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The Big Picture
"All over the world at the very same time people sharing the same sorrow / As the satellite looks down her darkest hour is somebody else's bright tomorrows."
The very week that Rupert Murdoch's Sky channel beams us all into the age of tabloid TV, Elvis Costello unveils his "Satellite," one of 14 new songs collectively entitled Spike. Perfect timing.
"...A woman goes into a photo booth which is really a blue screen where she can be superimposed onto any TV special of her own choice. Perfect fantasy come true. But, in order to have this moment of glory there's a big catch. She's gotta be in a peep show.
"A techno peep show where the lights peer right through her dress and she's revealed to this slimey, slobbering guy who's watching her on TV. And he's on TV too being watched by a host of other voyeurs who haven't got the courage of his lust. They’re afraid of the germs... It's very Philip K. Dick."
It is? I mean, yeah, it is! (Help). He smiles in satisfaction. I smile back in bemusement. Maybe, I venture, explanatory footnotes are advisable for us mere mortals who don't share the same multi-layered psyche of the Dicks and Elvises of this world?
"Yeah. These are they."
Oh, good. Today, dear reader, I am your bridge to the weird and frightening world of Elvis Costello aka "Spike" aka "The Beloved Entertainer." Neither the artist nor his complicit go-between are too certain of the wisdom of such a pact but, then again, songs as... as labyrinthine as "Satellite" might need some explaining. They are, to quote the man himself, "Big" songs. Too "BIG" too fully succeed perhaps?
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