Elbow

After initial attempts during about seven years as Soft – with that name big successes were out of reach of course - the Brit pop band changed its name to Elbow - and suddenly they moved forward. 

The dream poppers from English Ramsbottom, Lancashire must have been ardent fans of the prematurely deceased English drama writer Dennis Potter, because their band name comes directly from a TV series that Potter wrote for the BBC: The Singing Detective. In that series one of the leading roles is played by a private detective who sings quite nicely and whose name is Philip E. Marlow (a clear, almost shameless reference to the well-known private eye in the novels of Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe). 

We quote Marlow (without 'e' at the end): ‘What’s the loveliest word in the English language, officer? In the sound it makes in the mouth? In the shape it makes in the page? “E-L-B-O-W”’.

Active: 1997-present, GBR
Site: http://www.elbow.co.uk/

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