Pegged It
Being a child of the ’80s, I was looking up old Elvis Costello videos on YouTube and ran across this more recent performance of “The Scarlet Tide,” from the 2003 film Cold Mountain. I had not seen the film and was unfamiliar with the song.
Given all the chicken shit that has come home to hit the fan this year — from the banking sector to the auto industry to Rod Blagojevich to Bernie Madoff — I was especially impressed by the prescience and poetic precision of the following lines:
Man goes beyond his own decision,
Gets caught up in the mechanism
Of swindlers who act like kings
And brokers who break everything.
Lyrics don’t get any better than that.
December 27th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I’m especially impressed by any blogger who uses the terms prescience and poetic precision.
BTW, Elvis Costello is seriously underappreciated.
December 28th, 2008 at 2:48 am
Thanks for dropping by, MM. I hope your household is getting past the Christmakwanzakah stomach bug.
Two bookends that illustrate Elvis Costello’s talent and range are the ripping rocker “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” and the war-protest ballad “Shipbuilding,” which features the brilliant lyric “Diving for dear life / When we could be diving for pearls.”
December 29th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Love Shipbuilding! I’m sorry to say I didn’t discover this particular song until I bought the High Fidelity soundtrack. But then sometimes, crass commercialism can lead to good things.