This is Better Than Sex

Okay, that may be a hyperbole… but it’s hard to convey my excitement over this collaboration!  Elvis Costello is a legend and Mumford & Sons are one of the best current bands.  Now, they’ve worked together to cover two songs that I love.  It’s a good day.

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Elvis Costello & Dave Edmunds // "Girls Talk"

It’s really rare that I like covers better than originals.  I think this happens more often than I’d like to admit, but I just have this innate notion to always favor the original version of a song.  It probably comes from growing up in Boston and rooting for the Red Sox (the underdogs)!  Anyways, as hesitant as I am to admit it, Dave Edmunds’s cover of Elvis Costello’s Girls Talk takes the song to another level.

My favorite thing about this song is the sarcasm in the lyrics.  When Costello sings the song, it’s a little anxiety-ridden.   However, when Edmunds covers it he adds that necessary sarcastic tone to go along with the lyrics and (as the charts demonstrated) and turn it into a hit song.   He adds a bounce and up-beat aspect that the song needs. 

To me, this seems like one of those songs that would be written in a moment of thought.  As if Costello was sitting in a café or on a train and looking around at girls gossiping and, as we tend to do, assuming that they were talking about him.  Yet, it is vague who the lyrics of directed at and who the victim is.  Of course, it just wouldn’t be an Elvis Costello song without a few vicious remarks (You may not be an old-fashioned girl / But you're gonna get dated").  Note the pronunciation of dated!

This is one of those songs that I imagine would be universally liked.  Check out both versions, below:

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Chet Baker & Elvis Costello // "Almost Blue"

“Almost Blue” is one of those songs that has the lyrical complexity to deliver a custom message to each individual listener.   While this is hardly unusual in Elvis Costello’s work, (something I find particularly eminent in “Man Out of Time”), the rarity of it in modern artists deems it something to be treasured in people like Costello. 

I first discovered Costello through my mother, who initially introduced me to “Pump It Up” and “Watching the Detectives”.  As I subsequently searched through my parent’s CD collection, hoping to find one or two albums by him, I overzealously discovered more than 10 albums of both his solo work and Elvis Costello & the Attractions.  With the mountain of albums in hand, I devoted an entire summer to picking apart every rhyme, subtext, theme and meaning, feeling particularly proud of myself when a bit of research allowed me to correlate themes in the songs to those in his own life.

So through all this, I discovered the song “Almost Blue” and soon found Chet Baker’s interpretation as well.  I find it difficult to compare the two, as they so vastly differ from one another, but rather prefer to listen to them side by side.  The authenticity of Baker’s live performance of “Almost Blue” stands out immediately and reminds his listeners of what pure talent really is.

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