But a little research reveals the song to be a sort of warning to himself, a pessimistic look at the kind of nastiness he could end up succumbing to and the person he could end up becoming if the business (and his own neuroses) got the better of him. Elvis would go on to reach higher levels of lyrical sophistication, but it’s hard to argue against the fact that This Year’s Model features the greatest collection of opening lines in his entire catalogue.Īnd while the lyrics are clearly clever, their meaning remains fairly oblique it’s clear that Elvis is telling someone to bugger off, but who is it? My first impression was that it was one of several late-seventies Elvis Costello songs that dealt with a couple’s growing resentment towards each other, laced with a good amount of innuendo. It’s a jerky, seductively caustic song with a mean streak, featuring the kind of angry kiss-off lyrics that Elvis developed a reputation for and that presumably earned a spot as a tangential scribble on the back-pages of many chemistry notebooks in the late 70s: “No, don’t ask me to apologize / I won’t ask you to forgive me / if I’m gonna go down you’re gonna come with me”. Once I got past the spooky tape-reversed intro that sounds like some kind of demonic invocation in a vaguely Russian accent, “Hand in Hand” became one of my favorite This Year’s Model songs. “Hand In Hand” is a jerky, seductively caustic song with a mean streak
And given the fact that “Hand in Hand,” the mid-tempo number that opens side B, is surrounded by such classics as “Pump it Up” and “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea” as well as obvious highlights like “Lipstick Vogue” and “Little Triggers,” it’s no wonder it gets a bit lost in a veritable sea of riches. The end result is an album that’s so chock-full of excellence that it could pass for a Greatest Hits compilation were it not for its sonic cohesiveness. Elvis’s sophomore effort was the point where he truly consolidated his sound, further refining the mordant wit and sharp pop hooks of his debut, enlisting the help of the mighty Attractions. But it’s hard not to think of “Hand in Hand” in those terms, given the fact that it rarely comes up in conversations about the brilliance of 1978’s This Year’s Model.
JORGE FARAH: Is it fair to call a song “overlooked” when it’s one of only twelve tracks (thirteen if you count “Radio Radio”) featured on a seminal, career-defining album that captured the imaginations of audiences and critics alike and spawned an entire subgenre of music? Probably not.
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