Elvis Costello released his best album in years in 2010 — National Ransom, an Americana epic bursting with anger, pathos and creative energy.
Produced by T Bone Burnett, who is on a hell of a roll the past decade or so, National Ransom is also one of the best sounding records Costello has ever released, with rootsy instrumentation bringing the country- and jazz-flavored tunes thrillingly to life.
Almost every one of the album’s 16 tracks is a highlight but the tune that first caused me to stand up and take notice was the second song on the album, ‘Jimmie Standing in the Rain.’
Following the title song, a straight-up rocker, this track comes out of left field and announces that National Ransom is something different and special. This jazzy number sounds like something you’d hear floating out of a doorway on Bourbon Street… actually, it sounds like something ambling down Bourbon Street on its own.
As with many Costello songs, these lyrics leave me largely in the dark, but the language is incredibly evocative. Stale bread curling on a luncheon counter, eyes going in and out of focus mild and bitter from tuberculosis, vile vaudevillians applauding sobriety… nobody else in music writes quite like this.
Punching out the shadows underneath the sockets
Tweed coat turned up against the fog
Slow coaches rolling o’er the moor
Between the very memory
And approaches of war
Stale bread curling on a luncheon counter
Loose change lonely, not the right amount
Forgotten Man of an indifferent nation
Waiting on a platform at a Lancashire station
Somebody’s calling you again
The sky is falling
Jimmie’s standing in the rain
Nobody wants to buy a counterfeited prairie lullaby in a colliery town
A hip flask and fumbled skein with some stagedoor Josephine is all he’ll get now
Eyes going in and out of focus
Mild and bitter from tuberculosis
Forgotten Man
Indifferent nation
Waiting on a platform at a Lancashire station
Somebody’s calling you again
The sky is falling
Jimmie’s standing in the rain
Her soft breath was gentle on his neck
If he could choose the time to die
Then he would come and go like this
Underneath a painted sky
She woke up and called him “Charlie” by mistake
And then in shame began to cry
Tarnished silver band peals off a phrase
And then warms their hands around the brazier
Forgotten Man
Indifferent nation
Waiting on a platform at a Lancashire station
Somebody’s calling you again
It’s finally dawning
Jimmie’s standing in the rain
Brilliantine glistening
Your soft plaintive whistling
And your wan wandering smile
Died down at The Hippodrome
Now you’re walking off to jeers, the lonely sound of jingling spurs, the “toodle-oos” and “Oh, my dears” down at “The Argyle”
Vile vaudevillians applaud sobriety
There’s no place for a half-cut cowboy in polite society
Forgotten Man
Indifferent nation
Waiting on a platform at a Lancashire station
Somebody’s calling you again
It’s finally dawning
Jimmie’s standing in the rain
Meet Me In Montauk 
Couldn’t agree more as to how wonderful this album is. Though I’m not in love with the first and title track, I find the album truly takes off beginning with today’s SOTD. If I were plucking out my favorite track on this record, it might well be the third one, ‘Station of the Cross,” but your pick is a sound choice as well.
I agree with your assessment of the experience of listening to this album. I was hearing it for the first time in the car a few weeks ago. I listened to the first track and enjoyed it well enough. Then this song started. And marched its way down Bourbon Street (love that! so I’m using it 🙂 And I though, “Wow, this album is something special.” In fact, I only listened to two more songs before restarting the album to hear the first song lead into the second again before I finished my day’s errands and headed back to the house.
I’ve now heard the complete album a few times and this song perhaps another half dozen, and I find it to be just as wonderful each time. Great choice.