#96: Elvis Costello - (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes

Elvis Costello - (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
from My Aim is True, 1977

Elvis Costello's first record has a funny place in his discography . On the one hand, the whole record--from the masturbatory (literally) opening line of "Welcome to the Working Week" throught to (in the US version) the surprisingly sinister two-tone riffs of "Watching the Detectives"--sets up the archetypal Elvis Costello sound that would define his first three records and solidify his reputation as an "Angry Young Man," occupying the poppy sweet spot between the rage of punk and the hooky sensibilities of new wave and classic power pop.

On the other, the record is an anomaly--without the classic Attractions lineup (and in particular, without the keyboard of Steve Nieve, Costello's most important collaborator and the key contributor to the signature sound Elvis and the Attractions perfected on his second LP, 1978's This Year's Model), and featuring a much more straightforward, guitar-based sound than Elvis's later work. Produced by Nick Lowe, My Aim is True stands on its own as a beautiful, quirky pop record in Lowe's own vein, but simply isn't as rich and full of power tempered with sarcasm as his next two albums.

After almost 15 years of listens, I feel like I can hear the vaguely honky-tonk influences (brought out on the demo recordings included with subsequent American reissues) that Elvis shed with the Attractions, but that have always bubbled below the surface of his work. My Aim is True has always been a "what if?" record for me--what if Nieve's organ had been here, what if they'd played with a bit more power there?  Even Elvis seemed to realize the album's odd status in his own performances--when the Attractions played these songs, they changed in subtle but important ways, making them swing harder, bringing in odd tempos, jerky starts and stops. Elvis's most important acknowledgement of this sonic shift came at that famous SNL gig, when he decided (absolutely correctly, in hindsight), that the Attraction's new version of "Less Than Zero" just lacked the impact of his new, harder work.

The sole exception to the general air of incompleteness on My Aim is True is the song at #96, a funny little falling-out-of-love song cryptically entitled "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes." "Red Shoes," which swings at its own, slightly less frantic pace from anything else in Elvis's early canon, sounds entirely finished and of a piece--a perfect pop moment (with jangly guitars and from an artist trying to bridge his pub rock roots to this "new wave," captured in amber. The song features a fairly conventional story about a girl who, in Gram Parson's words, "loved those bright lights more than she" loved Elvis, and is told from the perspective of an aloof narrator who seems to have acquired a certain ironic distance ("I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused") from the recent proceedings. I have no idea why the angels wanna wear his red shoes, or what the eponymous shoes have to do with "his side of the bargain," why anyone thinks he's "too old." What I do know is that this song has probably the greatest lyrical description in all of pop history of what it does to a relationship to watch your girl get flirty with all the other boys at the bar, with a clever phrase in the middle that was an early proposal for the name of this here blog:

I was watching while you're dancing away.
Our love got fractured in the echo and sway.
How come everybody wants to be your friend?
You know that it still hurts me just to say it.

Unlike nearly everything else on the record, "Red Shoes" actually suffered from its "Attractionification," as seen here in a 1977 Top of the Pops performance, with a sharper, angrier vocal from Elvis, a more propulsive backbeat, and Nieve's organ swirling a bit more than was usual. The wry detatchment of the original was perfect, and even a superior band could make no improvement.



This version, however, has its own wry appeal (and is sonically quite close to the original) and it's worth a quick listen.



-Brandon

#96: Gorilaz - Clint Eastwood

Gorrilaz - Clint Eastowwd
from Gorillaz, 2001

I didn't like rap until the end of my freshman year. Up 'til then I thought it was completely fucking ridiculous -- but remember that this was the days of Back That Ass Up and Pony and that sort of thing, so I feel like I had a bit of justification even if I'm still totally to blame for not digging deeper. But then I was confronted with Deltron 3030. Right place, right time, right state of mind -- partly, but I think it clicked when I realized that it was more the song subjects than the genres that I didn't care for. To be trite and clichéd, there was more to it than bitches and hoes, and it took a futuristic space rap-opera to teach me that.

Deltron doesn't make this list; if we had 200 songs, there'd be three or four tracks from that album that would be in contention.

This song technically predates this epiphany, being released about two months prior. But I didn't hear it until I went back home for the summer. I retcon the start of my music geekdom to the prior November but, in reality, there was still a ways to go in the process. I was primarily listening to "good" music at this point -- well, primarily Tool and Weezer, but a lot of the other stuff I learned about the prior nine months -- except when I was driving. My car didn't have a CD player and all my music was on CDs. I think I had one of those 1/8" jack to cassette contraptions, but I listened mostly to the radio. And that's where I heard this song, usually at least once a day, for three months.

I loved it immediately. It was obvious: Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, as the Deltron emcee, was my gateway into the world of rap music and here, what is this?! Del's rapping on on this track that's playing on the only radio station I liked! I had to get into rap music! There's only two songs I specifically prayed to hear on the radio, and this is one of them.

Start with the groove, with the riff. It has this waltz feel to it despite being in 4/4 which, in combination with the minor key, gives it an off-kilter ominous feel. The irony of the chorus ("...I got sunshine in a bag...") furthers this to the point that it doesn't actually matter what else is going on in the song; the piece works well purely on atmospherics, though Del's rap braggadocio provides a ghostly veneer.

And then there's the enigmatic title. Wikipedia provides two connections: 1) The "sunshine in a bag" being a reference to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and 2)

Jamie Hewlett claimed during the documentary-film Bananaz that "The song isn't really about the actor Clint Eastwood, but more to do with the Melodica solo in the song".

But I like to think of it as a reference to High Plains Drifter. This is probably the most enigmatic of the Man With No Name movies (and, consequently, the first to not be directed by Leone), in which it becomes clear that he's a...well, let's call him an "avenging angel." I'm not going to break it down -- I may be completely full of crap -- except to say that he literally paints the town read and renames it HELL. So I think it fits well if you imagine the song as being from Eastwood's character's point of view.