Pump It Up

About Pump It Up

One of Costello’s best known songs and a prime example of his witty wordplay, “Pump It Up” is pure sexual frustration, its high octane lyrics being a pun for the speaker’s desperate pleas for both sexual release and the raising of the booming music he’s overwhelming himself in. Allegedly, Costello wrote the song while sitting on the fire escape of the Newcastle Hotel during his 1977 tour. In his 2015 autobiography Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink, Costello acknowledged that the song owed an inspiration to Bob Dylan: .

Text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.

About this song

Credited to

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Album

Rock & Metal for the soul · Track 11 of 32

Released

June 23, 2023

Duration

3:16

On Last.fm

186,802 listeners on Last.fm

More from Elvis Costello & The Attractions

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2. Pump It Up - 2021 Remaster · 1 plays

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From the album: Rock & Metal for the soul