Melody Maker, January 23, 1993: Difference between revisions
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<center><h3> Pushing back the envelope </h3></center> | <center><h3> Pushing back the envelope </h3></center> | ||
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<center> Allan Jones </center> | <center> Allan Jones </center> | ||
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'''Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet <br> | |||
The Juliet Letters | |||
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They'll love this on ''The Late Show''. Elsewhere, expect to hear the sound of jaws dropping. For a lot of people, ''The Juliet Letters'' may be as far as they go with Costello. | They'll love this on ''The Late Show''. Elsewhere, expect to hear the sound of jaws dropping. For a lot of people, ''The Juliet Letters'' may be as far as they go with Costello. | ||
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The alleged inspiration for the album was a news report about an Italian professor who for years had been answering letters sent by members of the public to Shakespeare's fictional tragic heroine, Juliet Capulet. What has resulted from the Quartet and Costello's subsequent contemplations on this eerie, rather odd and haunted correspondence isn't a straightforward linear narrative — Costello is too clever for that. ''The Juliet Letters'' is a sequence of songs presented as a series of letters — love letters, begging letters, junk mail, chain letters, threatening letters, solicitors' letters, postcards, letters never written, sent or delivered, a suicide note — that taps into the secret pathology of the way we communicate, what we say or don't say. What we disguise or confess, how we threaten, cajole or caress through language, statement and fact. | The alleged inspiration for the album was a news report about an Italian professor who for years had been answering letters sent by members of the public to Shakespeare's fictional tragic heroine, Juliet Capulet. What has resulted from the Quartet and Costello's subsequent contemplations on this eerie, rather odd and haunted correspondence isn't a straightforward linear narrative — Costello is too clever for that. ''The Juliet Letters'' is a sequence of songs presented as a series of letters — love letters, begging letters, junk mail, chain letters, threatening letters, solicitors' letters, postcards, letters never written, sent or delivered, a suicide note — that taps into the secret pathology of the way we communicate, what we say or don't say. What we disguise or confess, how we threaten, cajole or caress through language, statement and fact. | ||
You can see why Costello might have been drawn to this format. For a start, he's found what he has long been looking for — call it a kind of authorial anonymity, if you like. The songs here are written from a multiplicity of perspectives, and each assumes a different voice, a different personality. Costello gets to play a variety of roles, often within the some song. On " | You can see why Costello might have been drawn to this format. For a start, he's found what he has long been looking for — call it a kind of authorial anonymity, if you like. The songs here are written from a multiplicity of perspectives, and each assumes a different voice, a different personality. Costello gets to play a variety of roles, often within the some song. On "For Other Eyes," for instance, he's a woman full of prickly jealousy and suspicion. On "I Almost Had A Weakness," he's an eccentric, embittered old aunt. On "The Letter Home," he's a bitter expatriate writing from New South Wales in the late Thirties. For "I Thought I'd Write To Juliet," he's a female soldier preparing for the Gulf War. For once, when Costello sings in the first person, we are perhaps less likely than usual to make automatic and simplistic assumptions about the autobiographical origins of his material. | ||
Costello is at pains, in his rather luvvy sleevenotes, to emphasise the collaborative nature of this project. As far as he's concerned, he didn't write these lyrics so much as ''edit'' them. This isn't to say we're on totally unfamiliar ground here. Costello's perpetual preoccupations run through the album like a drain. What makes them fresh is the largely uncluttered language, the generous range of emotions they articulate. On ''The Juliet Letters'', we find something of the true weight of Costello's writing and it's often very impressive indeed. | Costello is at pains, in his rather luvvy sleevenotes, to emphasise the collaborative nature of this project. As far as he's concerned, he didn't write these lyrics so much as ''edit'' them. This isn't to say we're on totally unfamiliar ground here. Costello's perpetual preoccupations run through the album like a drain. What makes them fresh is the largely uncluttered language, the generous range of emotions they articulate. On ''The Juliet Letters'', we find something of the true weight of Costello's writing and it's often very impressive indeed. | ||
Not everything works. There are moments that jar badly. Sometimes the music is simply too formal. Elsewhere you might be uncomfortably reminded of the soundtrack to a dreadful Czechoslovakian cartoon about a boy and his wooden dog. There are vaudevillian passages and end-of-the-pier serenades, stuff that smacks of the local amateur operatic society. There are also times when things are just overcooked — the hyperactive " | Not everything works. There are moments that jar badly. Sometimes the music is simply too formal. Elsewhere you might be uncomfortably reminded of the soundtrack to a dreadful Czechoslovakian cartoon about a boy and his wooden dog. There are vaudevillian passages and end-of-the-pier serenades, stuff that smacks of the local amateur operatic society. There are also times when things are just overcooked — the hyperactive "Romeo's Seance," for instance, and the busy, cluttered "Damnation's Cellar," which is a ghastly cross between "God's Comic" and "When I'm Sixty Four." | ||
Mostly though, these songs are the most startling contexts in which Costello has appeared for a while. And the more sombre the mood, the more these pieces grow in authority and emotional impact. " | Mostly though, these songs are the most startling contexts in which Costello has appeared for a while. And the more sombre the mood, the more these pieces grow in authority and emotional impact. "Taking My Life In Your Hands," "Dear Sweet Filthy World" and "The First To Leave" are all about loss and despair and are performed with a majestic intensity. | ||
It's good, too, to hear Costello's voice recorded live, without the overdubbing and multi-tracking that have been so distracting on recent LPs. On the final chorus of "Taking My Life" and the whole of the deeply affecting " | It's good, too, to hear Costello's voice recorded live, without the overdubbing and multi-tracking that have been so distracting on recent LPs. On the final chorus of "Taking My Life" and the whole of the deeply affecting "The Birds Will Still Be Singing," he's simply heartstopping | ||
"This Sad Burlesque" is outstanding, too. Written on the eve of last year's General Election with a postscript added on the morning of Labour's defeat, it's as vituperative as, say, "Tramp The Dirt Down" with the elegiac atmosphere of "Any King's Shilling." Costello recognises the duplicitous ruthlessness that has become characteristic of John Major's wretched government, but his anger is mitigated by a weary disgust. | "This Sad Burlesque" is outstanding, too. Written on the eve of last year's General Election with a postscript added on the morning of Labour's defeat, it's as vituperative as, say, "Tramp The Dirt Down" with the elegiac atmosphere of "Any King's Shilling." Costello recognises the duplicitous ruthlessness that has become characteristic of John Major's wretched government, but his anger is mitigated by a weary disgust. | ||
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<br><small>Clipping.</small> | <br><small>Clipping.</small> | ||
<small>Photo by [[Amelia Stein]].</small><br> | <small>Photo by [[Amelia Stein]].</small><br> | ||
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[[image:1993-01-23 Melody Maker cover.jpg|x120px | <small>Cover and page scans.</small><br> | ||
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Revision as of 03:08, 24 October 2021
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