Interview, 1994-05-01 (Lyle Lovett cover)
by Greil Marcus


DAYS BETWEEN STATIONS
Elvis Costello's BY- mighty like a tantrum

"My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant," EC said long ago, but
it's unlikely he meant it quite so literally as some of the songs on his
recent Brutal Youthsuggest. Pony Street, Kinder Murder and 13 Styeps Lead
Down kick off the album and set a tone; they're written around grating,
bashing , or whinily singsongy choruses and incessantly repeated title lines,
driving themselves at you like bad commercial jingles. " Thirteen steps lead
dow-ow-own," Costello bleats, as if he's turned  himself into a human wah-wah
pedal- now, that's an irritant. " Dow-ow-own," answers the radio.
"Dow-ow-own,  dow-ow-own, dow-ow-own," you echo helplessly , trapped,
prisoner of pop, like someone who, innocently standing in line, minding his
or her own business, suddenly starts mumbling the words to "Achy, Breaky
Heart." One can read in the mass of features and interviews accompanying this
presumptive come-back album- Costello is again recording with his punky '70's
band, the Attractions- that "13 Steps Lead Down" is a swipe at twelve step
-program panaceas, exactly the sort of thing the Costello of yore named
emotional facsism. A worty target, you might think. Contemporary! But if you
can't bear to listen , do you care?

Straight off, BY comes across with a rampant unpleasantness. Flinching at
Costello's flood s of words, his sprung rhythms, and the refusal or inability
of the band to find a groove, to let a song flow and cut its own bed, all I
could hear was an overwhelming clutter. By the time the album began to
breathe- five songs in, with Clown Strike, then four songs later, with Sulky
Girl- I couldn't hear that. What I could hear was that London's Brilliant
Parade sounded so much like an old Kinks song that Ray Daviesmight have a
conceptual copyright claim; that My Science Fiction Twin had so little
heartit came off like a novelty song; and that Just About Glad is the sort of
thing Costello probably writes while he's brushing his teeth.Thanks to the
fulsome press response to BY- praising Costello for leaving behind the
experimentation of his song cycle The Juliet Letters or the supposedly
unfocused jumbling ofg Spike and MLAR and once more joining hands with his
old mates to bring back the old fervor, the "real" Elvis-it's possible to
hear in BY a certain careerist panic, to hear more persona than person. He's
supposed to sound angry , bitter, pissed off, unforgiving- and he does. And
if this doesn't sell, then what? But again, if a singers song doesn't move
you, why should you care about his strategy?

Funny thing was, I kept playing BY , pracisely because it was themost
unpleasant thing I had in the house. One test of music is how well it can
stand up to whatever you happen to be carrying around inside yourself- which,
of course, can mean bits and pieces of the outside world, public events,
international catastrophes, the news. Should BY be remembered in years to
come, it may not be remembered that its release came at the same time that
Bill Clinton's presidency began to crumble- for that matter, Bill Clinton's
presidency may not crumble. But it was crumbling in March of 1994, and what I
was carrying around insideme was an irritant, a refrain, like that title line
from 13 Steps Lead Down, something I just couldn't get out of my head.

Early last December, at a dinner party, people were talkingabout the Clinton
health care plan when someonea friend had brought along interrupted " It
doesn't really matter. Clinton will be gone in eight weeks."Everyone turned
on him, demanding he explain himself. " Whitewater," he said, and proceeded
to tellan inside, horse's-mouth story I have yet to hear even vaguely echoed
anywhere else. It took me only a few minutes to talk the guy out of his own
tale- it was second-hand; he had talked to people the Clinton's had
supposedly talked to- but I hadn't quite talked myself out of it. And in
March it was like an invisible headline behind every real headline- even
putatively real headline about, as Molly Ivins and she alone has argued again
and again for months, a phony story.

So, listening to Elvis Costello on Brutal Youth- hearing, as the album plays
and plays, the huge rushing boost Nick Lowe's bass puts into Pony Street, the
acrid, almost stinking best moments in Kinder Murder, the convincing line"
Because I just can't stand myself'" in 13 Steps- one might find a kind of
negative image of whatever it is one might fear to lose.. As the album goes
on and quiets itself, as it reaches Rocking Horse Road, All the Rage , and
the slow, spare, chilling Favourite Hour, that sense of loss, of control and
even desire slipping away, can become palpable.

What is it you're afraid to lose? It might be a lover, a child, a job, your
hair. For me, at the moment, it is the first chance in many years this
country has had to see itself in a new way, to look in the mirror of our
politics and see a face that is not mean, pinched, cruel, and smug. Deep Dark
Truthful Mirror, Elvis Costello titled a song on Spike, but on BY he may have
brought the idea to life. The mean , the pinched , the cruel, and the smug
course through this record, as targets that change into excuses, as evils
that turn into styles, social facts that turn into riffs. You can get sucked
in; I did. But as I've tried to say, I was already there, and this record
made thatfact undeniable. So I'll keep playing it, if only to see what else
it can do.