From The Elvis Costello Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
| Onondaga College Overview
|
—
|
Mighty Like A Rose
Costello
Cate Smith
Warner Bros.
|
To understand the success and failure of Mighty Like a Rose, all you really have to do is play it back to back with nearly any Elvis record, even ’ 89’s Spike. Of course comparing it to something as early as My Aim is True would not only be nostalgic but unfair-Elvis has evolved out of that economy of words and shit-hot thrown together genius stage and into more thoughtful, emotional pieces since the late seventies and show his ability to slow up and ponder without swaying to the side of the road and dying like a lot of his punk rock contemporaries ended up doing.
Mighty triumphs in the slight of hand lyrical way that every album Elvis makes has. Anyone who can kick out something like “And now that you’re back where I pretend you belong/I wonder every night and day/How long” can’t have completely lost their touch. But right next to something as magic and fluid as “Playboy to a Man” , there’s something as inane and tosspot as “Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)” or the grating opening cut “ The Other Side of Summer” .
Musically these songs are adequate to show case E.C.’s industrius wording, when it’s there that is, but they are a far cry from the bouyant melodic runaround that
when coupled with his lyrics has defined Elvis as a gifted songwriter. Mighty is inconsistant and overcomplicated at times by extravagent instrumentation and bloated arrangements that weigh it down, even at its finest moments.
|
|
Clipping
Page scan.
|
|
|
|
External links
