Jive Monkey Gold: Elvis Costello Lyric Review

From April of 2005

LET'S DO THIS:

Everyday I write the book - Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Don't tell me you don't know what love is
When you're old enough to know better
When you find strange hands in your sweater
When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

Chapter One we didn't really get along
Chapter Two I think I fell in love with you
You said you'd stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three
But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

The way you walk
The way you talk, and try to kiss me, and laugh
In four or five paragraphs
All your compliments and your cutting remarks
Are captured here in my quotation marks

And I'm giving you a long look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

Don't tell me you don't know the difference
Between a lover and a fighter
With my pen and my electric typewriter
Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel

And I'm giving you a long look,
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.

First let's look at the complex rhyme scheme. Costello shows us how to work outside the box of standard ABAB or AABB writing. The chorus is only two lines, AA (they rhyme with each other). By keeping it so short, it has enabled him to write more verses, yet he can still insert the chorus between each verse, hammering home his theme.

The first verse is ABBCD. But although only the second and third lines rhyme (BB) we get internal rhymes in lines four ("dreamboat/ footnote") and five ("mission/ editions").
The second verse has one less line than the others -- perhaps it could be called a bridge (although bridges usually occur toward song's end). No line rhymes with another, so we can say that the end rhyme scheme is ABCD. Costello isn't eschewing rhymes, though -- he provides an internal rhyme within each of the four lines.
The third and fourth verses are both ABBCC, slightly different from the first verse. In the third verse, we have another kind of internal rhyme: the last word of the first line ("walk") rhymes with a word in the middle of the second ("talk").

What we can take from all of this is the knowledge that songwriters are not so limited with rhyme choices as would appear. You have more choices than 1. rhyming at the end of each line, and 2. no rhymes. You can always forego end rhymes while still getting the qualities that rhyme brings by providing internal rhymes.

This is not a masterpiece -- it's gimmicky, and Costello would admit that. But it's a very good song, one that has been covered by many artists (I am most familiar with mandolin king Sam Bush's version). Tons of songs provide the same theme: someone is claiming to be the love of another person's life, even if the other has eyes for a lesser rival, or is in some way overlooking their true soulmate. But no one has said it quite like Costello in this little ditty.

So many clever lines:

"When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions"

Of course we've all been there (if you haven't, you're lucky or very young and inexperienced). We know how much love is in our heart, how much we care, how much we can give or perhaps have given. But the object of our desire has eyes for another, a "dreamboat," although that dreamboat is no more than a "footnote," a person of inconsequence who cannot match our devotion. Perhaps it is someone who is less of a spiritual match or has less in common with our beloved, but they look better, or drive a nicer car, or any number of superficial things. Costello captures all of this in one clever metaphor. He does much the same in the last verse:

Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel

How delightful! And how tragically true it often is in human relationships. We choose a blob of insignificance that comes in a pretty package over someone who could be the whole she-bang to us.

So what seemed to be a little gimmicky song turns out to offer some profound truths about the human condition. This is why Costello is an Artist Who Matters.