(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea Lyrics

Lyric discussion by amoebius 

Cover art for (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea lyrics by Elvis Costello

Chelsea is/has been at various times an entertainment and sometime red-light district of London. With this bit of knowledge in hand the rest of the song's meaning falls out fairly easily. Truly enough, another of Elvis' misogynistic, or at least feminambivalent tracks, disappointed by the tawdriness of the everyday dressed up flimsily as the exotic and so on. Around the time this song made the hit parade in England, according to Elvis in an interview somewhere, he got into a cab and asked to be driven, where else, to Chelsea, on some business or other. Supposedly the driver turned around with a sneer and a "Ha, Ha, bloody Ha!"