University of Waterloo Imprint, October 31, 1986

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Univ. of Waterloo Imprint

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Blood and Chocolate

Elvis Costello

Tim Perlich

As you might already have guessed, this being an Elvis Costello (and the Attractions) album, there is much more blood than chocolate. You just knew that the self-deprecating, almost apologetic tone of King of America was not something Declan could keep up for any length of time.

Blood and Chocolate is the Imposter's most embittered work to date, leaving Imperial Bedroom and Goodbye Cruel World far below on the venometer. Musically, it's the closest he has dared come to rock 'n' roll since My Aim Is True which, coincidentally, was also produced by Nick Lowe.

It's difficult to decide what makes Costello's sketches almost unlistenable. Either his view is so sickeningly spiteful:

I knew then what I know now,
I never loved you anyhow
And I hope you're happy now.
 ("I Hope You're Happy Now"),

or his characters are made to seem so hopelessly resigned to their fate:

When you're tired of talking
and you can't drink it down
So you hang around and drown instead
Home isn't where is used to be
Home is anywhere you hang your head
 ("Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head")

or maybe it's that his outlook is so rigidly pessimistic — even in the album's most tender moment his pessimism finally gets the better of him:

I want you
I'm going to say it once again 'til I instill it
I know I'm going to feel this way until you kill it.
 ("I Want You")

Of course something must be said for the real life / identification factor that the situation's dredge up but it's probably a more basic quality shared by all of the songs. At the risk of sounding overly philosophical, the album's pervasive theme is unrequited love, that hateful experience known first hand by almost everyone on earth. Since this concept, in its various guises, is dealt with so graphically and unfettered, much of it is difficult to come to terms with. As unpalatable as this might seem, it is unfortunately just how life really is for many people.

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Imprint, October 31, 1986


Tim Perlich reviews Blood & Chocolate.

Images

1986-10-31 University of Waterloo Imprint page 19 clipping 01.jpg
Clipping.

1986-10-31 University of Waterloo Imprint page 19.jpg
Page scan.

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