If you’re just joining us, check out the About This Project link for details. Basically, I make playlists of all the singles by certain musical artists and then try to order them using the guiding principle “do I like each song more than the last song.” I define “single” in a broad enough way to include any song that was released as a purchasable single in any format in any country; as a promotional single in any country; as a video; or generally any song that I know charted anywhere. My main sources are Wikipedia (mostly reliable) and Discogs (reasonably reliable). I welcome editing feedback since sometimes I favor speed over spelling.
20. Unwanted Number
(Elvis Costello and The Imposters)
First single from Look Now (2018), released as a single in 2018
Originally from the soundtrack to the 1996 film Grace of My Heart
Lyric I Especially Like:
There’s a local game where they whisper my shame
They say “He gave her his child
He wouldn’t give her his name”
They will torture me from January till September
Costello wrote “Unwanted Number” for the film Grace of My Heart, a terrific 1996 movie about a the music business (particularly songwriting) in the 1960’s. There are two songs by Costello associated with this film in my top twenty. In the film, the fictional girl group version of the song is banned for its subject matter (unwanted pregnancy) but gets the main character a bunch of positive attention as a songwriter. Costello recorded it for Look Now and his version – featuring The Imposters with back-up singers Kitten Kuroi and Briana Lee – is just fantastic. The lyrics are unchanged, so Costello is still singing from the perspective of a young woman, but the music and performance are (I mean, obviously) much more 2019 pop-rock. I find Costello’s delivery to be very empathetic to the character he’s portraying. Indeed, that’s one of the great things about the whole Look Now album – his empathy for his characters. I first listened to his version of the song when I started working on this list some months ago and immediately put it in the top 30 – I think it’s one of his all-time best singles and that it was released over 40 years into his career is kind of awesome.
What I Love – Those backing vocals are to die for.
19. Sulky Girl
(Elvis Costello and The Attractions)
First single from Brutal Youth (1994), released as a single in 1994
Lyric I Especially Like:
Just some stupid little know-it-all
Who thought she looked easy
He’s not that astute
He’ll pay for the distance
Between cruelty and beauty
There are two songs from Brutal Youth in my top 20 singles by Elvis Costello, a fact that kind of surprised me as I was working on the list. As you may recall, the way I create these lists involves me listening to all the tracks again and again and slowly sorting them in an order that more or less makes me more and more excited as it goes along. Excited, in this context, meaning “excited for what comes next” as opposed to, you know, the 64 other flavors of excitement. As it happens, when I realized Brutal Youth produced two of my all time favorite Elvis Costello singles, I went back and listened to the whole album and, you know, it really holds up well. I think the success of grunge led Costello and producer Mitchell Froom to dispense with the studio tricks of his previous two records and just focus on capturing the sound of The Attractions. Oh, and it certainly helps that The Attractions were involved. Listen to the interplay of the two Thomases on bass and drums during the verses and the beautiful coloring by Steve Nieve on keyboards followed by the savage full band assault on the choruses. They just sound great.
The gents at Trunkworthy’s Elvis Costello Song Of The Week have conflicting opinions about the lyrics. Mr. Stewart argues that song is a sympathetic picture of the titular sulky girl and a take down of the entitled men who think they have a chance with her, while Mr. Gorman proposes that the singer assassinates her character (and descends into an obsessed madness as represented by the increased chaos of the music) as effectively as he does her pathetic suitors. Listening to Costello’s delivery of the lyrics – especially how he spits out the last couple of verses – makes me lean more towards Gorman’s take. Either way, I like comparing “Sulky Girl” to some of Costello’s earlier songs – both lyrically and musically it shows how much he’d grown as a songwriter since his early days.
“Sulky Girl,” it should be mentioned, was the last song that Costello wrote for himself that entered the UK top 40.
What I Love – Pretty much everything Steve Nieve does on this piece is golden.
18. Pills and Soap
(The Imposter)
First (?) single from Punch the Clock (1983), released as a single in 1983
Lyric I Especially Like:
The sugar-coated pill is getting bitterer still
You think your country needs you, but you know it never will
So pack up your troubles in a stolen handbag
Don’t dilly-dally boys, rally ’round the flag
in 1983, Costello and keyboardist Steve Nieve recorded a song using the pseudonym “The Imposter” with just vocals, piano and a drum machine programmed by Costello. Digression: When I saw Costello in Rhode Island, he used a drum machine for “Pump It Up” (something I remember whenever my band, Oil in the Alley, plays with a backing track). Anyhow, Costello wanted to create a protest song and explore a little beyond the borders of The Attractions. The result is the wonderful “Pills and Soap,” a pointed response to the build up to the Falklands War. Costello draws parallels between how we humans abuse animals and how the upper classes rally the lower classes (who they ultimately don’t care about) into fighting and dying for them. Basically, the aristocracy is melting down the working class into the titular pills and soap. One, of course, can make a connection about how even now the wealthy trick the poor into supporting things that harm themselves and help the rich.
Costello (famously to his fans) is a vegetarian. At the time of the song’s release – the story goes – there was some concern that the song might have to be banned because of its political content. See, it was close to an election and they didn’t want to play anything that might unfairly sway public opinion one way or another. Costello, the story goes, told them the song was about cruelty to animals so it was played and, in fact, reached #16 on the UK charts.
What I Love – Again, Steve Nieve’s piano work here rules the day.
17. This House Is Empty Now
(Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach)
Australian/Sweden/Holland promo single from Painted From Memory (1998), released as a single in 1998
Lyric I Especially Like:
Oh, if I could just become forgetful when night seems endless
Does the extinguished candle care about the darkness?
There are two songs from Painted From Memory in my top 20, but this is the only one that was originally written for that album. This is also the second song in this section to reference the other song from Painted From Memory. Puzzle!
This is one of my absolute favorite songs to sing along with by any artist ever. First, its lyric is a heartbreaking exploration of a break-up as explored through a description of the titular house. It’s some of Costello’s most evocative writing. Second, Burt Bacharach has composed and arranged an absolutely stunning piece of music here – everything from the opening violin solo (by Belinda Whitney-Barratt) to the final fade-out is pure aural heartbreak. But third, and most importantly, Costello has almost never sounded better. The way he holds the notes on lines like “maybe you will see my face” is clear, gorgeous and filled with the dull pain of loss. This song isn’t happening right after the break-up – there’s been time to clear all their belongings out of their shared home. Perhaps he’s doing one last walk through before leaving it forever and thinking of all the good times they once had is particularly sharp. I’ve referenced the Noh theater concept of yugen before – a kind of way of seeing something that is beautiful through the lends of something else, “like moonlight on a pan of water or like an elderly woman pining for her lost beauty” are the common examples. You experience both the happiness that once existed and the pain of its absence in this song. It is profoundly beautiful.
What I Love – The lyric about friends choosing who they’re going to remain friends with after the break-up is a gut punch.
16. (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
Third single from My Aim Is True (1977), released as a single in 1977
Lyric I Especially Like:
Oh, I said “I’m so happy, I could die.”
She said “Drop dead,” then left with another guy.
Costello’s classic song of “romantic disappointment” is one of the highlights of his debut album and his career. Despite my low ranking of Alison (#85) and my critique of some of the production on My Aim is True, two songs from that album are in my top 20. The lyrics are about (to quote an author at Genius) a guy who “think’s he’s the slickest guy in the world – so slick he can pull one over on a bunch of angels – but he still can’t score with a cute woman.” In case you were wondering. Costello – backed by Clover – do their best channeling of The Byrds on this tune. I think they don’t quite turn into The Byrds here but -as happens in the best moments – discover a sound that was sort of uniquely 1977. The production (which I sometimes find murky on My Aim Is True) really enhances this particularly song. It makes it feel like a much older song – indeed, the song itself never sounds like it gets any older (to paraphrase the lyrics). I had this pair of grey suede (?) shoes in high school that were (perhaps ironically) desired by some of my friends and I associate this song with that long lost footwear, with my high school friends and with being young and hapless in general. In my youth, I thought this was a song of triumph (he’s been rejected, but at least the angels like his style) and it wasn’t until I was older (quite a bit older) that I realized the sad truth about the narrator. At that point, I still felt like the song was about kind of about me.
“(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” was Elvis Costello’s third single overall and, like “Less Than Zero” and “Alison,” also failed to chart.
What I Love – Clover member John McFee’s opening guitar work is justly legendary and I love the harmony singing on “get any older.”
15. Clubland
(Elvis Costello and The Attractions)
First single from Trust (1981), released as a single in 1980
Lyric I Especially Like:
The right to work is traded in for the right to refuse admission
Don’t pass out now, there’s no refund
Did you find out what you were missing
Costello writes this about “Clubland:”
I intended this to be a poisoned version of “On Broadway”, which the recording, at least, falls a long way short. I think we improved upon it many times in concert, but the song says its piece and the record has its moments, particularly Steve’s “Rhapsody in Blue” bit in the piano solo.
Elvis Costello, liner notes for Girls Girls Girls
The liner notes for that compilation album, I should mention, are a thing of glory (as are all of his liner notes, truth be told).
Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that “Clubland” demonstrated a growing sophistication in Costello’s songwriting, this debut single from Trust broke his streak of top 40 UK hits, reaching only #60. I’ve written about this before (I’ve written about everything before), but it’s easy for me to forget that Costello was a bonafide pop star in the UK since his songs were rarely played on our local rock station. I mostly heard his music on WXCI, our local college station. In retrospect, the music US college radio played in the 80’s (and perhaps to this day) was a fascinating mix of genuinely alternative US music mixed with songs that had been enormous hits in the UK and Europe. As a result of this, I sometimes mis-equate the success of, for example, The Replacements (who had some hits on the U.S. Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts, but no songs that made the Top 40 he U.S. Top 40) with Elvis Costello (who had a dozen or so top 40 songs in the UK).
Anyhow, “Clubland” is a sort of a drug and alcohol fueled travelogue of different clubs one tours when one is in a successful, professional band. There’s a fantastic contrast between the jazzy, meandering verses and the extremely focused chorus. Costello, in this period, was growing disgusted with the rock lifestyle and with his embrace of it (though not yet quite ready to ditch it) and this comes out in both his lyrics and his vocal performance.
What I Love – Steve Nieve occasionally sounds like he’s playing completely different songs, as if he’s giving us a tour of some of the clubs the band
14. Accidents Will Happen
(Elvis Costello and The Attractions)
Second single from Armed Forces (1979), released as a single in 1979
Lyric I Especially Like:
Oh I just don’t know where to begin
Is there a better first line from a first song on any album ever? Ok, maybe, but I can’t think of one at the moment. When you drop the needle on Armed Forces, this line is the very first thing you hear and you know from that moment that Costello has a bunch of things he needs to tell you. A song about infidelity (as so many of his songs are), the lyrics of “Accidents Will Happen” read to me as being shared by a man who is humble bragging (after a fashion) about his numerous affairs. He wants to sound like he regrets it (and maybe he does), but he sounds kind of proud (and maybe he is). “Accidents” is, of course, his chosen euphemism for his affairs, which suggests that the narrator is trying to absolve himself of responsibility and those accidents “will happen,” which suggests a certain inevitability. The lyrics are oblique enough to mask the ugly truth of the song’s subject matter, which is what I will say should anyone ever ask me why I didn’t realize it was about infidelity until the late 90’s.
There are two songs from Armed Forces in my top 20.
What I Love – I love how it sounds like the song falls apart musically just a bit when they get to the “Accidents Will Happen” part of the chorus.
13 . Walk Us Uptown
(Elvis Costello and The Roots)
Music video from Wise Up Ghost (2013), video released in 2013
Lyric I Especially Like:
Will you wash away our sins
In the cross-fire and cross-currents
As you uncross your fingers
And take out some insurance
Wise Up Ghost is one of Elvis Costello’s all-time great albums in no small part because The Roots are one of the best bands he’s ever played with (and the man has played with a whole lot of bands). Some of his album that feature Costello exploring new styles took me a few listens to embrace, but I liked this one from the first moment I heard it. This is usually a bad sign – it usually means I’ll quickly tire of the album. As it happens, my enjoyment of this record has only grown with time. Most of the contemporary reviews of the album in general and “Walk Us Uptown” in particular focus on the “how” of the record more-so than the “what.” You can read about how Costello uses snippets from his earlier lyrics on many of the tracks or about how The Roots and Costello are masters with little to prove or about which songs work and which don’t, but there’s not a whole bunch of effort to get to the heart of the songs. One author at Genius took the time to breakdown the lyrics and makes a convincing argument that the song is about how the Internet is causing a continual devaluation of culture. I’m not 100% sold, but I can buy that argument. I’ve always heard it as a song about white people using black musicians as cover. Indeed, the title of the album ‘Wise Up Ghost” could be construed as telling white people (ghosts) to wise up, though it could also be using ghost to refer to your soul, which also needs to wise up (presumably by devaluing culture). You listen. Tell me what you think. Then listen for five more years and tell me again. I’ll have been listening to this song for 11 years by then and will probably have better opinions.
This is the last song on this list released in the 2000’s.
What I Love – The groove.
12. Radio, Radio
(Elvis Costello and The Attractions)
Third Single from This Year’s Model (1978), released as a single in 1978
Lyric I Especially Like:
I wanna bite the hand that feeds me.
I wanna bite that hand so badly.
I want to make them wish they’d never seen me
There are three songs from the U.S. release of This Year’s Model in my top 20. Indeed, in my top 12. Does that make it my favorite Elvis Costello album? Maybe. I’d not be able to argue against that hypothesis very effectively. I suppose I could argue that “Radio Radio” was only added to the U.S. release of This Year’s Model and was initially a stand-alone single in the UK, so it shouldn’t be counted in that album’s favor, but this is a weak argument. Besides, I never realized that there was a different UK track listening for This Year’s Model until I’d already grown accustomed to the U.S. version. The album sounds wrong to me without it.
“Radio Radio” is an attack on the medium, but more broadly it is an attack on how the people who control the radio use it to “anaesthetise the way that you feel.” Angry about something? Don’t worry, here’s a song. Not angry about something they want you to be angry about? They can take care of that too. Costello recognizes that he relies on radio for his commercial success, but longs to attack them (and does on this and many other songs). The Attractions, as a unit, play this song with absolute fury – a thing you can hear clearly in their legendary performance of the song on Saturday Night Live. Costello has had such a long career now without The Attractions that it’s easy to forget that for about a decade, they were one of the best bands working.
What I Love – I keep bringing him up, but Steve Nieve’s keyboard work here is brilliance.
11. Man Out of Time
(Elvis Costello and The Attractions)
Second single from Imperial Bedroom (1982), released as a single in 1982
Lyric I Especially Like:
He’s got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge
He stands to be insulted and he pays for the privilege
I mentioned in the last entry that This Year’s Model might be my favorite Elvis Costello album and that I didn’t have a solid argument to prove that I felt any differently. The only evidence I can cite is that I have listened to Imperial Bedroom more than any other album on my iPod. It’s one of those albums where the parts add up to much more than the sum of the songs. Indeed, there are some songs that I won’t listen to outside of the context of the album, but when played in concert with the whole piece are sublime (I’m looking at you “Kid About It”). I’ve mentioned before that the towering musical achievement on this record (and of Costello’s career?) is “Almost Blue,” which was never released as a single. “Man Out Of Time,” though, is my second favorite song on the record and just missed out on my top ten (because this list is in base ten and not base eleven – though don’t think I haven’t considered that). Some song has to be #11. I really wanted this one to be in my top ten, but I just like those song a slight bit more. It is unfair and I’d rage quit this list now if I were you.
At it’s conception, “Man Out Of Time” was a fast paced rocker – and you get a sense of this in the brief screaming overture as well as the coda. Those clips are from an alternate (earlier) take of the song. Costello decided it would work better at a slower tempo and he and his amazing band working with producer Nick Lowe took the tune and turned it into a moving “live in the studio” recording. As for the lyrics, Costello writes:
Disgusted, disenchanted, and occasionally in love, “Man Out Of Time” was the product of a troubling dialogue with myself that continued through my more regretful moments. I recall looking at my reflection in the frozen window of a Scandinavian tour bus without any idea who the hell I was supposed to be. I was trying to think or feel my way out of a defeated and exhausted frame of mind to something more glorious.
This was resolved in song, one shivering, hungover morning in the manicured gardens of a remote Scottish hotel. The house in which we were staying had played a very minor part in one of Britain’s most notorious political scandals, apparently serving briefly as a bolt-hole fort one of the disgraced protagonists. I actually delighted at the thought of this sordid history; it suited my mood. I can’t say that the words and ideas that emerged from these experiences were exactly welcome news to some of the band members. Like I could give a damn.
Elvis Costello, liner notes for the 2002 re-release of Imperial Bedroom
Steve Nieve’s piano work – so essential on so many of Costello’s songs – feels like it is offering sparkling counterpoints to Costello’s words while the rhythm section of Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas evoke the sound of a guilty conscience – or at least one waking up to its guilt. The whole piece is a heartbreaking exercise in self loathing with just a little bit of hope – maybe you could still love this man out of time?
What I Love – Costello just sounds so sad on this tune.
Coming Soon: My top ten features ten songs from nine different albums.
Elvis Costello Singles Ranked – 111-116 – 101-110 – 91-100 – 81-90 – 71-80 – 61-70 – 51-60 – 41-50 – 31-40 – 21-30 – 11-20 – 1-10