The Top 20 Elvis Costello Songs of All Time

8. “New Lace Sleeves”

Elvis Costello’s liner notes to his 1981 album Trust are refreshingly candid in depicting the period making the album as a time when Costello’s intake of drugs and alcohol was substantial. That admission might partially explain the album’s disjointed tone; Trust contains moments of absolute brilliance interspersed with songs that don’t carry nearly the same spark. In short, the album is a bit of a bumpy ride.

That said, those high points are unforgettable, and “New Lace Sleeves” is the album’s towering peak. Even for a guy who came out of the box sounding way advanced for his years, the song represents new levels of maturity in both music and lyrics for Costello. He was aided by one of The Attractions most deeply felt performances, notable for the touch and restraint displayed throughout.

Once again it’s a case of disparate instrumental elements cohering in fascinating ways. Pete Thomas’ high hat-heavy beat allows Bruce Thomas to set the low end, which he does with quick runs that leave gaps in the rhythm. In the background, Costello fritters away on guitar low in the mix like a slowly approaching train, while Steve Nieve lays a subtle blanket of organ over everybody.

In the run-up to the refrain, everyone starts coming together, deftly handling the twisting chord changes that come to a pretty resolution. This is also one of Costello’s finest vocal performances, perfectly in tune to the tenor of the lyrics and deft even when he rises into a brief falsetto.

“New Lace Sleeves” is about the contrasting forces at work when people try to stick to an ideal of gentility and discretion yet are pulled by their innate desires in less noble directions. In other words, you can’t have it both ways, and those who attempt to do so end up sacrificing something important in the process. The chorus sums it up in sweeping fashion, as Costello sings, “And you never see the lies that you believe/Oh you know you have been captured/You feel so civilized/And you look so pretty in your new lace sleeves.” Pretty and civilized perhaps, but a prisoner to caution and decorum.

In the first verse, Costello lays bare the hypocrisy of political and religious officials who claim piety and dignity but “go crawling under covers.” Come the second verse, the narrator, who sees through all of this, attempts to persuade some high-society girls to his point of view, in humorous fashion: “Oh I know they’ve got their problems/How I wish I was one of them.”

For all of the cleverness, there is an undercurrent of sadness running through the music that gives the song serious emotional heft. Maybe Elvis Costello wasn’t at his very best for the entirety of Trust. But he certainly rose to the occasion on “New Lace Sleeves,” a magnificent song on which he was clearly more inspired than impaired.

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