Album: Blood & Chocolate
Year: 1986
After the relative low-key King of America, Elvis reunited with The Attractions, stuck Nick Lowe in the producer’s seat and finally made the musical sequel to This Year’s Model that nobody was really looking for anymore.
Well, kinda. Whereas This Years Model was tight and focused, the best songs on Blood and Chocolate were loose and sprawling, full of fucked up guitar sounds, crazy vocal interjections and surprises around every corner.
Or at least that’s “Tokyo Storm Warning,” which follows a classic mid-60s rock song template (“talkin’ ’bout my generation”) over which Elvis spews apocalyptic imagery:
Japanese God, Jesus robots telling teenage fortunes
For all we know and all we care
They might as well be Martians
They say gold paint on the palace gates
Comes from the teeth of pensioners
They’re so tired of shooting protest singers
That they hardly mention us
While fountains fill with second-hand perfume
And sodden trading stamps
They’ll hang the bullies and the louts
That dampen down the day
Call it “Elvis Costello’s 115th Dream.” And as signified by all of the backwards guitar and Elvis’ arch delivery, none of this should be taken incredibly seriously.
What do we care if the world is a joke?
(Tokyo storm warning)
We’ll give it a big kiss, we’ll give it a poke
(Tokyo storm warning)
Death wears a big hat ’cause he’s a big bloke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We’re only living this instant
In fact, it’s great grand fun: which was another thing separating many of the songs on Blood And Chocolate from This Year’s Model, it sounds like Elvis and The Attractions are having a grand old time playing them.
Whether or not that was the actual case was immaterial, as Blood and Chocolate was the last album Elvis cut with The Attractions for nearly a decade.
Tokyo Storm Warning
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