MYTHS, MELODIES & METAPHYSICS: - Prefab Sprout

Another song, on a linking theme, Meet the New Mozart, was about Mozart, "coming
back as Neil Tennant and making a pile of money this time." It never made the album,
however.
One of the things McAloon considered as being behind a lot of the songs he was writing
for the album was the expression "If I had my time again; I would like to do that again",
maintaining, "wherever you're from, whoever you are, people spend a lot of their lives
thinking, 'I wish I had another shot at that - I'd do it differently.' There's a whole section of
the record where I thought I'd dramatise the idea by writing about Elvis Presley, alive and
a recluse on the top floor of the Las Vegas Hilton, lying in a darkened room saying that
he'd made a mistake in a lot of things that he'd done in his life and if he had his chance
again he would do things differently."
Jordan: The Comeback, the song, is Elvis' monologue in the desert, reflecting on his life
and how he's waiting for the right song before he 'comes back'. He pleads with the media,
"All those books you wrote about me, there wasn't much love in them, boys" and in Elvis'
funeral in Moondog, "they chopped a billion trees to print up eulogies", a sort of onlooker's
commentary. And here, too, on the moon, "a flag will fly, for Mom and apple pie"
- another reference to the American 'myth'. These four songs completed what was to
become known as the 'Elvis Suite', doing what McAloon's intention was with 'groups' of
songs: "There are sections of the record where I wanted to pursue something over two or
three songs rather than get it over and done with in one song", yet he intended to let each
song stand on its own meanings and merits.
The album was going to be a distillation of McAloon's dreams, tackling spiritual issues
across the board - not only the Elvis/Gospel theme but on others like death and its
religious aspects, God and the Devil and towards subjects along the lines of what people
'think' about situations, their dreams and of the 'feel' of things, as McAloon testifies, "It's
the most ambitious record we've ever done. The breadth of the material I think makes it
our most commercial to date because there are out-and-out pop songs there as well as the
'darker' things we like to talk about."
Dolby suggested they called the album "Death and Elvis" - the two things in life you
can't avoid. Feeling honour-bound to fans not wanting the Elvis theme to be too
overbearing, McAloon wrote some songs about death and the devil, which don't belong to
any particular time, thus creating what he'd love to see - an LP that will seem timeless.
Another suite he came up with was the 'Death and Heaven' suite - songs concerning
themselves with regret, growing old or the desire for some peace. In true McAloon 'offcentre'
style, he introduces the Devil himself pleading, "Mercy on me, please say that I'm
forgiven" and God singing, "Sing me no deep hymn of devotion; sing it to one of the
broken and, brother, you're singing to me."
It's a minefield of Catholic references coming from all angles, a reflection of McAloon's
"very confused" views on religion.
Thirdly, there was a bunch of songs where McAloon wanted to play around with the
idea of a medley: "I'm a big fan of Abbey Road and I like the second side of the album,
where you get snatches of things where you think, 'Oh, I wish it could be that bit longer',
so we put together about fifteen minutes of music from All the World Loves Lovers to The
Wedding March on this record which are intended to work like that. Having done that, I