Friday April 2, 2021 “Watching the Detectives” Elvis Costello & the Attractions
This song is the rock version of film noir.
Written and sung by Elvis Costello, “Watching the Detectives” was produced by Nick Lowe, multi-instrumentalist, producer and successful singer/songwriter himself and although it is credited to the Attractions, the backing band on this track was actually Graham Parker’s band, The Rumour.
Costello refers to this song as his favorite of his first five years and has rerecorded it with a full orchestral arrangement to capture the 1940’s movie feel that he felt the song needed. He has said that on the first version he wanted to achieve the same feel as the staccato musical scores that Bernard Hermann wrote for Alfred Hitchcock films like Psycho.
Lyrically there is just so much to explore in this song right from the beginning, so let’s give some deeper thought to lines like:
-“Nice girls...cellophane shrink wrapped”;
-“They beat him up until the teardrops start”;
-“She pulls their eyes out with a face like a magnet”;
-“...the parents who are waiting to hear the worst about their daughter’s disappearance”;
-“it only took my little fingers to blow you away”;
-and one of my favorite suggestive lyrics from any song, “she’s filing her nails as they're dragging the lake”.
Stay safe and well...and do check out the video, it is good fun.