of Nilsson’s career – his almost unknown first album “Pandemonium Shadow Show” and its mythological reception.

Harry Nilsson (1941–1994) grew up with no father – he skipped out when the boy was four, as Nilsson would do to his own son. His mother was an alcoholic. He lived with an uncle till 15, when he set out on his own. These events are related (pun intended) in the song ‘1941’. Here it is in the album version, and here’s the wrenching live version from the 1971 BBC ‘concert’.

Listen to that latter version and think about it for a moment. The song is very much of its time (1967), and timeless. It has a gravitas rarely heard then (we’re talking 1967, a year before the first albums by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Randy Newman), yet it reeks of 1920’s music hall beer (the album version more so). Listen to his voice – three and a half octaves, pure and controlled and expressive.  As Al Kooper said, he has a voice like a trapeze artist – he goes flying through the air with the greatest of ease, defying gravity, calm and fearless. You hold your breath; there’s no net. Will he grab the bar? But it’s not virtuosity for its own sake. It’s the detached third-person voice of the singer/composer expressing his unflinching understanding that his abandonment as a son was repeated in his own failure as a father.

But that’s just one of Nilsson’s many personae. In the beginning of 1967 Nilsson was working nights managing a bank data base (he lied on his application, saying he’d finished high school), writing and pitching songs during the day. An old friend, Chip Douglas, was producing The Monkees. I had heard all the publicity about them, but I didn’t know what they looked like… So I sang seven, eight or nine songs, and Michael Nesmith said, ‘Man, where the fuck did you come from? You just sat down there and blew our minds like that. We’ve been looking for songs, and you just sat down and played an album for us. Shit! Goddammit!’ He threw something on the floor. And he went and got Micky Dolenz and he said to him, ‘Would you listen to this man? Listen to that!’ Micky gave a surprised laugh, and Davy Jones started laughing over one song, and it was like the three of them were just out of their tree. Only Peter Tork couldn’t give a shit.

The Monkees recorded ‘Cuddly Toy’, and Nilsson quit the bank. The super-cuddly Davy Jones sang the tune with utter innocence, including the lyric ‘You’re not the only cherry delight that was left in the night and gave up without a fight.’ When asked if the song wasn’t really describing a gang bang, Nilsson laughed guiltily. “Well, it crossed my mind.” Here’s ‘Cuddly Toy’ from “Pandemonium Shadow Show”.

For our Song of The Week, I had a heck of a time choosing between my two favorite songs on the album, both beautiful love songs impeccably sung to stunningly minimalist arrangements. The one that missed the cruel cut is ‘Sleep Late My Lady Friend’, most of which employs a string bass, cello, hand percussion, and one gravity-defying, undoctored voice. It’s worth listening to over and over. Legend has it that when John Lennon first heard the album he played it consecutively for 36 hours. But we’ll get to that story in just a moment.

Our SoTW is one I’m pleased as punch to be sharing with you, ‘Without Her’, not to be confused with the bombastic ‘Without You’, but the gentle, perfectly understated Nilsson original. The much better known version is from Blood, Sweat and Tears’ great first album “Child is Father to the Man”, with Al Kooper leading the bossa nova interpretation. It’s pleasant enough. But listen to Nilsson sing it accompanied only by electric bass and cello, later joined by a flute and then an acoustic guitar. Tell me this isn’t a gem, a neglected masterpiece. I dare you.

But the legendary cut from the album is called ‘You Can’t Do That’. Yes, the Beatles song. The concept has become popular, but when this was recorded – one week after the release of “Sgt Pepper” – Nilsson was pretty much inventing both multi-multi-tracking of vocals (one critic complained that the backing singers went uncredited) and the mashup. In late 1967 The Beatles’ publicist Derek Taylor was in Los Angeles and heard ‘1941’ on the radio. He bought an entire box of copies of “Pandemonium Shadow Show” and sent it to England.

Nilsson, from “Who is Harry Nilsson (and Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?)”: One day at five in the morning I got this phone call and there was this voice long-distance, “Hello? Hello? Who is it?” “It’s John.” “John who?” “John Lennon.” “Is this really John?” “Yeah, I just wanted to say you’re fantastic man, we listened to you all weekend, you’re great, great, great. Fantastic” The following Monday I got a phone call from Paul. “How are you? Just calling to say you’re fantastic. You’re really great. We really love what you did and all that stuff. Derek played it for us. Hope to see you soon.” Clunk. The next Monday morning I got up, combed my hair, five o’clock in the morning, waiting for a call from Ringo. There was no call. But he ended up being the best man at our wedding, so that’s ok.

There’s more to the story. It wasn’t long before Nilsson became best friends with both Ringo and John. At the wedding, Nilsson was so stoned on cocaine that Ringo had to help him put the ring on the bride’s finger. In the film, the Smothers Brothers laughingly describe their comeback performance and how their buddies John and Harry were thrown out of the club for disorderly behavior. Theirs was, in the words of one intimate, ‘a friendship made in hell’. But that’s another story.

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Tags: 1941, Al Kooper, Badfinger, Cuddly Toy, Everybody's Talking, Fred Neil, Harry Nilsson, Jimmy Webb, John Lennon, John Schienfeld, Nilsson, Pandemonium Shadow Show, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Sleep Late My Lady Friend, Smothers Brothers, The Beatles, The Monkees, Without Her, Without You, You Can't Do That, “Who is Harry Nilsson (and Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?)

142: Kat Edmonson, ‘Champagne’

Kat Edmonson–’Champagne’

Kat Edmonson–’What Else Can I Do?’

Kat Edmonson–’(Just Like) Starting Over’

Kat Edmonson–’I Guess I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’

Kat Edmonson–’One Fine Day’

Kat Edmonson, a young singer from Austin, Texas has been monopolizing my turntable for the last month. She’s a slip of a girl, with a squeaky little Blossom Dearie set of pipes, and a mere two albums under her 21-inch belt, one of covers and one of originals. She’s gotten some critical notice, but her big commercial achievement so far is one song appearing on a network TV show (‘Lucky’ on “United States of Tara.”)

The thing is, she’s only 28 but she writes a bunch of songs that are 70 years old. You listen to her album of mostly originals, “Way Down Low” and say, ‘Oh, that’s a lovely song–must be Cole Porter.’ Or ‘Wow, that’s a real country classic; now, who did that in the original?’ Till you look at the liner notes and see that she wrote them both.

She’s so young and so just getting started that she funded her second album via Kickstarter, a very cool platform for raising money from people just like you and me for worthy projects. It’s a very appealing concept, well worth taking a look at it, folks. And while we’re on the subject, let’s all remember that young artists like Kat Edmonson are struggling to make a living, and we should all happily pay money to buy their CDs and thereby encourage them to keep creating for our listening edification.

Meanwhile, back at the music–such music for a young ‘un! Her covers are original, her originals draw impressively from fine traditions, and despite her slight, breathy, Gretchen Parlato-styled vocals, the treatments are honest and engaging, and the bare-bones arrangements just perfect, one after the next.

Her first album, “Take to the Sky” (2009) has way too many nags that have seen better days (‘Summertime’, ‘Angel Eyes’, ‘Night and Day’, ‘Charade’, ‘Just One of Those Things’). But she also dresses ‘Just Like Heaven’  (The Cure) and ‘Lovefool’ (The Cardigans) in the same fabric. No mean feat, but maybe not the battle she should be fighting, methinks. Then she does give the brilliant ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’ an a cappella treatment, for which alone she deserves a bouquet of fresh daisies.

This li’l young lady also displays some heavyweight savvy. Do you remember The Chiffons? A pretty tame black chick group from the early ‘60s? Their main clame to faim is that George Harrison was found culpable of unintentionally plagiarizing their song ‘He’s So Fine’ (“Doo-wang Doo-wang”) for his ‘My Sweet Lord’. Remember their other big hit, the Goffin-King ‘One Fine Day’ (“Shooby-dooby dooby-doo-wop-wop)? Listen to what Kat does to it. Oh, my. Then listen again. And again.

John famously said that Elvis died in the army. He should know. He contracted a fatal disease on the roof of Apple Records and passed shortly afterwards in the board room dissolving The Beatles, a couple of 1970 Plastic Ono cuts notwithstanding. For the life of me, I’ll never understand why the radio plays ‘Woman’ on the anniversary of his physical death rather than ‘Norwegian Wood’. I’ve never bought a record of his after ‘Instant Karma’. For me, his solo career was a long string of embarrassing self-parodies. This would include, of course, the original ‘Starting Over’, a drossy pop throwaway which just makes me cringe and long for the good old days from ‘Not a Second Time’ to ‘Dear Prudence’. But then this impudent little Austinian Kat Edmonson comes along and shows me what I might have been missing in her glowing, loving, truthful rendition of the song. Or maybe it’s a recreation, I don’t know. But it sure is fine.

And all that’s just a warm-up for her second album, “Way Down Low”.

The album opens with ‘Lucky’, a breezy, xylophone-adorned ditty qua chanson with a cheery, Central Park video to illustrate it.

‘I Don’t Know’ is a mega-obscurity by the “Latin Funk” group Malo, a forgettable group from a best-forgotten sub-genre. It was headed by Carlos Santana’s little brother Jorge. Musically, you might call Malo the not-too-bright younger sibling of Santana. And if it’s not enough that Malo was insignificant, they were prolific while being so. They made four albums within just over a year. ‘I Don’t Know’ is from the third of them, “Evolution” (1973). It was written by guitarist Clarence “Sonny” Henry, who wrote the hit “Evil Ways” for Carlos and his buddies. The original is best forgotten. The two reworkings deserve many listenings, a task I’ve been dutifully and gladly performing.

What does Ms Edmonson do with this chunk of coal in the original rough? She puts it on her CD of originals twice—the second track (as a muscular, straightforward acoustic rocker) and the closer of the CD, ‘I Don’t Know (Reprise)’. They both have videos portraying two disparate facets of her persona, the former Kat qua manic, the second at a pace akin to a fluish nonagenarian tortoise, a veritable advertisement for suicide.

Then comes ‘What Else Can I Do?,’ a Cole Porter song written by Kat herself, and couched in a perfectly restrained bossa nova arrangement. It’s a gem, it’s a wonder. 28-year olds aren’t supposed to write 70-year old songs. But her working mom left her to in front of the TV be educated by videos of old movies.  ”I would watch Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye, and there would always be some kind of romance happening, and there was always some scene where [they] go to a nightclub and some performer would come out. And it was always some famous performer like The Andrews Sisters or Louis Armstrong. And I actually thought that’s what it meant to get older. My idea of what adulthood looked like. At some point, I had to face the fact that it wasn’t and it was a little disappointing. And that gave me impetus to try and make life like that.”

I believe there are two kinds of people in the world—those who get “Pet Sounds” and (the poorer ones,) those who don’t. It’s Brian Wilson’s magnum opus, one of the masterpieces of our times. It has an overwhelming amount going for it–melodies, counter-melodies, arrangement, orchestration, a genius sound palette. What Kat has done for us is to take one of the many brilliant pieces from the album and strip away the orchestration, leaving us with a piano trio treatment of ‘I Guess I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times’ as a song, with all its melodic beauty and lyric charm front and center. It takes a lot of courage to jettison the sonic wealth Brian invested in the song. But each element is so fine that it’s a real gift to be able to focus on ‘I Guess’ as a song. Thanks, Kat.

The album has several more songs from the early 1950s that Kat Edmonson wrote and performed in the 2010s: ‘This Was the One’, ‘I’m Not in Love’, ‘Nobody Knows’, as well as a country-swing duet with Lyle Lovett and a cover of The Ink Spots’ ‘Whispering Grass’.

Our Song of The Week? So hard to choose! But let’s go for ‘Champagne’, a witty, urbane, charmer from 1952. Except that Kat Edmonson wrote and performed it in 2012. It’s a time-tunnel wonder, a study in temporal dissonance. And a lesson in that old adage attributed to both Richard Strauss and Duke Ellington: ‘There are only two kinds of music–good and bad.’

Kat, I wish you lots of commercial success to fuel the monster talent residing in that deceptively modest container. Can’t wait for your next album.

I’m never gonna drink again
At least not with the finer men
At a celebration offering libation from the Appalachian
I couldn’t resist one little kiss.
But now the bacchic thrill is gone.
I didn’t mean to lead you on
My heart was not the one behind this amatory crime
No, champagne does it every time.

I’m singular and most off-key
When bubbles get a hold of me.
Taking the equation of the fermentation and a cool persuasion
I got no hope, I’m such a dope.
In wine historiography, you’ll find me under ‘fancy-free’.
I can’t be held accountable, my word’s not worth a dime,
When champagne does it every time.

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Tags: (Just Like) Starting Over, Beach Boys, Blossom Dearie, Brian Wilson, Champagne, Chiffons, Cole Porter, George Harrison, I Guess I Just Wasn't Made For These Times, John Lennon, Kat Edmonson, Kickstarter, Lucky, My Dear Lord, One Fine Day, Pet Sounds, Take to the Sky, United States of Tara, Way Down Low, What Else Can I Do

078: Paul Simon, ‘The Late, Great Johnny Ace’

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John Lennon was murdered 30 years ago this week. Paul Simon wrote a song around that event.

Paul Simon (b. 1941) was a nice Jewish boy from Forest Hills. At 13 he started playing and singing with his pal Art Garfunkel, and at 16 they had a small Everly Brothers-styled hit (‘Hey, Schoolgirl’) under the name Tom & Jerry. Paul and Art both went to college, but continued playing together.

They were 22 when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and like all Americans, traumatized to the quick.

In 1964, when The Beatles conquered America and Bob Dylan released “Another Side Of”, they were 23 – a year younger than John, a year older than Paul, the same age as Bob. They were swept up by Beatlemania, sprouting from the same Everlies/Chuck Berry/Elvis/Buddy Holly roots. But they were even more impacted by Dylan and the folk movement, drinking from the same Woody Guthrie/Leadbelly well, not to mention doo-wop and early rhythm & blues. In short, they came from the same AM radio school.

Protest Music was all the rage, and Dylan’s Columbia label signed the two young Jews to a contract (Simon claimed that after much deliberation at Columbia, it was the first time that artists had used identifiably ethnic names). They recorded an acoustic album (“Wednesday Morning 3A.M.”) that had Dylan written all over it, even in the five unoriginal originals written by Paul. Protest, Protest, Protest. Paul, like everyone else, had a hard time grasping that the recent “Another Side of Bob Dylan” had turned the page. It would take everyone a couple of years to catch on and catch up.

But the album didn’t take off. Paul went to London to be bohemian, play the folk club circuit solo, and witness The British Invasion from behind their lines. It’s important to remember how profoundly the JFK assassination impacted the American psyche. From November 22, 1963 till February 7, 1964 (The Beatles’ appearance on Ed Sullivan), the US was in a deep depression. The Fab Four were the first thing to make the American people smile in months. This mood was reflected in folk music (‘He Was a Friend of Mine’, etc) as much as it was in Beatlemania.

It was the year of The Beatles, it was the year of The Stones, it was nineteen sixty-four
I was living in London with the girl from the summer before.
[Kathy (Kathleen Mary Chitty), the Kathy of 'Kathy's Song and 'America']
It was the year of The Beatles, it was the year of The Stones, a year after JFK.
We were staying up all night and giving the days away.
And the music was flowing amazing and blowing my way.

Meanwhile, back in NYC, Tom Wilson, who produced both Dylan and S&G, understood that an amalgam of rock and folk needed to be forged. He took a track called ‘The Sound of Silence’ from “Wednesday Morning”, added a bass and drums and electric guitars in the studio. The song became an anthem and together with The Byrds’ version of Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ more or less invented folk-rock.

Simon & Garfunkel’s reputation is based on the mere four studio albums they went on to record. That they were early purveyors of Dylanism in a rock context is obvious. What time has obscured though is how much they were disciples of Beatle innovations. It went like this: ‘Hey, Jude’ was released in August, 1968. In addition to being a stunning song and a moving performance, it was an eye-opening, groundbreaking revolution in the evolution of what was possible in popular music. It was just about twice as long as any other #1 single, and included a 4-minute coda, a mantra that repeated and swelled and grew. It was Paul McCartney saying to the world, ‘Hi, here’s our new single, we’ve just invented this possibility.’ And The Stones and Simon and Garfunkel and everyone else would run out and try to work with what The Beatles had invented. Within a couple of months, The Stones had recorded ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, with a 2-minute fade repeating the same phrase over and over. And S&G had recorded ‘The Boxer’, also a 2-minute fade, even more in the hypnotic, swelling mode of ‘Jude’. Thus it was all those years ago, month after month, Beatles record after record. “Rubber Soul” followed by “Aftermath” and the “Sounds of Silence” LP, “Revolver” followed by “Between the Buttons” and “Parsley, Sage”, “Sgt Pepper” followed by “His Satanic Majesties’ Request” and “Bookends”.

Then The Beatles broke up, and S&G emulated even that. But while John lost his drive and direction musically, Paul Simon discovered his.

I don’t know much about the personal relationship between John Lennon and Paul Simon. I did hear one interview where Simon related a conversation he had with John: “He said to me, ‘How did you know to keep your publishing and not sign away everything’, and I said, ‘Well, we grew up in New York, but how did you know about combing your hair like that and wearing those clothes?’ He said he’d always thought he’d be a hairdresser.”

At the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 1975, they presented an award together. John more than anything, was an ex-Beatle. Paul and Art weren’t speaking. And host Andy Williams had divorced his beautiful French wife Claudine Longet. Paul and John had clearly been being naughty boys backstage, and were visibly giddy in front of the cameras. They giggled through some inane text about breakups from partners, then opened the award envelope. Winner Olivia Newton-John (somehow beating out Elton John, Maria Muldaur and even Joni Mitchell’s ‘Help Me’!!!) was unable to make it from Down Under, but accepting in her stead, to the utter shock of all, is, um, Art Garfunkel. Ensuing is one of the intensest, embarrassingest and funniest things I’ve ever seen. The animosity between Paul and Art is palpable.

John:     Which one of you is Ringo?
Paul (to Art, but not looking him in the face):      I thought I told you to wait in the car.
John:     Are you ever getting back together again?
Art:        Still writing, Paul?

From 1972–83, Paul Simon recorded a string of five sterling solo albums, the real achievement on which his reputation deserves to be judged: “Paul Simon”, “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon”, “Still Crazy After All These Years”, the vastly-underrated “One Trick Pony”, and his masterpiece, “Hearts and Bones”. “Hearts and Bones” was a commercial flop. But then again, so was “Pet Sounds”. So was “Astral Weeks”. And in my not-so-humble opinion, “Hearts and Bones” can hold its own in that very heady company.

Even Simon’s subsequent “Graceland” (which I’m in a small critical minority of judging poorly) and “Rhythm of the Saints” outsold it. But I’ve never been one to care how well music does commercially. Really, it makes no impression on me whatsoever. And there are so many great songs on “Hearts and Bones”, and in Paul Simon’s string of his first five solo albums, that we’re not going to even deal with them here this week, they deserve their own day. Today we’re just going to address a single song from that album, “The Late, Great Johnny Ace.”

Johnny Ace (1929–1954)was a very successful rhythm & blues artist from Memphis, with a long string of hits in the early 1950s –’Pledging My Heart‘ (the first record Paul Simon ever bought, ‘Saving My Love for You,’ and ‘Never Let Me Go,’ which was covered by such fine artists as John Martyn).

On Christmas Day, 1954, Johnny was fooling around between sets at a Houston show. Curtis Tillman, Big Mama Thornton’s bass player: “Johnny Ace had been drinking and he had this little pistol he was waving around the table and someone said ‘Be careful with that thing…’ and he said ‘It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded…see?’ and pointed it at himself with a smile on his face and ‘Bang!’ – sad, sad thing. Big Mama ran outta that dressing room yelling ‘Johnny Ace just killed hisself!”

Paul Simon had been bar mitzvahed two months earlier.

I was reading a magazine, thinking of a rock and roll song
The year was nineteen fifty-six (sic) and I hadn’t been playing that long,
When a man came on the radio, and this is what he said,
He said “I hate to break it to his fans, but Johnny Ace is dead.”

Well, I really wasn’t such a Johnny Ace fan, but I felt bad all the same.
So I sent away for his photograph and I waited till it came.
It came all the way from Texas, with a sad and simple face
And they signed it on the bottom “From the Late Great Johnny Ace.”

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was murdered by a crazy fan.

On a cold December evening I was walking through the Christmas tide
When a stranger came up and asked me if I’d heard John Lennon had died.
And the two of us went to this bar, and we stayed to close the place,
And every song we played was for the late, great Johnny Ace.

In September, 1981, Simon and Garfunkel gave a free concert in Central Park, attended by half a million people. Simon presented a brand-new song, ‘The Late, Great Johnny Ace,’ performed for the very first time. Towards the end of the song, a crazed fan rushes him onstage, saying “I just want to talk to you.” It’s hard to believe, but the scene isn’t staged.

Even today, my mind gets teary when it lights on John Lennon’s death. He appears in Paul Simon’s song only obliquely. Because the song isn’t about John Lennon, and it’s not about Johnny Ace. It’s about Paul Simon, born of a monumental artist informing a great one. So, thanks Paul, for talking about yourself so eloquently. Thanks for telling me something about myself. And John – you should know, up there in the sky with diamonds, that you shaped a large part of who I am. Me, and all of us.

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053: The Beatles, ‘In My Life’

038: Van Morrison, ‘Astral Weeks’

018: Paul McCartney, ‘Distractions’

Tags: John Lennon, Johnny Ace, Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel

006: Elvis Costello, ‘Accidents Will Happen’ (live)

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I often find that when I get my hands on a new CD by an artist I’m familiar with, I put it on hold and listen to his/her previous work. Preparing myself aurally for the new one, as it were.

Well, mazal tov to Elvis Costello on his new release, “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane”. The liner notes compare it to his 1986 opus magnum, “King of America”, also produced by T-Bone Burnett. I’ve listened to the new CD twice now, and was a bit underwhelmed. The sound is similar, but it doesn’t hang together. At least so far. But I’ll probably be giving it one more chance.

Because I think Elvis Costello is as talented as John Lennon.

I realize that’s a pretty outrageous statement. But no one who knows me musically would accuse me of anything less than the utmost reverence for John’s work. I didn’t say that Elvis is in John’s league (because that’s a league of one), I said that he has the talent. What he lacks is the focus. He started as one of the founders of punk, a genre for which I have little appreciation, and I think still suffers from that tendency to play the provocateur rather than focus on the music itself. He’s worked in many, many different contexts, from Nashville to string quartets, Paul McCartney, opera, jazz, neo-punk, Burt Bacharach, and TV emceeing (‘Spectacle’, hosting the likes of James Taylor, Rufus Wainwright and the saxophonist/president Bill Clinton). Nothing wrong with that. Unless it comes at the expense of digging down, which might be true with Elvis C. To my mind his is a career chock full of disappointment, because of his immense talent and very small really first-rate output, stuff which can stand unflinchingly next to anything of its time – the LP “King of America”, four or five songs from “Spike”, the songs “Shipbuilding” and “Alison”, and this week’s song of the week, a live version of his punk hit “Accidents Will Happen.”

The original I found to be just ordinary kid’s stuff. And this naked version? A riveting combination of wryness and craftsmanship, poetry and passion.

And not only that. He’s married to Diane Krall.

Accidents will happen, you only hit and run.
You used to be a victim, now you’re not the only one.
Accidents will happen, you only hit and run.
I don’t want to hear it, ’cause I know what I’ve done.

Oh I just don’t know where to begin–
Though he says he’ll wait forever, its now or never.
But they keep him hanging on – the silly champion.
She says she can’t go home without a chaperone

There’s so many fish in the sea that only rise up in the sweat and smoke like mercury,
And they keep you hanging on, they say you’re so young
Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone

And its the damage that we do and never know.
It’s the words that we don’t say that scare me so

There’s so many people to see,
So many people you can check up on and add to your collection
But they keep you hanging on until you’re well hung.
Your mouth is made up but your mind is undone.

Tags: Accidents Will Happen, Accidents Will Happen live, Elvis Costello, John Lennon, Paul McCartney