The moment a song is born, the world is different. It’s now a part of our lives. We sing it in the shower. We dance to it at our wedding. We get pumped with it. We break up to it. We memorize it. We try to forget it. We rediscover it. This month, I’m joining Arron Wright’s Twitter music challenge: ##Popiversary2. Because why the hell not. Songs deserve their own anniversaries, too.
Year: 1977
The rise of an artist’s most celebrated music can be a fascinating thing. Chart success is just part of the story. More airplay = more exposure. But some artists’ most well-known songs are ones that never charted, while lesser celebrated songs had their commercial success. One example of the latter is The Cure’s “Friday I’m In Love”. As a Cure fan, I can attest to the fact that the hit is one of the band’s worst songs. There are at least 40-50 other songs that are better than it, including “Plainsong” a non-single anthem. Elvis Costello has a similar thing going on. While the more successful “Veronica” and “Everyday I Write The Book” aren’t bad songs, his finest song is arguably “Alison”, the non-charting single from his debut album My Aim Is True.
“Did he leave your pretty fingers lying in the wedding cake?” The lyrics were absolutely genius. We don’t know the full story, but we are absolutely intrigued about this Alison from the very first verse. Costello has said it’s a song about a woman in a supermarket. Could it be that Alison is a figurative example of that stranger in the supermarket? Not just a stranger, but a person with all these complex things going on in her life. Searching for love in all the wrong places. Involved with the wrong person. Admired by someone who’s head over heels for her. The instrumentation is simple. The story is complicated. The melody is beautiful. My favorite Elvis Costello song didn’t climb charts, but it has climbed inside the hearts of many fans and found a safe place there.
“I'M NOT GONNA GET TOO SENTIMENTAL LIKE THOSE OTHER STICKY VALENTINES. 'CAUSE I DON'T KNOW IF YOU ARE LOVING SOMEBODY. I ONLY KNOW IT ISN'T MINE.”