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It's time to hail Elvis Costello as the most prolific, and maybe the best, singer-songwriter of his day.
"Best" happens to be my own belief, but that's open to taste. What is indisputable is "most prolific." With the release of Taking Liberties, a 20-track album of B-sides, British album cuts and absolutely unreleased material — most of it beyond the grasp of all but the most ardent collector — the total of Costello songs unleashed on the United States has reached, by my count, 75.
That's 75 in just about three years, an amazing burst of creativity paralleled only by the Beatles' avalanche in 1964 and '65.
Two things make Costello's blitz even more incredible than the bare numbers would indicate. One is that, with the exception of a handful of covers, Elvis himself has written nearly everything he has recorded. During their early days, the Beatles did plenty of songs written by others, besides having the benefit of two great writers and one decent one in the group.
The consistent quality of his material is the other astonishing thing. It is difficult to find a throwaway in his entire output.
This point is borne out spectacularly by Taking Liberties. The album is essentially a collection of the dregs of Costello's career — and what great dregs. There's not a bad cut here — an amazing achievement for a 20-tracker. The grab-bag approach gives the album wonderful variety, and the beady-eyed Costello "vision" gives it unity. The verdict: Taking Liberties is every hit as good as any of his four previous LPs.
Six of the songs were reasonably easy to get over here before the album came out, four as B-sides and two on the Americathon soundtrack. Two other songs, "Black And White World" and "Clowntime Is Over," are included on Liberties in radically different versions than those that appeared earlier this year on Get Happy!!
That leaves a solid dozen that most good Americans have not had a chance to hear. Each is a treat, mostly because of Costello's talents as a rock 'n' roll songwriter.
Costello doesn't just take a riff and call it a song. He writes actual melodies, most of them instantly memorable. He doesn't write lyrics that are nothing but cute little catch phrases. He writes compelling, beautifully compressed, often nasty little stories. He doesn't drag things out, either. He's the master of the two- and three-minute song. Six of Liberties songs are under two minutes, and nothing is longer than 3:39. It's almost as if he keeps his songs to the bare minimum so he can get more of them out to the public.
You have to admire that, and you have to wonder what fuels Costello to crank out this gushing stream of words and music. But listen to nearly any piece of his work and you shouldn't have to wonder much longer. An enormous bitterness and disgust with his fellow humans seems to be the spark.
What Woody Allen is to neurotics, Elvis Costello is to misanthropes: the cleverest, the funniest, and the figurehead. He was once quoted to the effect that the only emotions he understood were guilt and hate, and listening to the apparent cynicism his albums are steeped in, you might almost believe it. But not quite. The rampaging, cleansing rage that bursts out of Costello seems more like the product of a diehard romantic who has been cruelly disillusioned. He's disgusted, but he isn't so resigned to things that he won't keep kicking and screaming.
The best evidence of this is in the music. The words are always bitter and although they're clever, they are generally straightforward in their nastiness. But the melodies are often soft, delicate or gentle, evidence of real compassion. Costello then takes these lovely, fragile tunes, and pounds them to death with gut-wrenching vocals. The combination and contrast is devastating. On Liberties, "Big Tears" and "Tiny Steps" are the best examples of this approach, but it shows on each of his five albums.
The little production touches frame the songs with such obsessive detail that they become even more distinct. "My Funny Valentine," of all things, is sung with just guitar accompaniment, yielding a version so austere that it's difficult to tell whether Elvis is being ironic or not. "Dr. Luther's Assistant" sounds uncannily like mid-'60s Dylan, both in song construction and in Costello's vocal, and the song ends with the same sort of backwards-guitar sounds the Beatles used on "I'm Only Sleeping." "Hoover Factory" matches a nihilistic lyric with a soft pop arrangement and a vocal that sounds light-hearted. "Ghost Train" sounds appropriately ghostly.
More than anything, Taking Liberties shows Costello's versatility. A 20-song album should do that, and this one doesn't fail.
Elvis proved himself as a soul singer with "I Stand Accused" from Get Happy!! and he further entrenches that reputation here with Van McCoy's "Getting Mighty Crowded" where he invades territory previously held by the Four Tops' Levi Stubbs. He's so good at this, he should do more of it.
He's also shown C&W leanings for a while, occasionally doing country numbers onstage and even singing a duet on a George Jones album. Two good slices of country pie are included here, the prime rockabilly of "Radio Sweetheart" and the straight C&W of "Stranger In The House."
Elvis Costello can, as they say in the sports world, do it all: the ballad, the rocker, country, soul and some things not so easily classifiable. The constant factor in his voluminous output, besides his anger, is what seems to be a sense of perfectionism, a desire to make each song a strong, distinct statement. And 75 songs into his career, he's shown that he can get what he goes after.
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