Elvis Costello & the Attractions — “Everyday I Write The Book”

Entered Top 40:  October 15, 1983
 2 weeks 
Peaked at: 36

It may be surprising to learn that this was Elvis Costello’s first US Top 40 single; in fact before this no Costello single had cracked the Hot 100. To this point he had been considered a successful act based on album sales; he was an MTV fixture from the start, and he had worked his way into the pop culture in odd ways. Spider-Man was a fan in ’80s comics, and Elliott’s older brother in E.T.: The Extraterrestrial walks around the house badly singing “Accidents Will Happen.”

By 1983 Costello’s sales had suffered a bit as he focused on genres (’60s-era soul on Get Happy!!, often seen as an atonement record for a 1979 incident where he got into a bar argument and used a bunch of hard racial slurs; and the country album Almost Blue). Despite a huge critical success with 1982’s Imperial Bedroom, Costello’s US label Columbia was putting on huge pressure for a commercial album with a hit single. He’s said to have written “Everyday I Write the Book” in 10 minutes, and has been dismissive of it and its album, Punch the Clock. I always enjoyed both.

Elvis Costello & the Attractions followed Punch the Clock with Goodbye Cruel World, using the same production team. At the time Costello made noises about it being his final record, or the last with the Attractions, or both. It ended up being neither; most everyone hated the album, and he’d come back in 1986 with a pair of his best: the experimental King of America with T-Bone Burnett, and Blood and Chocolate, this time the final record with the Attractions (or at least without bassist Bruce Thomas; Drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve would show up again in The Impostors). Those would be Costello’s last albums with Columbia. In 1989 he’d show up on Warner Brothers with Spike, featuring a couple of songs he’d written with Paul McCartney, including “Veronica,” his highest-charting song (#19).