Why Elvis Costello Was Not Happy With ‘Punch the Clock’

By 1983, Elvis Costello had skilled each ends of the profession spectrum.

He loved business success along with his first albums, however had hassle touchdown hit singles from 1981’s Nearly Blue and 1982’s Imperial Bed room. So Costello figured it was time to show his consideration again towards a extra pop-based radio-friendly sound for Punch the Clock.

“Counting [1981’s] Belief, we might gone three information with none substantial hit aside from ‘Good 12 months for the Roses,'” he mentioned in 2013’s Difficult Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello. “You need to take into account for those who permit that contact with the mainstream viewers to be served for too lengthy, you could lose the liberty to do what you need to do.”

Working along with his Points of interest and producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, Costello centered on writing songs that had been simpler to latch on to and extra rhythmic. He additionally recorded them in a extra structured method. “Being in a reasonably feckless mind set, I had dashed off a few vivid pop tunes that did not have a lot else to them,” Costello mentioned within the liner notes for a 2003 reissue of Punch the Clock.

Launched on Aug. 5, 1983, the album was dotted with extra upbeat numbers like “The Biggest Factor,” “Let Them All Speak” and “The Component Inside Her” that supplied themes of hope, requited love and sweetness that frankly had been fairly totally different from Costello’s often extra cynical topics.

“I believe he accepted that that is what we did as producer: hits,” Langer mentioned in Difficult Shadows. “He at all times reacts towards what he is finished earlier than, so we went for it. We tried to get singles.”

Watch Elvis Costello’s ‘On a regular basis I Write the E-book’ Video

Issues moved alongside at a really quick tempo within the studio. Costello’s cheerful sounding “On a regular basis I Write the E-book” turned one of the best identified music from Punch the Clock, and it was written in about 10 minutes.

“I believed possibly I might write only a easy, virtually method music and make it imply one thing,” Costello instructed interviewer Simon Grigg in 1998. “I used to be fairly proud of it.” The addition of “a form of Merseybeat knock-off” association accomplished issues.

Even so, Costello “remained allergic to the pleased ending” so he nonetheless included some songs that felt extra consistent with his historically flinty mindset. In “Mouth Almighty,” he sings: “I threw away the rose and held onto the thorn.” “King of Thieves” incorporates a basic Costello put down: “If I had been you, I would change my identify once more.” Then there was “Shipbuilding,” which famous with unhappy irony that England’s docks had been solely thriving once more due to the early-’80s Falklands Warfare. Costello would later describe this monitor as “much less of a protest music than a warning signal.”

Different new faces additionally subtly shifted their strategy. Punch the Clock featured the TKO horns, together with Jim Paterson on trombone, Jeff Blythe on alto saxophone and Paul Speare on tenor sax. Backing vocals had been offered by Caron Wheeler and Claudia Fontaine, generally known as Afrodiziak. The brightest visitor star of all was Chet Baker, who added a trumpet solo on “Shipbuilding.”

Hearken to Elvis Costello’s ‘Shipbuilding’

The jazz nice had been taking part in a neighborhood residency, and Costello glided by to introduce himself between units. “There isn’t any false modesty in saying that he had no thought who I used to be. Why the hell ought to he?” Costello mentioned within the reissue liner notes. “Nonetheless, he accepted my invitation to come back and play on the ‘Shipbuilding’ session the subsequent day. I discussed a charge. He mentioned ‘Scale.’ I believe we most likely doubled it.”

Costello toured closely behind Punch the Clock, and took part in an enormous media blitz. The onerous work paid off: This was Costello’s best-selling album since 1980’s Get Pleased!!, touchdown at No. 3 within the U.Okay. He’d solely have one higher-charting album, as 1994’s Brutal Youth matched the No. 2 end of 1979’s Armed Forces. “On a regular basis I Write the E-book” turned his first-ever High 40 hit within the U.S.

Nonetheless, crucial response was blended. Costello would come to agree with them, lamenting that a lot of the LP had turn out to be immediately dated. “I discover it onerous to disregard the good thing about hindsight,” Costello mentioned within the reissue liner notes, arguing that Punch the Clock had been too involved with the “passionless fads of that charmless time: ‘The Early ’80s.'”

Points of interest bassist Bruce Thomas took intention at its “stylish manufacturing values” with “every thing gated collectively, very vivid and glossy. It wasn’t our factor, nevertheless it labored on a few tracks,” he mentioned in Difficult Shadows.

Costello would document yet one more album with Langer and Winstanley, 1984’s Goodbye Merciless World, earlier than altering instructions as soon as extra.

Watch Elvis Costello’s ‘Let Them All Speak’ Video