A guest posting by Fraser Pettigrew (aka our New Zealand correspondent)
Elvis Costello: the difficult decades : Yet another EC Imaginary Compilation Album
Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus is an artist who has embraced more musical styles than he has names and pseudonyms. Whether it’s Napoleon Dynamite, The Imposter, the Coward Brothers or plain old Elvis Costello on the label, you never know if it’s going to be pop, blues, ska, rock, folk, r’n’b, country, classical, zydeco or jazz coming out the speakers, and on many of his 34 studio albums you’ll get a bit of all of them.
I won’t even begin to mention all the people with whom he has collaborated or from whom he draws influence because I’m not writing an encyclopaedia. To fashion a compilation from his entire oeuvre would be insane, both for the research required and the futility of representing such diverse and prolific creativity, as the previous ICAs here have already acknowledged.
Consequently, for this selection I’ve ‘limited’ myself to his main solo albums from 1994’s Brutal Youth onwards, excluding all the various collaborations with the likes of the Brodsky Quartet, Burt Bacharach and Alain Toussaint, as well as the orchestral and soundtrack works, and the covers collection Kojak Variety.
Why start with Brutal Youth? No particular stylistic reason, just that the previous album Mighty Like A Rose (1991) was the point at which I became exhausted by Costello’s increasingly dense and convoluted songwriting and lost the desire to buy whatever he produced on its release, a habit I’d followed since 1978 with This Year’s Model. Everything he’s done since 1991, I have caught up with much later.
For those of us who followed him through that first decade or so it would only take the mention of a song title to cause the melody, the arrangement and the lyrics to flow straight from our memory. Since about 1989 however, Costello has written literally hundreds of songs that none of us will ever find ourselves humming at the bus stop. Even with eleven albums to choose from, filling two sides of vinyl with highlights wasn’t that easy.
Coming to it all after the event makes me realise I didn’t miss much by not being there at the time. Not because there’s nothing good there, but because there was nothing that time would render invalid and therefore had to be consumed fresh. Costello was writing in historical traditions, recasting established forms with adult lyrics that avoided or undermined the cliches and the condescending patriarchal stereotypes with which they were often associated.
Since the turn of the century, his immersion in Americana has infused a body of work that feels born in the (southern) USA, from Nashville, through Memphis, to New Orleans. Interwoven with all this are the strands of folk, the Dylan and Beatles influences, the retro 1930s pop-jazz, the smoky club torch-songs, and even the occasional new-wave banger.
Returning to him after many years away, the things that turned me off Costello in 1991 are still there. There are many wonderful moments where form, style, sentiment, melody and arrangement merge beautifully into a memorable whole. Those are the songs I’ve selected from below. There is also a fair amount that wouldn’t offend fans of the Doobie Brothers or Travelling Wilburys. And then there are the other melodically convoluted, lyrically over-concentrated, metaphorically force-fed stuffed ducks that grate on your ears as you try to extract some aesthetic comfort from them..
Amid the myriad influences that cascade over any Costello album, the one that I most frequently hear is Randy Newman. And that’s a pity because I don’t really like Randy Newman. No disrespect, distinguished musician and songwriter and all, but the style just gets on my wick, no less when it’s coming from Costello. It’s that sense of trying to cram too many wordy smart-arsed metaphors into a song until they blur the essential musicality of it all into an overwrought plodding rant. I seem to recall Costello himself relating some advice Burt Bacharach gave him about not forcing a lyric to fit the melody, but it frequently sounds as though the advice goes unheeded.
There was an inherent irony with the early Costello, that the man was much younger than he looked, while the music was always older than it seemed. I first saw him live on the Armed Forces tour, supported by Richard Hell and John Cooper Clarke (there’s eclectic for ya!). The lyrical content of his first two albums combined with his nerdy, horn-rimmed appearance formed the impression that I was watching a mature and world-weary man, embittered by too many failed relationships. On that night in January 1979 he was actually just four months past his 24th birthday. Old before his time, already experiencing the ruins of his first marriage and father to an infant son.
Even in its most vital and adrenalin-stoked new-wave moments, the music by contrast showed its retro roots. The Jailhouse Rock of Mystery Dance, Steve Nieve’s ‘60s bubblegum organ sound and the glitter-stomp of Pump it Up, the Beatles harmonies and musical quotations, the old-timey fairground barrel-organ of Sunday’s Best. And of course, the country and western. Stranger in the House, a free giveaway with This Year’s Model, was treated as a bit of tongue-in-cheek anti-fashion, but when a whole album of country covers was announced in 1981 there was some uncomfortable shuffling before people pretended they’d always known it wasn’t a joke.
Almost Blue was an entirely sincere excursion into a genre which almost all Costello fans privately regarded as the ghastly old wallpaper in their parents’ front room. But Costello’s eclecticism opened doors in people’s minds. In the process, I came across a quote that explained it all: rock and roll is about sex, country and western is about marriage. Didn’t Tammy Wynette literally spell it out for us with her greatest hit? So when you revisit Costello’s earliest work you find the same preoccupation, not with teenage kicks and drug-fuelled oblivion, but with jealousy, adultery, and drinking to remember. He was a country singer all along.
It’s arguable that some of his most innovative work sits not under his own name, but in a couple of those unlikely collaborations, particularly the Brodski Quartet and The Roots. On paper, Wise Up Ghost held out the horrific prospect of watching your dad dance to The Prodigy, but it’s surprisingly bearable. And then again, 2020’s Hey Clockface is liberally blessed with sounds that don’t fit snugly into any pigeonhole, proving that old Declan hasn’t completely sunk without trace in some Louisiana bayou.
There are only eleven tracks in this ICA because tracks 4 and 5 are just short of six minutes apiece and, Get Happy notwithstanding, vinyl only stretches so far. I haven’t purposely avoided the Americana in my selection, I have merely tried to select the songs that I like most. There’s no pretence of a ‘representative’ sample, just the random variety that emerges from my entirely subjective choice. If you’re not familiar with Costello’s later work, don’t get the idea that it’s all like this, or you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Side 1
American Gangster Time – From the notably above-average Momofuku (2008). The Dylanesque verses lead into a uniquely Costello chorus-hook. The seedy nexus of crime, prostitution and American patriotism seems as relevant now as ever.
13 Steps Lead Down – Critical praise for Brutal Youth (1994) as ‘back to form’ (over-generous IMHO) is largely based on this standout single which recalls The Attractions’ glory days.
Bullets for the Newborn King – ‘Somewhere in Central America, 1951’ says the sleeve note on National Ransom (2010), evoking CIA covert actions in this folky ballad for acoustic guitar and bass.
All These Strangers – A typically impenetrable Costello lyric, for which T-Bone Burnett takes a share of the credit/blame, more international political intrigue from National Ransom, but who cares what it’s about when it’s wedded to such a seductive tune.
It’s Time – Classic Costello from All This Useless Beauty (1996), an epic and impassioned post-mortem on a doomed affair, wouldn’t feel out of place on Imperial Bedroom.
Side 2
No Flag – Everything on this blistering track from Hey Clockface (2020) was done by Costello alone in a studio in Helsinki, using synths, loops, drum machine. You could call it unexpected…
Stella Hurt – Another Impostors stomper from Momofuku, surfing on a dirty guitar riff the likes of which was unheard in this neighbourhood since Blood and Chocolate’s Uncomplicated.
Suspect My Tears – Look Now (2018) is saturated in Burt Bacharach (including two collaborations). This is the best of Costello’s many emulations, most of which come nowhere close to the master. Though it’s a bitter and cruel song from a man’s perspective it would have been great to hear a young Dionne Warwick or Dusty Springfield singing it.
I Do (Zula’s Song) – One of the jazz quintet numbers from Hey Clockface, with a melancholy New Orleans funeral march refrain and a beautiful tune, keeping it simple for once.
The Whirlwind – Mostly just Costello’s voice and Steve Nieve’s piano delivering another poignant moment on Hey Clockface.
Mr Crescent – The Boy Named If (2022) leaves it late to produce something worthwhile with its closing track, a sorry tale of an untrustworthy lover swathed in a captivating melody.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 