Despite his forays into jazz and easy listening, every so often Elvis Costello returns to his roots and puts out a good old-fashioned rock-n-roll record. Such was the case with 2008’s Momofuku, his follow-up to the jazz collaboration The River in Reverse.
Named after the inventor of ramen instant noodles, the album was assembled in six days almost on a whim. Costello had been working with Jenny Lewis on her next album, Acid Tongue, when he decided to bring the same players (including two of The Attractions and Ms. Lewis herself) into the studio to cut a batch of songs he’d recently written.
The spontaneity and energy on Momofuku, as well as some of Costello’s best songwriting in years, helped make it his best album since at least When I Was Cruel and maybe even Blood & Chocolate. Sometimes it’s the unexpected work that winds up resonating the most.
‘Flutter & Wow’ is one of my favorite tracks on Momofuku. It’s a smoky ballad that uses music terminology as a metaphor for romance, or perhaps something more sinister. The reference to “incident tape across the bed” calls to mind a crime scene for some sexual transgression. Is the narrator of this song obsessed with a woman to the point of murdering her? Just a thought.
I’d never heard the phrase “flutter and wow” before this song. It’s the measurement of wobble in a recording on vinyl or tape.
Full moon begins to rise
Reflected in your eyes
I can’t believe that this is happening
You make the motor in me
Flutter and Wow
The crowd was gathering
The clock struck five, then ten
My happy tears descending
I can’t believe that this is happening
You make the motor in me
Flutter and Wow
Flutter and how
The incident tape across the bed
Threading it from the reel to the head
I’m planting this thought in a magnetic field
I’m pressing the button
And all of a sudden
Erase everything rotten
Fascinated and uptight
Make shout out loud
Make me cry all day and night
My voice got stuck in my throat
Pulled my hand up into the sleeve of my coat
So you’d never know how it was shaking
I can’t believe that this is happening
You make the motor in me
Flutter and Wow
Flutter and Wow
Flutter and Wow
You make the motor in me
Start up and stop again
When I am spluttering
You make the motor in me
Flutter and wow
Flutter and how
Meet Me In Montauk 
I’ve never thought of this as anything other than an outright love song, though the line about tape on the bed you pointed out does give me some pause. Still, I think he’s just suggesting that their sex life is so passionate that the bed ends up looking like something akin to a crime scene. Ugh….need to get the image of Elvis having sex out of my head….:)
Anyway, until you featured this album this weekend, I had forgotten just how good it is. Need to pop that sucker into the CD player again. I think the problem with Elvis is he releases so many damn albums, and so many of them are so good that you end up feeling the need to abandon the last CD so that you can digest the new one. I’m still trying to build a level of familiarity with National Ransom that a great album like Momofuko takes a back seat before it really should. Another artist I love, Randy Newman, has the decency to be less prolific, releasing an album only every 5 to 10 years, so that I can thoroughly immerse myself in each album before moving on to the next. Elvis gives me no such luxury.
There is much to love about Momofuko, including, as you point out, its spontaneity, perhaps best exemplified in today’s song when Elvis leaves in the direction to the band to jump to the bridge. Leaving that type of moment in adds so much to the intimacy of this record. .