Welcome to the Working Week
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Welcome to the Working Week" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Elvis Costello | ||||
| from the album My Aim Is True | ||||
| A-side | "Alison" | |||
| Released | 21 May 1977 | |||
| Recorded | 1977 | |||
| Length | 1:22 | |||
| Label | Stiff (UK) Columbia (US) | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Elvis Costello | |||
| Producer(s) | Nick Lowe | |||
| Elvis Costello singles chronology | ||||
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"Welcome to the Working Week" is a song written by and first recorded by Elvis Costello in 1977 for his debut album My Aim Is True. A sardonic comment on the working life aimed at a more privileged woman, the song features a brief runtime and unpolished production. Released as the B-side to "Alison", the song has since attracted critical acclaim from music writers.
According to Costello, "Welcome to the Working Week" was one of several songs for My Aim Is True that was written during a span of "two or three weeks" in the summer of 1977.[1] Like the rest of the songs on the album, it was recorded by Costello with the American country rock band Clover. Costello reflected on the members of Clover, "Perhaps they were not quite so sure what was going on in songs like 'Welcome to the Working Week,' ... but they were recorded before we could worry much about it."[2]
In a 1994 interview, Costello noted the song as a more bitter take on life in London than his 1994 song "London's Brilliant Parade", commenting, "'London's Brilliant Parade' is a little bit more ambivalent in its feelings towards London, than, say, 'Welcome to the Working Week,' which is very unforgiving. Maybe, as you get older, you see the two sides of it."[3]
Author James Perone writes that, in the song's lyrics, Costello "seems to be addressing a young woman—possibly a socialite—who is outside of his working-class world."[4] The song's infamous opening lyric "Now that your picture's in the paper being rhythmically admired" was later described as "snide" by Billboard.[5] Musically, the song is notably brief at 1:22 and features "decidedly low-tech production" from Nick Lowe.[4]