Shipbuilding

Is it worth it?

I listened to this song a great deal when I was young, so when I played it a few days ago, I was taken straight back to my childhood bedroom, in a way that hasn't really happened with other songs I listened to a lot at that time, because I've also listened to them plenty since, so the memories are spread around.

But, Shipbuilding, in 95-96, I listened to as much as anything but Going Underground, but have not listened to it all that much since.

Why did I listen to it so much then? Well, it started, as so many things do for me, with a list (never thought it would come to this).

The Times ran lists around 94 and 95 of the 100 Greatest Songs and Albums of All Time, and they were probably the first such lists I'd ever come across outside the Capital Radio Hall of Fame, coming at the matter from a completely different angle, with Careless Whisper nowhere to be seen. I'd heard of most of the songs on the list, without necessarily having heard them, and they were mainly, I think, hits, but I remember Shipbuilding, which I'd not heard of and was not a hit, was incongruously high.

So I bought The Best of Elvis Costello. I'm not sure what I thought of Shipbuilding initially. It's such a non-pop song. I'm sure I liked Oliver's Army more. 

Coincidentally, there was a little course at school around that time about jazz (some kind of non-curriculum thing) and we watched a film about Chet Baker, so that was an added point of interest. And, what with Our Friends in the North etc, this was when I became interested in British and American recent political history, so the stars were aligned for Shipbuilding.

I heard the Costello version before the Robert Wyatt version and I still prefer it. Suede covered it for Warchild and that was decent, but it's still Costello's I prefer.

The brief, slightly odd, history of it, is that Clive Langer wrote the music, didn't like his own lyrics, gave it to Elvis, he wrote the lyrics, they gave it to Robert Wyatt, he had a small hit with it, Elvis, a year later, put out his own version. So there is not, in the usual sense, an "original" and a "cover".

I listened to it so much and so closely. I'm not sure Costello has ever sung better. He takes such care to do justice to the lyrics. I would come to learn that there are very few protest songs with such empathy and melancholy to them. I'd listen to it and/or sing along to its unusual phrasing, its series of memorable spaced but connected bon mots -  "is it worth it" "it's just a rumour that was spread around town" "well i ask you" "diving for dear life when we should be diving for pearls". I knew every note, every bar, every breath.

And yet I stopped listening to it. I guess there were a few steps. When I moved from cassette to CDs, I bought four Costello albums - My Aim is True, Imperial Bedroom, Blood and Chocolate and Painted from Memory, and definitely switched my close attention to I Want You, primarily, which would get the same note-for-note phrase-for-phrase treatment as Shipbuilding.

But, then, I just became less of a fan of Elvis Costello. I genuinely think it may have been his version of She on 2000's Notting Hill soundtrack, which is so hideous, and exposes all the negatives in his marmite voice. It's funny, I've stuck with Bob Dylan's late career vocal (though it wouldn't be true to say it didn't take several years before I was actually truly one of those weirdos that actually came to love late-Dylan-voice), but I just found Elvis's difficult to deal with. I did not like his duet with Jenny Lewis, 'Carpetbaggers' at all. I have listened to some of his late albums, but, again, never quite with the required enthusiasm.

It's strange. He could easily have been one of my all-time favourites, he's such a brilliant and consistent songwriter, but it just hasn't worked out like that. 

I wonder if it's galling to him that several of his top songs on streaming sites are covers. I also wonder if it bothers him that his biggest hit, his most radio-friendly pop smash, never gets played anymore (for obvious bad-word related reasons).

Anyway, Shipbuilding is still a great song, a singular masterpiece, really. Costello has several truly great songs, and many many excellent albums. In a way, he may well be the closest Britain's had to Dylan, and this is his ... Hurricane? Maybe?

TV shows

Did you see the New York Times' list of the 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century?

https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/comments/1wq2x65/the_new_york_times_final_list_of_the_100_best_tv/

It's quite boring, as would be expected. I mean, what else are they going to say? Lots of prestige American dramas, culminating in the fair-enough decision not to include The Sopranos because it began in 1999.

I don't watch enough TV to have a very very strong counter-opinion. My favourite TV programme of the 21st century is SPORT! Nothings beats it for drama and comedy.

I have a few times tried to make a list of "greatest tv shows" or whatever, but I'm not really invested enough in the idea of "great TV" to take myself seriously enough for that.

In this NYT list, there are a reasonable number of British shows, though the obvious ones that Americans like, and not much from anywhere else in the world.

It's almost entirely scripted drama and comedy, which is tiresome. I think America has less of a culture than Britain of vast communal watching, where things like Big Brother, Traitors, Strictly etc are truly part of the national conversation, where shows like Match of the Day and Top of the Pops used to be weekly markers across the country.

There are no kids' shows, no news broadcasts.

Anyway, what does it matter?

I'll just offer a few shows which aren't on the list and are great.

Inside Number 9 - I genuinely think Inside Number 9 is one of the greatest TV feats of all time, no messing. 50+ distinct stories, wrapped up in half an hour, at times hilarious, at times deeply moving, at times genuinely frightening. Doing all that with their own distinct but limited acting pallette. I don't think any show has produced as many episodes of TV that live in my memory as Inside Number 9.

Treme - The Wire is Number 2, which is fine. Treme, David Simon's follow-up, was a very different thing. Drifting, almost drama-free, certainly short on bad guys, it was about a city and its people. The acting is universally superb, it makes you fall in love with New Orleans (though also be pretty scared of going there), it is about music, and community, and rebirth, corruption, fight. I once looked it up and it had stunningly low viewing figures, and would certainly have not got to four series if it hasn't been written by the guy that did The Wire, but I loved it as much as any other.

Bluey - I was pretty surprised Bluey wasn't on the list. That really did show up quite how limited the outlook of the voters was.

Colin from Accounts - also a beloved Australian dog show, the third series was just so good, it should have snuck in.

Partridge - I know AP's truly most iconic work is pre-2000, but still, if Americans can't recognise the greatest TV character of all time, that's their problem.

Extras - I'm not saying Extras was a masterpiece but now people hate Gervais, there's a tendency to say the only good thing he did was The Office, but Extras, though not as influential as The Office, was flat-out funnier more often, and did have a pretty interesting perspective, of what happens when a middle-aged unlikeable guy who is in and around famous successful people without being successful himself suddenly becomes famous and successful...

It's a Sin, Pointless, I could go on ... and finally, vinylly...

Vinyl - Vinyl is, I think, the worst TV show, pound for pound, of all time. Martin Scorsese? Mick Jagger? Starring Bobby Cannavale? About the music industry in the 70s? In New York? How can it possibly go wrong? So badly badly wrong ... people thing The Newsroom was a bad show from good stock but by comparison to this, The Newsroom was a masterpiece.

And to be a bit boring, of all the prestige American shows I watched, it's Mad Men that I remember the best, that nailed the ending, that feels like a complete, multi-layered, unfathomable and beautiful masterwork ... but what do i know ...

Mercury

 Next week they'll announce the winner of the 2026 Mercury Prize.

When they announced the shortlist, a couple of months ago, I noticed that I'd already listened to nearly all the albums, which is pretty unusual.

They are:

Artists for War Child – Help(2)

Dave – The Boy Who Played the Harp

Dove Ellis – Blizzard

Florence + The Machine – Everybody Scream

Jade – That's Showbiz Baby!

Knats – A Great Day in Newcastle

Kojey Radical – Don't Look Down

Nia Archives – Emotional Junglist

Olivia Dean – The Art of Loving

Paul McCartney – The Boys of Dungeon Lane

Raye – This Music May Contain Hope

Suede – Antidepressants

I don't have a particular dog in the race - I think, honestly, the one that gave me most pleasure was the Help album, and it would be quite fun to give it to a compilation for the first time, but that's not a strong feeling.

One of the two or three I hadn't listened to before the list came out was the album by Knats, which has a real pizzazz to it, and I think is probably the most striking and singular, so, though I probably won't listen to it much, that would be quite a fun winner too.

Apart from that, the truth is, there's not much anymore that distinguishes this list from what you might see at the Brits or any other mainstream awards, which is not necessarily terrible, and might be a necessary evil to keep the prize financially viable, but most of the artists here don't need much help. Ironically, I really like the Harry Styles album, which has not made the list.

The albums by Dave and Raye were, in my view, and that of quite a few critics, big swings that missed, large, personal albums with some great bits, but just a bit too self-indulgent and ultimately a bit boring. I don't think either of them should win.

I really like Nia Archives - I like this and her last album - if I was to try to describe her sound, there is really nothing better than the album title - Emotional Junglist.

I also think Olivia Dean winning would just be a bit pointless, though that is a very good album. 

There were some good albums that didn't make the list - but, who knows, not everyone enters. 

So, anyway, we'll see. Maybe the most fun choice would be first-time nominee Paul McCartney - get John Lennon spinning in his grave, if nothing else ...