Elvis Costello – Everyday I Write The Book

This was Costello’s first American hit. He was a regular on the UK charts since his first release in 1977, but American singles never hit. Despite support in America from independent record stores, college radio and music journalists, his only chart showings to this point were two singles that bubbled under on the Hot 100: “Watching The Detectives” #108 and “Accidents Will Happen #101.

This song peaked at #36 in the Billboard 100 and #28 in the UK in 1983.

I do remember that MTV pushed the video pretty hard. The push helped the single. It wasn’t until 1989 that he managed another Top 40 hit, “Veronica,” which was helped by MTV.

Elvis Costello: “I wrote it just for a joke,” “But that’s often the way to write a hit record (laughs). We had a group on the road with us that was trying to write these very self-conscious pop jangly kind of songs and that was their trip. So I thought I’d tease them by writing something that was like what they did, only sort of better than them. I wrote it in ten minutes.”

From Songfacts

In this song, Elvis Costello is a novelist who tells his girlfriend that everything that happens in their relationship is source material for his book. On one hand, it’s very sweet that he’s taking the time to chronicle their relationship, but something about it is also kind of creepy, as he’s documented her transgressions and is now willing to use her own words against her in their arguments.

Esquire magazine once called this “the most intellectually satisfying pop song ever written.” 

When Costello wrote this song, he envisioned it with a retro Merseybeat popularized by Liverpool groups of the ’60s (think Gerry and the Pacemakers and very early Beatles recordings). His producer, Clive Langer, heard hit potential in the song and convinced Costello to do a more contemporary arrangement, which they modeled on Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.” The result was a modern R&B sound that served the song well.

“Everyday I Write The Book” got a push from MTV, which gave the video some spins and helped introduce Costello to younger audience. Radio stations in the US remained lukewarm on Costello, as he didn’t fit in on the Contemporary Hits or Rock playlists. Not that he was concerned; Costello’s indifference to popular taste earned him even more respect from his American fans. 

The video was directed by Don Letts, who did a lot of work with The Clash and The Pretenders. In the clip, Elvis and his band (The Attractions) play in a studio stetting, wearing muted colors in stark contrast to the two backup singers, Caron Wheeler and Claudia Fontaine, who sport colorful dresses and head wraps. Old movie clips and random images like a man typing with boxing gloves are intercut throughout. These rather random videos did very well on early MTV, as they gave viewers a good look at the artist and provided some memorable visuals.

This was used in the films The Wedding Singer (1998) and Brooklyn Rules (2007). It is also heard in the 2001 Gilmore Girls episode, “The Breakup: Part 2.”

Elvis Costello told Uncut that he’s wanted “to write songs as good as Nick Lowe,” since he was 17. He added: “‘Everyday I Write the Book’ is a knockoff of Nick’s ‘When I Write the Book’ with a little Rodgers and Hart thrown in.'”

Everyday I Write The Book

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

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

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

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

29 thoughts on “Elvis Costello – Everyday I Write The Book”

  1. Pingback: Elvis Costello – Everyday I Write The Book — PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture – Musical Musings of a Mangled Mind

  3. I loved Elvis Costello from the start, but I never warmed up to this song. Now seeing he originally envisioned it with a merseybeat sound, but was talked out of it, I’m sorry we were denied that. I’d love to hear it done that way.

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  6. I’ve never been much of a EC fan, but I was struck in this video how the wife/gf was made to look like Princess Diana – same hair style and clothes. This video would probably have come out two years into the Charles-Diana marriage. I think the glasses put me off him – he looks such a nerd! (I shouldn’t have said that…)

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    1. There was a quote about Costello… David Lee Roth made a quote…mind you I don’t like Roth but it fits what you are saying lol.

      “Music critics like Elvis Costello because Music Critics look like Elvis Costello”

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    1. Yea that had to be look alikes they got just for the video. It was two years after they got married.
      I remember MTV played this quite a bit.

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    1. See…I would not have thought you would like him. I think he is brilliant…I remember Alison and also (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding.

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    1. He writes shorts pop/rock pieces that I like…but I have artists like that also…Pink Floyd is one…I just don’t see the big picture…I like some of them but not like many others do.

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      2. I did see him once as a surprise. I might have told you…I was at the Ryman waiting for Dylan and a unknown opening act. Out comes Elvis with just an acoustic and you may have liked it…really stripped down.

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  11. “Everyday I Write The Book” is an outstanding song. Few writers turn a phrase the way Elvis does (or did). I have to say, however, that I have a very hard time believing that he wrote it “in ten minutes.” I never believe that when any songwriter says it! Do you?

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    1. No I don’t believe it either. I think yes… they might have wrote it in ten minutes but they probably have been working on parts forever and they fit together.
      I have what I call a phrase junkyard in my song book…I go to it if I need a phrase. Sometimes I find the right things and they fit like a puzzle.

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