Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello by Graeme Thomson (Canongate Books 2004)

Ironically, the two stand-out tracks on the record were the sparsest, the ones that mostly steered clear of sonic gimmicks. 'Pills and Soap' was a stark, stabbing piano track based on Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message', rush-released as a single in May on Elvis's own IMP label and then supposedly deleted - in actual fact, it never was - on the eve of the 1983 general election. Loosely inspired by a film about the abuse of animals which had made Elvis turn vegetarian, it hid a scabarous - if obscure - political viewpoint beneath the surface.

Meanwhile, 'Shipbuilding' stood up against the very best of his recorded output. While always conceding that Robert Wyatt's version was the original, Elvis liked the song so much he wanted it to be heard by the widest number of people possible. To make his version even more distinctive, he visualised a trumpet solo on the track.

Chet Baker wasn't the first choice. Langer recalls that Wynton Marsalis was discussed but wasn't in the country, while a typically undaunted Elvis had Miles Davis as his original first pick, but it so happened that Baker was in London in May playing a residency at The Canteen. His melancholy, melodic trumpet sound and remarkable good looks had made him a 1950's poster boy, but he had since descended into a grim cycle of cocaine and heroin addiction which gripped him until his death in 1988.

By his own admission, Baker had never heard of Elvis Costello, but when Elvis sounded him out at The Canteen, he quickly agreed to play for scale. 'It was a cash deal,' recalled Elvis. 'He just came in; it may well have been the next day.' Elvis offered to double the jazzman's standard union fee, and few could doubt he was worth every penny.

'One of the best things we ever did was 'Shipbuilding',' recalls Bruce Thomas, still moved by the experience many years on. 'That was probably one of the musical high points. Chet Baker, this wizened corpse on death's door, strung out, just played. He followed this bass line and played his solo, so simple, with so much soul in it. It really touched me. It was one of those things that really made me think about how you judge people.'

While Langer concurs that Baker's final contribution as heard on the record was inspirational, he remembers the session being a tough one. 'We recorded the track live, but he kept blowing bum notes when we got to his solo. He was going, "This isn't jazz!" so he couldn't quite get it. That solo is three whole takes - the band as well - edited together, to get it to work. He was pretty spaced out.'

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 01

I meant to do another one of these months ago but . . . but . . . you know the score. Let's not embarrass each other about this recurring matter.

Thirty days in June and a threadbare post count for 2012 gives me a cheap excuse to litter the page with embedded videos for the next thirty days. My one reader in Kerala with dial-up will be so so pleased.


day 01 - Your favourite cover version
It could be any number of Dick Gaughan's versions of Leon Rosselson songs and, up until a minute ago, it was going to be this wonderful version of a Chic classic but I suddenly remembered that I've had Kris Drever's version of Boo Hewerdine's 'Harvest Gypsies' on repeat for months now, and what better excuse to belatedly mention the song on the blog:



A great voice, a touching d-i-y video, and some backstory to the term 'Harvest Gypsies' and the John Steinbeck connection.

Mixing Pop and Politics (10)

Quick one.

NM over at Castles in Space music blog has just posted 'Kingdom', the wonderful 1993 single by Ultramarine, which featured Robert Wyatt on lead vocals.

Without a shadow of a doubt, it stands up as one of my favourite political pop songs from the the last twenty years and, of course, it took pride of place on the 'The Secret Melody of the Class Struggle' mixed cd that we took down to Glastonbury in 2003 to sell on the SPGB stall that year.

NM already provides the background to the recording over at his blog, so I don't even get the opportunity to use the word 'plaintive' when describing Robert Wyatt's voice because he already beat me to the publishing button. However he's on safer ground with his mention of "folktronica". What the hell is that? Oh, that's "folktronica". OK, I'll have some Beta Band, Beth Orton, Goldfrapp and The High Llamas. The rest can kindly leave the post. The Dance Village is that way.

NM mentions in passing that the lyric was adapted by Wyatt from a "Nineteenth Century protest song", but the underreporting is perhaps doing the original a slight disservice. The lyric was adapted from Ernest Jones's poem, 'The Song of the Lower Classes', which dates from 1852.

Originally from a highly privileged background, Jones - who was on the left wing of the Chartist Movement at its height - was as well known as a poet and a writer as he was an orator and Chartist leader. The strange old days when radical politicians also provided their audiences with popular music and poetry, as opposed to nowadays when whoever's on the front cover of the current issue of the Rolling Stone tries to give us their half-baked politics tucked neatly inside their newly released box set.

If you want more background on Jones, this essay by (the late) Edmund and Ruth Frow of the Working Class Movement Library fills in a lot of the detail.

In the meantime, cut and posted below is Jones's original poem. Be sure to have a read of it whilst listening to Ultramarine and Robert Wyatt's late twentieth century re-interpretation:

Song of the Lower Classes

We plow and sow, we're so very, very low,
That we delve in the dirty clay;
Till we bless the plain with the golden grain,
And the vale with the fragrant hay.
Our place we know, we're so very, very low,
'Tis down at the landlord's feet;
We're not too low the grain to grow,
But too low the bread to eat.

Down, down we go, we're so very, very low,
To the hell of the deep-sunk mines;
But we gather the proudest gems that glow,
When the crown of the despot shines;
And when'er he lacks, upon our backs
Fresh loads he deigns to lay:
We're far too low to vote the tax
But not too low to pay.

We're low, we're low -- we're very, very low --
And yet from our fingers glide
The silken floss and the robes that glow
Round the limbs of the sons of pride;
And what we get, and what we give,
We know, and we know our share;
We're not too low the cloth to weave,
But too low the cloth to wear.

We're low, we're low, we're very, very low,
And yet when the trumpets ring,
The thrust of a poor man's arm will go
Through the heart of the proudest king.
We're low, we're low -- mere rabble, we know --
We're only the rank and the file;
We're not too low to kill the foe,
But too low to share the spoil.

Notes to the People,  1852