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What is it with rock musicians and children's books? These days, it seems like every other songwriter or band is putting out some kind of storybook-themed concept album. The most recent X Ambassadors LP, The Beautiful Liar, couched its rather bland breakup songs in a half-baked audiobook-for-kids conceit. Then last November, Jet frontman Nic Cester released his solo album The Skipping Girl and an accompanying children's book. And now, we have new wave stalwart Elvis Costello, whose latest release, The Boy Named If, is ostensibly held together by — you guessed it — a children's book concept.
According to Capitol Records, the album will be available in the standard formats as well as "an 88-page hardback storybook edition," which will include 13 illustrated stories named after the songs.
Costello devotees with extra cash can splurge on the special edition if they want. However, the album in itself should satisfy devotees and average listeners alike, even if they can't quite follow the putative storyline.
That's because The Boy Named If features Costello's stock in trade for almost half a century: impeccably crafted melodies, tart lyrics and vocals that blend punk venom with classic crooner elegance. Not only that, he and his backing band The Imposters attack this baker's dozen with such straight-ahead focus that they call to mind the days of This Year's Model and Armed Forces.
The album opens with "Farewell, Ok," a garage-rock rave-up that finds Elvis Costello playing a familiar part: He's a jilted lover railing against the person who's done him wrong. He bellows out lines like "I thought you'd change / And get a little humble" with such pain and bitterness that you could almost forget he's (hopefully) happily married and raising two teenage boys. Meanwhile, Pete Thomas' nimble drumming pushes the song forward as Steve Nieve's organ give it a carnival-ride-gone-bad feel.
Up next is the stomping title track, which presents a larger-than-life trickster who can fall from tightropes and cliffs and live to make mischief another day. The bridge's invitation to visit "Magic Lantern Land" evokes fairy tales, but the music's swagger calls to mind figures like Muddy Waters's "Mannish Boy" or Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster." Costello sneers his way through the song as if he's savoring every wicked syllable.
The third track, "Penelope Halfpenny," conjures up a female counterpart to The Boy Named If. The sugary organ and Costello's twee vocals might strike some as a little too arch or cutesy, but the nimble drumming and Davey Faragher's rubbery bass provide some muscle. Venom comes back to the fore on the lilting, off-kilter "The Distance," which takes the side of a woman in a bad romance and tosses in hints of incest and patricide for good measure.
On "What If I Can't Give You Anything But Love," Costello wails about the end of an extramarital affair as his guitar crackles and screeches and the beat swings relentlessly on. The plaintive, piano-led "Paint the Red Rose Blue" casts a pitying but critical eye on a man whose egotism poisons his relationship with the woman he loves. The ache in Costello's voice suggests he knows all too well how toxic guys can screw up good things.
"Mistook Me for a Friend" lightens the mood with its pounding beat and cheery organ line until you pay attention to lines like "I carry velvet gloves cause the blood gets on your hands." The slinky R&B tune "My Most Beautiful Mistake" describes a woman whom the narrator can't help but admire for seeing through him. On the surf-tinged "Magnificent Hurt," Elvis Costello celebrates the pleasure-in-pain of lust over Nieve's eerie organ and his own yowling guitar.
The loping, cabaret-inflected "The Man You Love to Hate" could describe what happens to the If-named boy once his chickens come home to roost. "Death of Magic Thinking" finds Costello once again picking up the pieces after a relationship dies. The lyrics might read dejected, but the lively Latin beat suggests that life goes on.
The lilting, spooky "Trick Out the Truth" lists monsters from Godzilla to Mussolini that await any who would seek meaning in this life. The Boy Named If ends with the wistful faux-nursery tale "Mr. Crescent," which describes a down-and-out ne'er do well whose bad deeds leave him all alone. By closing with this song, Costello seems to imply that the world might not play fair, but you still need to walk the line. That's a good lesson for the kids. For adults, too.
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