14 :: Silly Beggars Can't Be Choosers :: A Slow Drag with "Pidgin English‪"‬ Slow Drag with Remedy :: An Elvis Costello Appreciation

Today’s slow drag is with “Pidgin English,” from “Imperial Bedroom,” released in 1982. The songwriting and is credited to Elvis Costello.
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Written, produced, and narrated by Remedy Robinson, MA/MFA
Twitter: @slowdragremedy
Email: slowdragwithremedy@gmail.com
Podcast music by https://www.fesliyanstudios.com
Rate this Podcast: https://ratethispodcast.com/slowdrag
References:
Elvis Costello Wiki Resource: http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Pidgin_English 
YouTube Version w/ Lyrics: https://youtu.be/I-MphF3ARTU 
“Pidgin English”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTnnDqcsdXw
The Great Vowel Shift: https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_early_modern.html
Norman Conquest of 1066: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9606163/In-everything-we-say-there-is-an-echo-of-1066.html
Great vowel shift: https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_early_modern.html
Examples of Grimm’s Law in English: https://www.jpetrie.net/examples-of-grimms-law-in-english/
44 English Phonemes: https://www.dyslexia-reading-well.com/44-phonemes-in-english.html
Graphemes: http://www.speechlanguage-resources.com/support-files/soundstographemesguide2.pdf
Lingua Franca to Pidgin to Creole: http://www.differencebetween.net/language/the-difference-between-pidgin-and-lingua-franca/
Grice’s maxims: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/stylistics/topic12/14cp1.htm
Pidgin word etymology: https://www.etymonline.com/word/pidgin
Rolling Stone Review of “Imperial Bedroom”: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/imperial-bedroom-117931/
Slanging Match meaning: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/slanging-match
“Many Hands Make Light Work,” John Heyward’s idiom: John Heywood Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved October 26, 2019, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_heywood_158880
“A change is as good as a rest” definition: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/a-change-is-as-good-as-a-rest
“Love Letters” “throwaway kiss” mention: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hn0oAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT293&lpg=PT293&dq=%22throwaway+kiss%22&source=bl&ots=72fti9sMam&sig=ACfU3U1IRbQB0dVq0bXNqfBWHJ5C1NnAEQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZmuLB_brlAhWEQxUIHRK8BFwQ6AEwC3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22throwaway%20kiss%22&f=false
Hunting down who coined “writing about music is like dancing about architecture”: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/08/writing-about-music/
Squeeze, “”Hourglass”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM3PWVDzlfQ
“Post Truth” Society OED word of the year, 2016: https://www.hau.gr/?i=culture.en.past_event.5196
Virginia Woolf quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/426030-it-is-a-thousand-pities-never-to-say-what-one
Rod Stewart Axes Old Songs: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/10122753/sir-rod-stewart-me-too-movement/
 
"Pidgin English" Lyrics
There's a young girl with her old man who's too sick to mention
She'll be turning twenty seven as she draws her widow's pension
But he couldn't catch a common cold he couldn't get arrested
Too terrified to answer back
Too tired to have resisted

Many hands make light work
Shorthand makes life easy
When he's out on night work
Make sure no one sees me
It all ends up in a slanging match with body talk and bruises
A change is better than a rest
Silly beggars can't be choosers

Chorus:
One of a thousand pities you can't categorize
There are ten commandments of love
When will you realise
There are ten commandments of love
I believe, I trust, I promise, I wish love's just a throwaway kiss
In this Pidgin English

If you're so wise, use your lips and your eyes
Take it to the bridge she sighs

You go cheep cheep cheep between bulleyes and bluster
Stiff as your poker face
Keener than mustard
From your own back yard to the land of exotica
From the truth society to neurotic erotica

Silence is golden
Money talks diamonds and e