![]() ![]() ![]() The image of the hawk hovering over the little animals in that song. It was really seeing what we could get. . . None of that was any part of writing any of these songs. They exist because of who he is and all these associations that people want to read into. All these theories, they don’t exist because of who I am. Often we exchanged the role as we were doing it because it wasn’t considered. But if you listen to that song, who do you think wrote that? Probably me, less known as a melodist than him. (The demo is being released for the first time on the “Flowers” box set.)Ĭostello: Paul made the first musical statement. Costello points to “Tommy’s Coming Home,” a beautiful, poetic song about a war widow torn between mourning and temptation. There was no great strategy as they wrote. It was also a reference to a beautiful popular song written in 1916.Īt first glance, Fred Wetherley’s words seem like idealized Edwardian sentiments about lost love, but together with Haydn Wood’s melody, they came to convey the longing of separation and the despair at the losses.Īnd the roses will die With the summertime, and our roads may be far apart, But there’s one rose that dies not in Picardy! That last line contained a deliberate Anglophone mishearing of the musical term tierce de Picardie, which is given to a cadence in which the melody unexpectedly resolves to a major chord in a minor key. How could he know that only twelve months later She would wear her skirt up over her knee And in the very same carriage she ‘d be flattered with roses And forget the tears of Picardy “ Tommy’s Coming Home Again” was an unsentimental little tale written about a soldier who is briefly mourned before his widow is seduced in a train compartment. From Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello:
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