It's tough to get a grip on the real Costello. He has the gall to call himself by the King's name, wear Buddy Holly glasses and skinny '60s suits in the manner of a classic rocker. But it's a put-on. Most of his songs are too bland, cold and strangely abstract for mass audiences.
The tight-lipped, intense cult figure clamps down on his caustic lyrics like a patient suffering from progressive lockjaw. He writes happy, upbeat songs about as often as Dracula wears a cross. As far as his stage act goes, I've seen livelier Indians outside a cigar store.
Still, Costello has charisma — even if he wears it on his sleeve. He's a character.
While the pack scurries to create a blockbuster hit with a hook that hits you like a two by four, Costello works patiently as a spider, spinning offbeat yarns about the women he meets — or rather observes — and tying them to melodies that seem banal in the beginning but have a habit of burrowing in your brain. Take the quiet, creepy "Watch Your Step." Upon first hearing you pooh-pooh it and say, "That's insignificant, just a termite song." But then on your way to work you find yourself humming the damn thing.
It takes talent to do that. Except for the more accessible Big Beat numbers "Strict Time" and "Lovers Walk," you must go to his songs. He will not come to you. He'll be as surprised as I will if Trust goes alla way in the U.S.A.
|