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It was not he, my Uncle Jim likes to say, who left the Lutheran Church and the Democratic Party, but rather those institutions that strayed from their roots and left him.
My uncle is no longer one with the canon or the planks.
The same was true of Elvis Costello and me. With the 1998 release of Painted by Memory, a collaboration between Elvis and Burt Bacharach, the Liverpudlian performer and I went our separate ways.
Now, Elvis is back in my house. I like to think I am the one whose aim remained true.
With the release of When I was Cruel, Elvis has returned to form. His own marketing intimates it. "The first loud album since 199?" it says on the jewel box wrapper sticker for the album. When I was Cruel begs to be played at 11, the better to appreciate the riffs, both musical and linguistic.
This album bites — not Bart Simpson bites, but Oscar Wilde bites — with lyrics of wit and insight. Evidence:
"A tornado dropped a funnel cloud with twenty tons of rain, Though she had the attention span of warm cellophane," Elvis sings in "Episode of Blonde."
It's so good to have him back. The author of such lines as "He lacks lust, he's lackluster" and "I wish you luck with a capital F" and "You can see those pictures in any magazine, but what's the use of looking if you don't know what they mean."
I could go on.
To say I was devoted to Elvis would be akin to describing the Old Testament deluge as a little rain. It understates a bit.
I was an Elvis completist, including everything he ever recorded in my music collection. Do a little survey and see how many others you can discover who own the soundtrack LP for The Courier only because it contains a track by Elvis and a CD of instrumental music from a British Channel Four television series, G.B.H., composed in part by Elvis.
So you see the break in the wake of the Bacharach debacle was a tectonic life shift. Elvis released an album two years ago with some French chanteuse or Italian opera singer; I'd so renounced my Costello mojo that I didn't even read the reviews. I certainly didn't buy it.
Didn't buy an Elvis record.
I not only own Spike, Mighty Like a Rose and The Juliet Letters, but I also love them all.
And now I love When I was Cruel, too.
It's Elvis and two-thirds of the Attractions, the backing band of fast beats and debauchery from the Early Days. Pete Thomas and Steve Nieve provide drums and keyboards throughout the new album.
The opening cut, "45," is an encomium to the single vinyl record, a measured, professional "Pump it Up." Next comes "Spooky Girlfriend," which would fit in nicely on Imperial Bedroom: While the greeting cards are your most poetic lyric, And the flat champagne is sweet sugar syrup."
The last song on the album, "Radio Silence," has the echoes of both "Radio, Radio" and "Invasion Hit Parade" as well as striking a familiar theme with Elvis. He's his generation's most outstanding songwriter, and he can't get on commercial radio with a pistol to the head of a programmer.
Don't be fooled by all the references to earlier work and how this album is a return to Elvis' roots. It's a true advance, mixing the smooth production and masterful musicianship of the mid-'90s Brutal Youth and All This Useless Beauty with the verve and passion and recklessness of the Angry Young Man that picked fights and played everything fast, fast, fast.
One of my favorite Elvis lines comes from back then and is one I like to delude myself into thinking describes me: "Well, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused." Truth is, I'm still mostly just disgusted.
Now, though, Elvis and When I was Cruel have given me, for a short respite anyway, the chance to be amused and delighted.
Welcome back, Elvis. I hope you'll still have me.
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