“Watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives" is the sound of an English wiseacre wandering into a reggae session with a paperback thriller in his pocket, and it gave him his first hit on any national chart in the late '70s. It was only his fourth single, and he took his cues from two unlikely sources, the Clash and Bernard Herrmann, setting the whole thing on a loping reggae beat.

Nick Lowe produced, and the players give it a slinky, sinister pulse: Andrew Bodnar's bass creeping low, Steve Goulding's drums ticking like a cheap alarm clock, and Steve Nieve splashing organ and piano over the top like spilled cocktails in a noir movie. Costello wrote it and sings it with a sneer, and the words are pure cynicism, not a warm body in sight.

Released through Stiff and Columbia, it climbed to number 15 in the UK while doing modest business in Canada and Australia. Rolling Stone later found room for it at number 363 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.