One Foot Speaks, The Other Answers

That Fatal Mailing List #32 - "Ghost Train" (1980)

Elvis Costello - Ghost Train / Just A Memory (1980) | Flickr

“This is a song I started when I was seventeen, and I finished it this evening. When I was a lad, my dad was a singer in a dance band on the radio. Then he went on the road about 1969 and traveled the workingman’s clubs of England…I used to go and carry his gear sometimes…This is a song I wrote about some of the people he used to play with in those clubs.” 

–EC, intro to “Ghost Train,” live in Milwaukee, WI, June 2014

“Ghost Train” is a wisp of a song, sounding like it’s barely hanging together at times. Elvis Costello wrote it when he was seventeen years old and recorded it in 1980. (It’s possible it did feel “finished” on that Milwaukee evening in 2014, or maybe it was just a clever laugh line.) 

Maybe it’s too on the nose to say it, but the song sounds haunted. Audio apparitions emerge from nothing and reverberate forward. The repeated marimba riff creates a shambolic carnival atmosphere. There’s a garbled bit of studio chatter in the closing moments that may as well be a visit from the dead. As the tune fades out, it takes a little too long to stop completely; the conclusion lingers past a comfortable point. 

None of the accompaniment sounds like it belongs together. If you told me Elvis Costello played guitar on this track and then stumbled around a studio full of percussion instruments and recorded whatever he bumped into, I’d believe you. 

I’m sure there’s more info out there about the whys and wherefores of EC recording this tune, in this way, at this time. It feels like a demo, but it’s presented as a complete recording. Was the intent to record this with the Attractions at some point? What would they have brought to the song? I’d assume their approach would be more of a straightforward new wave pop effort, based on the era of the recording. 

I don’t know if it could have approached the eerie, fragmented feeling of this version. Ultimately, “Ghost Train” sounds more like an exploration of what Elvis Costello was capable of achieving in the studio, rather than an actual recorded accomplishment. That said, it does achieve an effect. Not recommended for listening on a dark, stormy night, that’s for sure. 

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