Jack of All Parades

After the release of his album Goodbye Cruel World (1984), Elvis Costello distanced himself from his long-term backing group the Attractions, and started touring with T Bone Burnett.

[1] Recording for Costello's next studio album, King of America, commenced in July 1985 in Los Angeles, with Burnett as producer, and musicians including members of the TCB Band and others.

[6] Costello remarked in his 2015 autobiography that "'I'll Wear It Proudly' was an abject song about the fool that love makes of a man past his prime, and 'Jack of All Parades' mocked the philanderer in the moment of surrender.

"[12] Mike Gardner of Record Mirror recognised that both were explicitly love songs,[13] and Liverpool Echo critic Jim Gough praised them as heartfelt in a way that Costello's earlier work had lacked.

[17] Reviewing the 2005 reissue, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone highlighted "Jack of All Parades", "I'll Wear It Proudly," and "Indoor Fireworks" as "twisted adult love ballads" songs that were more affecting than Costello's earlier recordings.

Joyce Millman of The Boston Phoenix remarked that in "Jack of All Parades", Costello "drops the security of circuitous wordplay for an achingly direct 'I loved you there and then/ It's as simple as that'".

[22][a] Music executive Gary Stewart wrote that the song encompasses "many moods, tempos, and textures that underpin its first-person confession" from a narrator seeking a fulfilling relationship.

"[25] Musicians[4] The Costello Show: Technical personnel[4] Produced by J. Henry (T-Bone) Burnett & Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus with Larry Kalman Hirsch.