|
"Real life becomes a rumor," Elvis Costello once sang on the terrific Imperial Bedroom song, "Man Out Of Time."
And that evocative turn of phrase — one of Costello's trademarks since exploding on to the rock scene nearly four decades ago — underscores the story he tells in his engrossing new memoir, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink (Blue Rider Press/Penguin).
Costello seems intent on correcting, if not rewriting, his history. Who can blame him? Just as Bob Dylan lives down the media's pat description of him as The Spokesman for a Generation, scribes' insistence that Costello is and always will be Mr. Revenge and Guilt.
In the afterglow of the buzz over My Aim Is True, his remarkable 1977 debut album, Costello recklessly told a British music journalist that his songs were about revenge and guilt. Identified by his black horn-rimmed glasses, he has been living down his image ever since, as rock's Angry Young Dork (or, if you please, Buddy Holly After Shock Therapy).
That's only one of the falsehoods and exaggerations that the ironic lyricist, who wrote a song called "I'm Not Angry" on his first album, is determined to correct. Misguided critics suggested that such songs as "This Year's Girl" and "Party Girl" were attacks on women because Costello seemed to veer from callous to dismissive in his songwriting. Costello shrugs off the label when touching upon "This Year's Girl," a ditty from his frenetic early period.
"Even at the time of first singing these songs, I could sense there were people out there who perhaps really did harbor misogynistic feelings," Costello notes. "Some of them had notebooks in their hands. Perhaps they saw me as some kind of mouthpiece for their own, uglier feelings. They just weren't listening very hard."
Unfaithful Music should satisfy his diehard fans, the group that is most likely to plunk down thirty bucks for a rock 'n' roll memoir. Costello serves up ample helpings of such red-met highlights as the time in 1979 when he cursed out Ray Charles in a drunken rage; formed the Attractions; toured America in his wild youth; changed songs abruptly while performing on Saturday Night Live in 1977; wrote songs and performed with Paul McCartney and so many other luminaries; toured with Bob Dylan; and experienced the highs and lows of three marriages.
I suspect that Costello will write more books. He can stay close to home and help raise his two young sons. It beats living out of a suitcase in, as a road-weary George Harrison once put it, "some cruddy motel." I'm sure it is not lost on him that he has garnered more ink for this book than he has for The River In Reverse, Momofuku, National Ransom or any of his other recent fine albums. (When was the last time that the New York Times Magazine profiled Elvis to celebrate a new album?)
Elvis may yet blossom in a new literary career, much as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has done in his post-basketball life. It's easy to imagine Costello emerging as a pundit for all seasons. Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink is a start.
| 
