Way Back Wednesday - The Other Side of Summer

Ever since elementary school, I've been a fan of Elvis Costello.  I can pretty much use his discography to describe what I was doing and where I was in my life at the time of each release.

For Way Back Wednesday, I'm going to share something with you which is from the early 1990's.  Not as way back as I could have gone but I realized that it's well over 25 years now since "Mighty Like The Rose" was released.  I was going through a bit of a rough patch when it came out.  My personal life was a huge mess and I was underemployed at the time.  Somehow though, I'd always be able to scrape together the $10 or $12 I needed for a new record and could also always find $5 for a pint.  It's the little things that get  you through isn't it?

The first single from Mighty Like The Rose was the impossibly catchy and super cynical pop song, "Other Side of Summer."  It's about as "anti" a summer song as you can get.  On a day like today, where the wind is chilly and the snow is falling, it fits my mood.  Like most Elvis Costello songs, the message is timeless.  What he's describing in 1990 / 1991 could be used to describe the world today.  Sadly, not much has improved in all of that time.


The automatic gates close up between the shanties and the palace
The blowtorch amusements, the voodoo chalice
The pale pathetic promises that everybody swallows
A teenage girl is crying because she don't look like a million dollars
So help her if you can
Because she don't seem to have the attention span