Watching The Detectives

Elvis Costello, Watching the Detectives...

 

Written after a 36 hour stint of being awake and listening to the Clash's debut album. Evidently, partially inspired by 'film noir' and American Detective shows and I suspect the Reggae type beat inspired by the Clash.

 
 

The backing for the song was provided by Steve Goulding (Bass) and Andrew Bodnar (Drums) both part of Graham Parker's backing band The Rumour. Keyboards were provided by Steve Nason a.k.a. Steve Nieve which used repeating patterns of a dramatic style similar to that of movie composer Bernard Hermann, the man behind the music for the Hitchcock film 'Psycho'.

 

Released in the UK in 1977 on the Stiff label as BUY 20. The UK version had the B side containing several other songs 'Blame it on Cain' and 'Mystery Dance' both from the debut album 'My Aim Is True'. The A Side strangely not on the album. One of the B side tracks (Blame It On Cain), below:

 
Blame It On Cain on YouTube
 
The single released in October 1977 reached the dizzy heights of #15 in the UK Singles chart and was produced by ex-pub rocker, Damned producer and all round Stiff Records legendary producer Nick (Basher) Lowe.
 
 
Video Source 'Watching The Detectives': James_Gandolfini@dailymotion
 
Video Source 'Blame It On Cain': youtube.com
 
Photo by the blowup on Unsplash Psycho Film Score
 
Image: discogs.com
 
Information Sources: Wikipedia, Discogs, Songfacts