Lyrics to
Pump It Up

This version of Pump It Up was released by Elvis Costello in 1978.

Our About Elvis Costello page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Pump It Up from 1978 as well as all of the other lyrics from Elvis Costello that we have in our lyrics database.

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

I’ve been on tenterhooks
ending in dirty looks,
list’ning to the Muzak,
thinking ’bout this ‘n’ that.
She said that’s that.
I don’t wanna chitter-chat.
Turn it down a little bit
or turn it down flat.
Pump it up when you don’t really need it.
Pump it up until you can feel it.

Down in the pleasure centre,
hell bent or heaven sent,
listen to the propaganda,
listen to the latest slander.
There’s nothing underhand
that she wouldn’t understand.

Pump it up until you can feel it.
Pump it up when you don’t really need it.

She’s been a bad girl.
She’s like a chemical.
Though you try to stop it,
she’s like a narcotic.
You wanna torture her.
You wanna talk to her.
All the things you bought for her,
putting up your temp’rature.

Pump it up until you can feel it.
Pump it up when you don’t really need it.

Out in the fashion show,
down in the bargain bin,
you put your passion out
under the pressure pin.
Fall into submission,
hit-and-run transmission.
No use wishing now for any other sin.

Pump it up until you can feel it.
Pump it up when you don’t really need it.

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Want more lyrics and songs by Elvis Costello?

Elvis Costello has released many songs over the years besides Pump It Up. 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 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Pump It Up by Elvis Costello

The lyrics for Pump It Up are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1978 song by Elvis Costello. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Pump It Up have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for Pump It Up - Elvis Costello and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to Pump It Up by Elvis Costello in multiple 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 Pump It Up" means the words set to the music of Pump It Up, 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 Pump It Up and the lyrics to Pump It Up 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 Pump It Up, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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