|
Anger is the message of Elvis Costello's music. Elvis screams it and the Attractions pound it. The particular words don't matter, the anger is always there. Elvis embodies the anger and frustration inside of us and offers a valve for its escapes If the anger is not here the music creates it, absorbs it and offers it back intensified.
I bought the new Trust album in anger. When I saw the Billboard chart with REO Speedwagon sitting at the top, I took an Elvis pose and spat at it while mumbling various obscenities to the record store clerk. Just another case of adolescent hearts and minds substituting banality and volume for true anger. I pounded my head against walls in many cavernous sports arenas while in high school but never learned what anger was until Elvis taught me.
Many pound their heads to the beat of "The Boss" Springsteen ,these days. Those with their fingertips on the pulse of the cash register have labeled Springsteen the new Messiah of rock. They say that Springsteen will have the same impact that Bob Dylan once had, but it is Elvis Costello who truly speaks for our generation. While Springsteen continues to reawaken a tired romanticism, Costello poises us for action. If Springsteen is truly the new Messiah then Elvis is the anti-Christ sent to deliver us from rock and roll rigor mortis.
Anger seethes from each cut on the Trust album. This album is more intense and bitter than last year's diversionary Get Happy!. In other words, Elvis is back and once more at his best. Costello's musical style proves that there is power in simplicity. The songs are, as usual, short and have no frills. They each function as a single unit but also contribute to the LP as a whole. There are not stand-out cuts on the album, each tune is as powerful as the next.
Costello's words are often obscured by the music and his style of vocalization. But it is his posing that communicates the message, only an occasional line need be understood.
...the boys next door, the moms and dads
...have you ever been had in clubland?
These lines from the opening tune, "Clubland," let us know that the song may be an indictment of the middle class. The rest of the message is simply anger.
Elvis is suspicious of words. In the song "Pretty Words" he sings:
...better keep your big mouth shut
pretty words don't mean much anymore.
To Elvis, words are the enemy; they can destroy. In "You'll Never Be a Man" he tells us. "You need protection from the physical art of conversation." In "Watch Your Step" the message is even clearer:
Don't say a word, don't say anything'
don't say a word, I'm not even listening
But Elvis makes us listen, not to his words but to his anger that can set us free.
"White Knuckles" is a catchy tune about violence which is an inevitable extension of Costello's anger. The song does not try to justify the violence which it portrays, nor does it condemn it.
...white knuckles on black and blue skin,
you didn't mean to hit her but she kept laughin'
you don't have to take it so you just give in.
Elvis sings of the ugliness within all of us, the violence which may or may not be physical.
I would like to thank Elvis for what he has taught me. I would like to tell him that his genius is matched only by the likes of Lou Reed, David Bowie and Brian Eno. But he probably wouldn't want to hear it. He would growl at me when I tell him that I understand the anger in his music. He would probably think that here is another damn journalist who thinks he understands what my music is — pretty words don't mean much anymore, "I'm not even listening."
| 
