Today’s slow drag is with “Episode of Blonde” from “When I Was Cruel,” released in April, 2002. The songwriting is credited to Elvis Costello.

Show Notes:

Appreciation written, produced, and narrated by Remedy Robinson, MA/MFA

Twitter: https://twitter.com/slowdragremedy

Email: slowdragwithremedy@gmail.coms

Podcast music by https://www.fesliyanstudios.com

Rate this Podcast: https://ratethispodcast.com/slowdrag

References:

Elvis Costello Wiki Resource, “Episode of Blonde”: http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Episode_Of_Blonde

“Episode of Blonde”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoGCWtp4UIY

Main Wiki Resource, “Peroxide Side” Blunt Cut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_Smile

“Peroxide Side” (Blunt Cut): http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Episode_Of_Blonde

“Un Chien Andalou,” (The Andalusian Dog) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB7gd_t6WMQ

“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously

“Governing English: Prescriptivism, Descriptivism, and Change” https://exhibits.lib.ku.edu/exhibits/show/english-language/governing-english

“Skittles – History and Useful Information” https://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Skittles.htm

Purchase “The Most Terrible Time in My Life…Ends Thursday” https://www.amazon.com/Most-Terrible-Time-Life-Thursday-ebook/dp/B07XLXS5PL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Y4SGCT62WPEK&dchild=1&keywords=the+most+terrible+time+in+my+life+ends+thursday&qid=1608873405&sprefix=The+Most+Terrible+Time+in+%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-1

 

"Episode of Blonde" Lyrics:

I spy for the "Spirit of Curiosity"

All the scandals of each vain monstrosity

I gossip and I pry and I insinuate

If the failure is great

Then it tends to fascinate

 

A tornado dropped a funnel cloud with twenty tons of rain

Though she had the attention span of warm cellophane

Her lovers fell like Skittles in a 10-pin bowling lane

But nothing could compare with that explosion of fame

 

So you jumped back with alarm

Every Elvis has his army

Every rattlesnake its charm

Can you still hear me?

Am I coming through just fine?

Your memory was buried in simple box of pine

 

(chorus):

Did her green eyes seduce you and make you get so weak?

Was there fire engine red that she left upon your cheek?

It's such a shame you had to break the heart you could have counted on

But the last thing you need is another episode of blonde

 

Revolving like a jeweller's figure on a music box

The spangled curtain parted and night-club scene unlocks

Pinned and fixed and fastened in a fallow spot

Arms thrown out to everyone, she's giving all she's got

To the last gasp of a wounded bandoneon

A tiny man imploring to the ceiling fan this stolen feeling

Amplified up through a busted speaker

Blaring, blasting, advertising, distorted beyond reason

Into the street where petty crime-coats shadow panic drunkards

Half out of the taxi-cab the barker seized my elbow

He thought I was another lonely, likely pilgrim looking for St. Telmo 

 

(chorus)

 

I tried to keep a straight face but you know it never pays

He would stare into those eyes and then vacation in her gaze

She was a cute little ruin that he pulled out of the rubble

Now they're both living in a soft soap bubble

 

The film producer's contemplating, entertaining suicide

The picture crumpled in his fist, his runaway child bride

The timepiece stretched across his wrist

She couldn't care less cast aside

The scent that so repelled him that he swore: "insecticide"

And there's farewell note to mother

That will conclude "Your loving Son"

"Oh, tell your other children not to do as I have done"

 

Did her green eyes seduce you and make you get so weak?

Or was there fire engine red that she left upon your cheek?

It's such a shame

It's such a shame, shame, shame

A shame you had to break the heart you could have counted on

But the last thing you need

Is the last thing you want

Is another episode of blonde

It's another episode of blonde, oh oh oh

It's another episode of blonde

 

So an artist drags a toothbrush across the first thing that he sees

And names the painting "Christ's Last Exit into Purgatory"

Receiving secret messages from an alien intelligence

And Paying off his stalker it's a legitimate expense

So paste up pictures of those shrill and hollow girls with puckered lips

She's a trophy on your arm, a magnet for your money clip

The moral of this story is a sorry tale to say

They're pieced with links of chains so they can never run away