Costello’s second album, This Year’s Model, was his first with backing band The Attractions, and the difference in sound was immediately obvious. Where My Aim is True had a low-key, almost honky-tonk sound, This Year’s Model was a punk-infused burst of pure attitude.
A bit of Costello trivia: His backing band on My Aim is True would go on to become The News of Huey Lewis and the News fame. Not to disparage Huey Lewis, but I wonder if those guys are still kicking themselves over that change in lineup. To be fair, though, Huey Lewis has probably had more actual hits than Elvis.
The Attractions would play with Costello off and on for the next 30 years but in many ways it is this album, their first, that best defines what they mean to his sound. He has a seductive and dangerous edge here that was missing, if not lacking, on My Aim is True.
‘(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea’ is one of the funkiest songs on Costello’s catalog, with a sick beat and that fabulous guitar riff driving another song about sexual obsession. Scanning through the Song Meanings Web site, I’ve found various people absolutely convinced that the song is about everything from plastic surgery to prostitution, Andy Warhol to insanity.
I’m not sure about any of that. But whatever it’s about, this is one of my favorite early Costello songs.
He thinks of all the lips that he licks
And all the girls that he’s going to fix
She gave a little flirt, gave herself a little cuddle
But there’s no place here for the mini-skirt waddle
Capital punishment, she’s last year’s model
They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie
I don’t want to go to Chelsea
Oh no it does not move me
Even though I’ve seen the movie
I don’t want to check your pulse
I don’t want nobody else
I don’t want to go to Chelsea
Everybody’s got new orders
Be a nice girl and kiss the warders
Now the teacher is away
All the kids begin to play
Men come screaming, dressed in white coats
Shake you very gently by the throat
One’s named Gus, one’s named Alfie
I don’t want to go to Chelsea
Oh no it does not move me
Even though I’ve seen the movie
I don’t want to check your pulse
I don’t want nobody else
I don’t want to go to Chelsea
Photographs of fancy tricks to get your kicks at sixty-six
He thinks of all the lips that he licks
And all the girls that he’s going to fix
She gave a little flirt, gave herself a little cuddle
But there’s no place here for the mini-skirt waddle
Capital punishment, she’s last year’s model
They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie
I don’t want to go to Chelsea
Oh no it does not move me
Even though I’ve seen the movie
I don’t want to check your pulse
I don’t want nobody else
I don’t want to go to Chelsea
bum
Meet Me In Montauk 
First, gotta compliment you on the casual dropping of the word “sick” into your blog – very current of you 😉
One of the things I love about so many Elvis songs – and this one is no exception – is how he writes so damn many lyrics 🙂 You wonder when you look at some of his lyrics how he’s possibly going to cram them all into the verse, but he does in his inimitable Costello way. I’ve never tried to analyze this song (I don’t think I’ve ever even looked at the lyrics before today), but I agree that it has a sick 😉 beat and is bursting with attitude. Still not sure I’d use the word punk, but perhaps I just have no idea what punk actually is. 🙂
This song has always fascinated me musically. Listen to the guitar and bass line seemingly fighting against the keyboard, yet it all works. If I were trying to play this song on keyboards, I would be hard pressed not to give in to the bass line or the guitar riff, but Nieve never does—he just keeps going in his own world, knowing that the end product will turn out wonderful.
Costello ramped up both his songwriting confidence and the confidence and skill level of his musicians with Chelsea. Does the song have a punk quality? Sure, but the complexity of the music and lyrics reflect that he was doing so much more than other punk artists of his day and foreshadowed even better songwriting to come. One of my other favorites from this album is Night Rally, which, I think, shows a further evolution of Elvis’ music and breaks out of the punk style of the rest of the album, including, of course, the classic Pump it Up.
As for the interpretation of the lyrics, I have always thought this was a song about prostitution, but I can see the other interpreations as well.
It does seem to me that this lyric is all about pornography – the first/last verse seems to be about the “recruitment” process while the second verse seems to portray some sample pornographic set-ups for photo-shoots or movies. The chorus also mentions movie, as well as “I don’t want to check you pulse” (implying a possible BDSM-bordering-on-snuff element, but maybe I’m just reaching there).
According to Wikipedia the Chelsea area has always been a respectable address associated with wealth and affluence, but (although I was barely-born in 1978 when this was released) I always got the impression that there was some sort of grimy, scandalous underbelly there contemporaneous to this song, sort of like a “classy” version of Soho… although I might be perhaps thinking of some other region of London
To be honest I found this page through Googling for interpretations of this lyric looking for alternative suggestions of the subject matter, but it definitely looks like Elvis definitely had the old “brown bag books” in mind when he wrote it, since I can’t really see plastic surgery or Warhol in there and the insanity idea seems to focus purely on the “men in white coats” line and ignore everything else.
I won’t go into the wonders of the musical arrangement here, as I could gush about it for days (and the comments already made above already sum it up more succinctly), but yes – on the most basic level, without going into deeper philosophical detail, this is a fantastic song and always enjoyable to listen to while bouncing around the living room, and holds up wonderfully to the test of time.