Stiff Records Week – Elvis Costello – Watching The Detectives

 I was around 11 walking through a drug store in the late seventies and I saw this album cover…I thought what? Another person named Elvis? Who is this skinny guy?

Image result for elvis costello my aim is true cover

While at the drug store, the guy was playing this album for the entire store and I heard Alison… That was the first thing I ever heard from Elvis from his debut album My Aim Is True. Later on, I would get the album and I knew this guy was different. He would blend punk, reggae, pop, pub rock, and new wave.

This song was inspired by Costello’s experience of staying awake for 36 hours, during which he listened repeatedly to The Clash’s debut album. Initially unimpressed, he grew to appreciate it after many listens. He stayed up by consuming an entire jar of instant coffee and that led to the creation of Watching The Detectives. 

Costello has said that Watching the Detectives was a favorite of his from the early years of his career. He also experimented with different arrangements of the song, including a big band version with Allen Toussaint to capture the film qualities and swing rhythms of 1950s detective shows. 

Before recording the album, Costello worked as a computer operator while performing in pubs and writing songs. He sent demo tapes to different record labels but initially received little interest. Costello caught the attention of Jake Riviera, co-founder of Stiff Records known for his edgy approach. Riviera saw potential in Costello’s demos and signed him.

My Aim is True was released in 1977 and peaked at #14 in the UK, #32 on the Billboard Album Charts, #24 in Canada, and #32 in New Zealand. The song peaked at #15 in the UK and #60 in Canada. 

Elvis Costello: “When we did ‘Watching the Detectives,’ it was the first record that Steve Nieve played on. He was 19, straight out of the Royal College, and we’d only just met. I said, ‘This is about detectives, I want a piano thing that sounds like Bernard Hermann,’ and, of course, he didn’t know what I’m talking about, so I go [makes staccato, sharp sound], and what you hear on the record is this galloping piano thing that rushes the beat and it sounds like one of those sudden jarring gestures that Hermann would use a lot. But we didn’t have 19 clarinets or whatever he used [in] Torn Curtain; we just had a battered upright in an eight-track studio. What you imagine you have to render whether you use a fuzz-tone guitar or a symphony orchestra and everything in between.”

Elvis Costello: “I spent a lot of time with just a big jar of instant coffee and the first Clash album, listening to it over and over. By the time I got down to the last few grains, I had written ‘Watching the Detectives.’”

Watching the Detectives

Nice girls, not one with a defectCellophane shrink-wrapped, so correctRed dogs under illegal legsShe looks so good that he gets down and begs

She is watching the detectives“Ooh, it’s so cute”She’s watching the detectivesWhen they shoot, shoot, shoot, shootThey beat him up until the teardrops startBut he can’t be wounded ’cause he’s got no heart

Long shot of that jumping signInvisible shivers running down my spineCut to baby taking off her clothesClose-up of the sign that says: “We never close”

You snatch a chill and you match a cigaretteShe pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnetI don’t know how much more of this I can takeShe’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake

She is watching the detectives“Oh, he’s so cute”She is watching the detectivesOh, and they shoot, shoot, shoot, shootThey beat him up until the teardrops startBut he can’t be wounded ’cause he’s got no heart

You think you’re alone until you realize you’re in itNow baby’s here to stay, love is here for a visitThey call it instant justice when it’s past the legal limitSomeone’s scratching at the window, I wonder, who is it?

The detectives come to check if you belong to the parentsWho are ready to hear the worst about their daughter’s disappearanceThough it nearly took a miracle to get you to stayIt only took my little fingers to blow you away

Just like watching the detectivesDon’t get cuteJust like watching the detectivesI get so angry when the teardrops startBut he can’t be wounded ’cause he’s got no heart

Watching the detectivesIt’s just like watching the detectivesWatching the detectivesWatching the detectivesWatching the detectivesWe’re watching the detectivesThey’re watching the detectivesWatching the detectivesWatching the detectives

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, 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. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

26 thoughts on “Stiff Records Week – Elvis Costello – Watching The Detectives”

  1. Elvis is one of a kind and as such doesn’t fit the taste of some people. My buddies and I were all over this guy right from the first time we heard him, perhaps precisely for that reason. Even for an EC nut like myself I learned a lot from this post. I mean who would stay up for 36 hours listening to the Clash. And still have the wherewithal to write such an incredible song!

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    1. I think if you were a Dylan fan…that helped in a way of liking him. Alison was my first song…that was a great way of breaking me in lol.
      I didn’t believe that when I read it but then I read that direct quote from him…after that I kept it in…I never heard it either.

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  6. a great debut from him, cool song. I wouldn’t have thought The Clash’s first album had any influence on it though – although he did display the musical versatility and curiosity that they also had later on in their career

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    1. He did change some after this… I think it’s cool he hooked up with Stiff Records though because I don’t see many large labels giving him a chance at first.

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  9. Funny, I think ‘Allison’ was the first of his I heard too… Playing over the speakers in the old University Bookshop. (A moment of recall there, I was going up to look at the imports probably.) ‘Watching The Detectives’ remains my fave of his, it has an odd off-kilter feel, very twitchy, great ‘mood setting’ to the lyrics.

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  14. I remember first reading about Costello in Creem Magazine around this time.My first thought was who named there kid Elvis hahaha especially after the other Elvis had died a few years earlier. I think this was the first time I ever read that a jar of instant coffee helped write a tune. Good thing he didn’t follow Aerosmiths lead at creativity during the 70s hahaha

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    1. No lol…he wasn’t the cool kid on the block. What did David Lee Roth say about him? Yes…he said that the reason why critics love Elvis Costello so much is because they look like him. lol…

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  15. I love this record, and the first three Costello albums. Obbverse talked about “mood verse,” something he knows a little about (check out his site). For me? This always felt like an strange take on the works of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammet and the like.

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