Lyrics to
Pay It Back

This version of Pay It Back was released by Elvis Costello in 1977.

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Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Elvis Costello or about the 1970s in general.

Stop thief; you’re gonna come to grief
if you don’t take a little more care.
You’re gonna get more than the family plan
from this one shoestring affair.
I may be crazy but I can’t contemplate
being trapped between the doctor and the magistrate.

One of these days I’m gonna pay it back, pay it back,
one of these days.
One of these days I’m gonna pay it back, pay it back,
one of these days.

And then they told me I could be somebody
if I didn’t let too much get in my way.
And I tried so hard just to be myself,
but I keep on fading away.
Until the lights went out, I didn’t know what to do.
If I could fool myself, then maybe I’d fool you too.

I wouldn’t say that I was raised on romance.
Let’s not get stuck in the past.
I love you more than everything in the world.
I don’t expect that will last.
They told me everything was guaranteed.
Somebody somewhere must’ve lied to me.

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Elvis Costello has released many songs over the years besides Pay It Back. Elvis Costello released songs from 1977 to 2004 spanning across albums like My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, Armed Forces, Get Happy!!, Trust, Almost Blue, Imperial Bedroom, Punch The Clock, Goodbye Cruel World, Blood And Chocolate, King Of America, Spike, Mighty Like A Rose, The Juliet Letters, Brutal Youth, Kojak Variety, Deep Dead Blue, All This Useless Beauty, Painted From Memory, For The Stars, When I Was Cruel, North, and The Delivery Man. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Elvis Costello.

If you're a fan of the music of the 1970s looking for more songs from 1977 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Pay It Back by Elvis Costello

The lyrics to Pay It Back are the words, verses and chorus for the song released by Elvis Costello in 1977. Elements of the lyrics to Pay It Back are both direct in meaning and also metaphorical with the real meanings of the song only known by Elvis Costello and any collaborating writers working on the lyrics for Pay It Back back when it was created.

Some people have an interest in the etymology behind words and phrases. You can take apart the lyrics to Pay It Back by Elvis Costello in a number of ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Pay It Back" means the words set to the music of Pay It Back, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Elvis Costello. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Pay It Back and the lyrics to Pay It Back are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Elvis Costello who came here looking just for the lyrics to Pay It Back, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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