Girls Talk

Elvis Costello (1954–)

I first heard the Linda Ronstadt cover of the Dave Edmunds cover of this Elvis Costello song. I thought…this is one of the most brilliant structures I‘ve ever heard. It felt like an airplane doing aerobatics, or a roller coaster. I love that the intro is in a different key, and I love even more that the instrumental break goes back to the intro key. I thought, I could never write something like this in a million years or even play and sing it. But 37 years later, I worked it out on banjo. I didn’t know it was an Elvis Costello song and was shocked when I heard his version, which I thought was much less interesting.

Back in the ’70s, a lot of people went on about how music had gotten so much worse than it was in the ’60s. In the ’80s, the same sort of peeps went on about the awful ’80s. Same deal in the ’90s, aughties––I’m glad this designation for the ’00s seems to be the one that’s taking hold; it was always my favorite––and on to the present. I still hear smart peeps and/or good musicians go on about all current music being crap. Sure, there’s always been crap music around, but I noticed in the ’50s that the top 30% of the top 100 hits had a higher concentration of good stuff than the bottom 70%. I’ve found this to be a constant. In any event, “Girls Talk” is as good as anything ever was or will be.