Welcome to the song of the day, where we feature a single track, whether its brand new or older than us, overlooked or overplayed, our favorite or no one’s favorite; as long as its interesting, it can be the song of the day.
Today’s my birthday! And what better time than your birthday to listen to your favorite song? One of the very first albums I ever had was My Aim Is True by Elvis Costello. At a time when my iTunes was mostly those free songs of the week and some random Kazaa downloads, I found my dad’s CD copy of Costello’s 1977 debut and imported it and it blew all the rest of that stuff away.
The song appeared as the fifth track on the album, which was produced by Nick Lowe. “Alison” was the second single after “Less Than Zero” and featured the album’s opener, “Welcome to the Working Week,” as it’s b-side.
Costello wrote this about the background of the song in his 2015 autobiography:
“I’ve always told people that I wrote the song “Alison” after seeing a beautiful checkout girl at the local supermarket. She had a face for which a ship might have once been named. Scoundrels might once have fought mist-swathed duels to defend her honour. Now she was punching in the prices on cans of beans at a cash register and looking as if all the hopes and dreams of her youth were draining away. All that were left would soon be squandered to a ruffian who told her convenient lies and trapped her still further”.
Header image courtesy of Rolling Stone.