Song of the Day 3/25: Elvis Costello, “(I Don’t Want to Go To) Chelsea”
“Ted Lasso” has legions of fans, but I seldom hear anyone mention its savvy use of popular music. Most shows nowadays mine the charts for songs that will heighten a scene’s impact, but I don’t know of any others that employed musicians who are real-life buskers, as the show has in its first two seasons.
So when I saw that the new season’s second episode was titled “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea,” I was looking forward to hearing one of my favorite Elvis Costello tunes. No such luck. The title referenced a plot point about the Chelsea Football Club, and Costello’s song about the posh neighborhood’s red light district — one apartment building there is known to locals as Ten Floors of Whores — simply didn’t fit.
In the UK, “Chelsea” was the lead single from 1978’s “This Year’s Model,” Costello’s second LP and first with the Attractions as his backing band (it reached No. 16). But the US version of the album omitted it because the suits at Columbia deemed it “too British,” so American fans either had to buy the import or wait until the 1980 release of the rarities-and-B-sides compilation “Taking Liberties” to hear it.
