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King Horse Lyrics
Cheap cut satin and bad perfume
Showtime is almost here
Teased up by a strip cartoon
Laughing up your sleeve
Sniggering in your beer
He'd seen the bottom of a lot of glasses
But he'd never seen love so near
He'd seen love get so expensive
But he'd never seen love so dear
[Chorus:]
Now I know that you're all King Horse
Between tenderness and brute force (repeat)
She can turn upon a sixpence in the mouth and trousers set
Hit the till, ring the bill, never spill a sip
And still she knows the kind of tip that she is gonna get
A lot of loose exchanges, precious little respect
When it's someone else's weekend
That's the best you can expect
[Chorus:]
So fond of the fabric
So fond of fabrication
From comic books to tragic
Through the heart of complications
Meanwhile back in some secluded spot
He says 'will you please?' and she says 'stop'
If I ever lose this good thing that I've got
I never want to hear the song you dedicated tonight
'Cause you see I knew that song so long before we met
That it means much more than it might
[Chorus:]
Showtime is almost here
Teased up by a strip cartoon
Laughing up your sleeve
Sniggering in your beer
He'd seen the bottom of a lot of glasses
But he'd never seen love so near
He'd seen love get so expensive
But he'd never seen love so dear
Now I know that you're all King Horse
Between tenderness and brute force (repeat)
Hit the till, ring the bill, never spill a sip
And still she knows the kind of tip that she is gonna get
A lot of loose exchanges, precious little respect
When it's someone else's weekend
That's the best you can expect
So fond of fabrication
From comic books to tragic
Through the heart of complications
Meanwhile back in some secluded spot
He says 'will you please?' and she says 'stop'
If I ever lose this good thing that I've got
I never want to hear the song you dedicated tonight
'Cause you see I knew that song so long before we met
That it means much more than it might
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In the liner notes to "Girls Girls Girls" Elvis wrote:
"The armed forces are the only other line of work that encourages such unsuitable people to travel the world. Chaos reigns at 35,000 feet over the Pacific. In my notebook I'd stumbled on some lyrics about tawdry compromise & desperate fun, mostly the work of a very naive nineteen-year-old. Now I'm looking to hang it all on the best insult to the strutting male that I can find. The cult of the stallion with medallion is in full flower. I look at the silly schoolboys making the stewardess' life a misery. I look at myself in the toilet mirror... 'King Horse'."
So "King Horse" is meant to be an insult to the boy on the prowl.
The stewardess connection is kind of weird though. It seems to me that the song takes place in & outside a bar - "hit the till, ring the bell" - where is there a till on an airplane? (& yes, it's till - the lyric above is wrong.) Also, who tips on an airplane?
The noun phrase 'King Horse' would ordinarily be taken to mean 'King of the Horses', much as in 'The Lion King'. In context — 'between tenderness and brute force' — and the liner notes already quoted here, it seems as though Costello is suggesting that the men he's observing have some of the pathos of adolescent love (‘never seen’); the male in the last verse doesn’t use brute force, but asks (pleadingly?) ‘Will you please?’ So in context, it sounds to me as though this reflects a crowd of late adolescent boy-men at a cheap strip club (‘Teased up by a strip cartoon’, in the kind of punning word order reversal Costello loves), who are self-representing as stallions, but who in fact are just colts.
I can't believe no one has commented on this song yet! Its a classic
Its basically saying that all air hostesses are bitches under their fake smiles. If you listen to it again "Now I know that you're all King Horse" sounds like "Now I know that you're far-king whores". He pretty much says he can't blame them because they spend they're lives running around at everyones feet.
great song though
Could it be that the stewardess has become generalised to be a waitress in a bar/ club, suffering the clumsy attentions of wealthy drunks. See also 'Sulky girl' on 'Brutal Youth'