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I really like this record a whole lot, really I do, I really, really do — it's the moment's "fave rave" (that means, like, favorite, um, rave), the one that gets played more than once — but to be honest, I can't think of a single really smart thing to say about it, and that's not just because Dr. Fink pumped me all full of Novocain this morning so I wouldn't claw his eyes out when he went to work on me. Oh, I can tell you more or less what it sounds like (the record, I mean, not Dr. Fink, although I can tell you what that sounds like, too). It sounds like Elvis Costello — well, it is Elvis Costello, or was Elvis Costello, or... You see, there might not be an Elvis Costello anymore, and this isn't just one of those "Paul Is Dead" things. I mean, I don't think you're going to hear any horrible car wrecks if you play this thing backward, though I can't say for sure; I haven't played it backward. Yet. Let's just say there's nothing on the record that, when played forward, sounds like a car wreck played backward, or "Turn me on, dead man," or any of that stuff.
What it is is that — you'd better sit down, kids — aaaaaaaah, I don't know quite how to say this. Well, the simple fact is, Johnny, that Elvis Costello never really did exist, except in the sense of, like, Santa Claus or the Grim Reaper. "Elvis Costello" was sort of like a projection of this guy Declan MacManus, who, for reasons that may by now have become as obscure to him as they are to me — maybe he thought Declan MacManus sounded too much like Val Doonican, or maybe he was just shy — made up this character, this Costello, who wrote songs out of "guilt and revenge" and called Ray Charles something I don't really care to repeat here (and got himself punched out by Stephen "4 + 20" Stills for doing it) and went out with Bebe Buell and spent a lot of time acting scary and mysterious. Well, of course, it's easy to act mysterious when you're not for real. But I guess Declan finally got tired of being mistaken for somebody else, or mistaking himself for somebody else, and careful backtrackers will observe over the years a gradual erosion of the E.C. facade — "dismantling" might be a better word — which has most lately come to this pass: All of the songs on King of America are credited to Declan MacManus, except for the two covers (J.B. Lenoir's "Eisenhower Blues" and the also-available-as-an-import 12-inch-with-two-non-album-tracks "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood") and one collaboration with somebody whose last name is O'Riordan.
As of now, I've only got an advance cassette and some Xeroxed lyrics and credits, but there's hardly a mention of "Elvis Costello" on them — Declan MacManus co-produced (with T Bone Burnett, who cops to his Christian "J. Henry" for the occasion), and all the instrumental parts I make to be played by Elvis, or whatever his name is, are credited to "L.H.C.," which might stand for "Lord High Commissioner" or "Listen to Henry Cow" or "Listen to Henry Cowell" or "Like a Happy Communist," but more likely does not. And the whole project is credited to "The Costello Show," which I read as a tacit admission — or perhaps announcement — that what has gone before has been, in a sense, pretend (which, I hasten to add, is nothing out of its favor) and that Declan has now decided to let Declan be Declan and to hang "Elvis" in the closet like a mantle to be retrieved when the occasion calls for it. (Clothes may make the man, but they are not the man — fabulously important distinction.)
The music itself seems to reflect this resurrection of self — it sounds like what we've come to think of as Elvis Costello, but it's more stripped down and simplified than anything he's done since My Aim Is True, with lots of acoustic guitar and dobro and acoustic piano and Hammond organ and Jo-El Sonnier on accordion and possessed of a sometimes intensely, sometimes vaguely countryish kinda thang going on. There's the customary dazzling wordplay, but it's relatively straightforward. (I can make sense of most of it without scratching too deep a hole in my head.)
Some of it's about America, about coming to America, and manages to be critical while remaining poignant, or poignant while remaining critical — I haven't decided which. Lots of it's about love, or lack thereof. A bit of social commentary.
And — this might be the most important thing of all — it's got a pack of great, seductive, memorable melodies, sung with oodles of feeling and a load of nuance. I like it a lot. That's all I can say.
I used to go to parties (and still would) where people'd argue, pretty intelligently, over whether Imperial Bedroom was a masterpiece or a piece of shit — I finally got a copy and decided that I, um, liked it a lot — and I suppose you'll be seeing a lot of really well thought-out reviews of this one, arguing similar arguments, backed up with lots of sociology and politics and quasi-literary criticism, but — stupid me — all I can think to say is that I think it sounds real good, like a record should. And that's it.
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