Elvis Costello: Strict Time
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Good rock lyrics don't have to make sense or tell a story. They just have to sound cool and, hopefully, be somewhat evocative of a story or mood.
Witness Elvis Costello’s Strict Time. If you just listen to it, the song sounds pretty cool. And few of the phrases will really catch your ear (i.e., "a cold sweat breaks out on the sweater girl," or "smoking the everlasting cigarette of chastity"). Almost all of the words throughout the song sound kind of cool. And that's a good thing. But when you read the lyrics, they really don't make much sense:
There's a hand on a wire that leads to my mouth
I can hear you knocking but I'm not coming out
Don't want to be a puppet or a ventriloquist
'Cause there's no ventilation on a critical list
Fingers creeping up my spine are not mine to resist
Strict time
Toughen up, toughen up, keep your lip buttoned up
Strict time
Oh the muscles flex and the fingers curl
And a cold sweat breaks out on the sweater girl
Strict time
Oh he's all hands, don't touch that dial
The courting cold wars weekend witch trial
Strict time
All the boys are straight laced and the girls are frigid
The talk is two-faced and the rules are rigid 'cause it's strict
time
Strict time
You talk in hushed tones, I talk in lush tones
Try to look Italian through the musical Valium
Strict time
Thinking of grand larceny
Smoking the everlasting cigarette of chastity
Cute assistants staying alive
More like a hand job than the hand jive
Strict time
The moral of the story for rock songwriters: The perfect is the enemy of the good. Don't worry about whether it all makes sense. Just make it sound cool and you'll be most of the way there.
And, if possible, wrap the whole thing up in about two minutes and forty-two seconds!
3 comments:
"The moral of the story for rock songwriters: The perfect is the enemy of the good. Don't worry about whether it all makes sense. Just make it sound cool and you'll be most of the way there."
You, my friend, have demolished the hammer head with the nail, with this admonishion. It is something I agree with so strongly that it made me... well, lemme just say I identify with it immensely.
Reminds me of when someone-or-other told Picaso that his art looked like a child's, and Pablo replied "It took me 70 years to paint like a child," or some-such (I'm paraphrasing)... Or what St. William Burroughs did with the written: made it so cool that it almost (note, I say almost) didn't matter what he was saying.
I think your moral shall become my watchword.
Really excellent post, and such a great song from a great album.
Andrew Bird is blogging about songwriting for the New York Times, and in his first post he talked about writing lyrics - for him the melody comes first, then the sound of the words. Meaning he has to find the right words (which he sometimes makes up) in order to fit the sounds. It's a great post and also really gets you thinking. I was listening to his song "Masterfade" and had a whole new appreciation for lines like "we let the kittens lick our hands and drink our chalky lemonade."
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