Yahoo, September 23, 2003

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North

Elvis Costello

Ken Micallef

It began with 1982's Imperial Bedroom. The album featured a newly reflective and ever poignant Elvis, not the sarcastic new waver known for such lines as, "two little Hitlers will fight it out until one little Hitler does the other one's will." The fireball wordsmith was replaced with Elvis-as-Sinatra, swooning for an imaginary lover, God's lonely man. Angry Elvis never really returned, gone to collaborate with Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach, fashioning himself as a worldly torch singer with the Brodsky Quartet.

Well, while Elvis is quite the crooner, an entire album of achy-breaky heartache is too much for the casual Costello listener to bear. Imperial Bedroom was only an experiment; North is a full tilt ballad blowout.

Elvis pens beautiful songs like the Bacharach-esque "When Did I Stop Dreaming?" and the moonlight missive, "Can You Be True?" Accompanied simply by piano or strings or a subtle trio, we imagine Elvis in the spotlight on a concert stage, or wrapped around a streetlamp on a 1940's Warner Bros. film set. He pines and pouts and bares his soul, releasing his inner demons through majestic lyrics. "I will be there if the days bring torments and trials," he sings. "My darling," he continues, "you make everything seem right."

It's so touching these 11 songs of pain and sacrifice. "And as a consequence, I can see out of the gloom," he sings near North's end. We are simply tourists along for Elvis's emotional outpouring. We are humbled. Robert Goulet, Pavarotti, and Celine Dion line up for autographs. But Elvis has left the building. And so have we.


Tags: NorthWhen Did I Stop Dreaming?Can You Be True?Two Little HitlersImperial BedroomPaul McCartneyBurt BacharachThe Brodsky QuartetFrank Sinatra

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Yahoo Launch, September 23, 2003


Ken Micallef reviews North.

Images

North album cover.jpg

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