Preview of Spike
Juke, 1989-02-25
- Terry Staunton
Preview:
Costello's Spike
ELVIS COSTELLO
Spike (Warners)
The dour, bearded man wearing a crown who stared out from a record
sleeve three years ago was an unhappy monarch. An emperor in new clothes
who stood naked, pointing and laughing at everyone, including himself.
The man on the cover of Spike grins inanely, wearing black and
white harlequin make-up, his head mounted on a tartan wall in a trophy
room.
From King Of America to court jester, the changes in Elvis Costello
in those 36 months are, on the surface, merely cosmetic. He's still
angry and bitter, but less so about himself. King Of America
marked the end of Costello's confessional phase, he's a happier man
in personal terms, though the vitriol is still present, diverted rather
than diluted.
Songs written in the first person are scarce on Spike, as Costello's
talent for narrative improves with experience, age, maturity, call it
what you will. That's not to say he's turned his back on his past, his
previous soul-searching has been `spiked', but is still there on the
desk-top should he ever need to refer to it.
Spike is a difficult record to live with. Previously we have
been able to take the man's own depressive outlook with a pinch of salt,
they were always someone else's problems. Here the world we all populate
is exposed as cruel, vindictive and heartless. We can't escape it. We're
stuck with warmongers, Mrs Thatcher, uncaring authoritarians and Andrew
Lloyd Webber.
Costello puts everything in perspective right from the start with the
opening `You're Nobody `Till Everybody In This Town Thinks You're A
Bastard', it give it its full title (sic).
A distant black sheep cousin to John Lennon's `Nobody Loves You When
You're Down And Out', instead of Lennon's maudlin self-pity, Costello
advocates the "if you can't beat `em, join `em" policy. You
have to be a real git to get on.
' . . . This Town . . . ' is an indication of a change in musical policy.
The Attractions are nowhere to be seen, Elvis opting for a dual Rickenbacker
attack from Roger McGuinn and Paul McCartney. He's picked his playmates
carefully, depending on the song, with Chrissie Hynde, Christy Moore,
T-Bone Burnett, Davy Spillane, and a fair whack of Tom Waits' band wearing
the number 12 shirts.
Costello once described Goodbye Cruel World as "the worst
record of the best songs I've written" and he's learned from the
experience, jettisoning the often inflexible Attractions. Goodbye
Cruel World could have been a great record, were Elvis accompanied
by his current cohorts or The Confederates from King of America.
The only concession to the "traditional" Costello sound of
old seems to be the single `Veronica' (an ear for the airwaves is a
handy thing when you've been away for a while), where the lonely spinster
stares out the window waiting for the man who left her 65 years previous
to return.
But let's not forget the court jester; Costello has rarely been wittier
than on the vaudevillian shuffle of `God's Comic' where EIVIS meets
his maker lying on a water bed listening to Lloyd Webber's `Requiem`:
He said before it had really begun/`I prefer the one about my son/l've
been wading through all this unbelievable junk/And wondering if I should
have given the world to the monkeys `. "
Politically, the message is less obtuse than on, say, `Shipbuilding'
or `Oliver's Army'. The subtle lyrical imagery gives way to no-nonsense
protest, best illustrated on `Tramp The Dirt Down', an indictment to
the evil that is Thatcher, which paradoxically borrows its melody line
from Stevie Wonder's `Isn't She Lovely'.
It's one of two songs where traditional Irish musicians are involved
(Moore, Spillane, refugees from The Waterboys), the other being `Any
King's Shilling'. Originally written about his grandfather, Elvis makes
appeals Please don't put your silly head in that British soldier's
hat.
`Let Him Dangle' addresses the hanging debate, using the factual case
of Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig, where Bentley failed to be given
a last- minute reprieve. A chilling highlight among 14 very disturbing
songs.
The voyeurist Costello of old is reprised for the beautiful `Satellite'
(now they both know what it's like inside a pornographer's trousers)
and the romantic fool holds back another tear on `Baby Plays Around'.
Following on, albeit it two years later, from Elvis' two best albums,
Spike is a bold move where others would plump for the easy-way-out
consolidatory collection. It's an exciting, inspiring, bewildering and
bloody frightening record which could well be regarded as his most accomplished
yet.
Twelve albums in as many years is a tall order for anyone, and Elvis
has occassionally tripped - but he's never fallen over. He used to be
disgusted, now he tries to be amused, but he's always entertaining.
Subtitled The Beloved Entertainer, the new LP from Elvis Costello
grapples with Lou Reed's `New York' as the most complete pop statement
about our sick little earth.
Elvis Costello is among us again, uncomfortable and compelling. Hello,
cruel world.
- TERRY STAUNTON
o The record will be released in Australia in early March, through
WEA.