Goldmine, September 6, 1991: Difference between revisions
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The artist has always had an acid tongue, and his vitriol is no sweeter here, even when mouthing the puns of "So Like Candy," one of a series of boy-hates-girl songs that make this the most conflicted set of compositions by an apparently happily married man since Bruce Springsteen's ''Tunnel Of Love''. Costello has frequently been compared to Bob Dylan in this regard, a comparison he continues to justify by re-writing "One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)" as "How To Be Dumb," but the relevant pessimist here seems to be Leonard Cohen, whose well-known self-pity is evoked in such lines as ''"Well I'm the lucky goon / Who composed this tune from birds arranged on the high wire."'' | The artist has always had an acid tongue, and his vitriol is no sweeter here, even when mouthing the puns of "So Like Candy," one of a series of boy-hates-girl songs that make this the most conflicted set of compositions by an apparently happily married man since Bruce Springsteen's ''Tunnel Of Love''. Costello has frequently been compared to Bob Dylan in this regard, a comparison he continues to justify by re-writing "One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)" as "How To Be Dumb," but the relevant pessimist here seems to be Leonard Cohen, whose well-known self-pity is evoked in such lines as ''"Well I'm the lucky goon / Who composed this tune from birds arranged on the high wire."'' | ||
One can almost feel the obsessively allusive Costello nudging his listener and hear him saying, "Bird on a wire, get it?" especially since he drops such references everywhere on the album, whether he's borrowing bass lines from "Don't Let Me Down" or "I Want You (She's so Heavy)" or, in "Invasion Hit Parade," revising Gil Scott-Heron: "Incidentally the revolution ''will'' be televised." | One can almost feel the obsessively allusive Costello nudging his listener and hear him saying, "Bird on a wire, get it?" especially since he drops such references everywhere on the album, whether he's borrowing bass lines from "Don't Let Me Down" or "I Want You (She's so Heavy)" or, in "Invasion Hit Parade," revising Gil Scott-Heron: ''"Incidentally the revolution ''will'' be televised."'' | ||
All of this is good for a titter among those (many of them rock critics) who share Costello's taste in pop music, but, here at least, it doesn't add up to much. Costello doesn't so much make coherent albums as individually impressive songs, and even the songs are rarely united lyrics as much as they are individual clever lines. In pursuit of those lines, tenses get altered within verses; pronouns change; sometimes, as in "Georgie And Her Rival," it isn't even clear who's making obscene phone calls to whom. | All of this is good for a titter among those (many of them rock critics) who share Costello's taste in pop music, but, here at least, it doesn't add up to much. Costello doesn't so much make coherent albums as individually impressive songs, and even the songs are rarely united lyrics as much as they are individual clever lines. In pursuit of those lines, tenses get altered within verses; pronouns change; sometimes, as in "Georgie And Her Rival," it isn't even clear who's making obscene phone calls to whom. | ||
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{{Bibliography images}} | {{Bibliography images}} | ||
[[image:1991-09-06 Goldmine page 154 clipping 01.jpg| | [[image:1991-09-06 Goldmine page 154 clipping 01.jpg|380px]] | ||
<br><small>Photo by [[Amelia Stein]].</small> | <br><small>Photo by [[Amelia Stein]].</small> | ||
[[image:1991-09-06 Goldmine cover.jpg|x120px | |||
<small>Cover.</small><br> | |||
[[image:1991-09-06 Goldmine cover.jpg|x120px]] | |||
{{Bibliography notes footer}} | {{Bibliography notes footer}} |
Latest revision as of 20:31, 11 December 2020
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