Couldn’t Call It Unexpected No4 – Elvis Costello

Guest post by Michael J Roberts,
Author of “33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters”

Couldn’t Call It Unexpected No4 – Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello morphed into the so called ‘brave arranger’ in the early 1990’s, pushing his melodic and witty pop into areas not many had charted before, searching for new and interesting framings for his adventurous musical styling. Costello had proved himself something of an enfant terrible in the late ‘70s and ‘80s and his prickly personality had caused him trouble in some famous spats, sometimes obscuring his startling melodic and poetic gifts. His ‘take no prisoners’ attitude informed a lot of his spiky early work and his New Wave cover persona hid a musicality and talent that was under appreciated for several years. Costello subverted expectations at every turn, his musicologist leanings not widely understood while a deep knowledge of pop from the classic American Songbook era to the ‘cosmic country’ of Gram Parsons informed his taste and musical experimentation.

Musically speaking…

Musically the song unfolds in D major across a 1, min6, min3, 5 pattern, (D Bm F#m A) in the first part before it effectively changes key to E major, though somewhat ambiguously by moving through the min6 and min3 (C#m G#m) of the new key. D major is re-established by way of an A major chord (the 4 chord in E and the 5 chord in D) followed by a D. It’s both a familiar joining of chords and an oddly jarring association and, along with the stumbling 3/4 waltz feel, complements the unsettling nature of the lyric. Elvis Costello has the last, if not laugh then at least a smirk and puts his tongue in his musical cheek by stating, “I’m the lucky goon, who composed this tune from birds arranged on the high wire”….

This is an excerpt from my 33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters book available everywhere eBooks are sold.