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Elvis "eyes a cliche like a butcher eyes a chicken." (I stole that line; Elvis steals a lot of his). Elvis' eyes mist his glasses up when he looks at you.
Trust bursts softly into action with the fractured picture of "Clubland," Duane Eddy guitars, a seventies' line like: "The right to work..." is juxtaposed with the butcher's delicate: "...is traded in with the right to refuse admission," and what should have been a hit single but for people refusing to buy things they can't sing along with, announces that here is the sixth album from Elvis Costello. If the themes of the other five can be broken down into politics/revenge/fashion/war/clever fun and thinking about it all, then this one is about power and sex.
Congas and the "radio g-string" beat give us "Lovers Walk," which sets it all out; "You'll Never Be A Man" with virtuoso piano opening is like a better "Big Boys," and "Pretty Words" is underplayed as he duets with himself:
"Snapshots, bigshots, telespots, machine slots,
but you don't know what's what
You don't know what you've got.
The words are pretty, played around in best pun rock style, which the Jam might claim to have invented, but which Elvis, Dylan, John Cooper Clarke and Shakespeare have been playing at gigs for years.
"Strict Time" really begins the overt sexual references, with Elvis doubling up on his own vocals. "More like a handjob than a handjive." If he dares sing it, you dare print it.
"Luxembourg" has the sound of the live Attractions, belting out with fire, howls and speed, and "Watch Your Step" is Elvis nodding, sneering and wagging his finger. It ends with horns giving it a haunting new depth.
Side two opens with a funny tale of messed up sex, "New Lace Sleeves" followed by an obvious choice for a single "From A Whisper to a Scream," duetting with Glenn from Squeeze. (Evidently, they do "Private Number" even better.)
Country and Western rears it's pretty head with "Different Finger," a tale of adultery:
"All I want is one night of glory...
...Put your rings on a different finger while I turn out the light"
and then he switches from fingers to "White Knuckles," where the sound of Armed Forces comes through in a story of wife-beating.
"At eighteen I was deadly serious... now I'm much lass cynical, I'm starting to see the great joke of life itself" said Elvis two years ago.
"Shot with His Own Gun," the masterstroke that the crashing piano leads us into next is the ultimate expression of life's great joke. A girl is pregnant, "undressed by the man with the mind like the gutter press," and no-one born after Freud needs Elvis or me to tell them what "Shot with his own gun, now Daddy's keeping Mum" means. Every line's a gem, every word is clear.
"Fish n' chip Papers," which yesterday's news will be tomorrow with stories of men in launderettes looking through underwear, "news of the screws" and "something to hide," like "all little sisters like to try on big sister's clothes" — is a case of it all boils down to sex; or boils up to sex? An eye for a cliche? Elvis has got four.
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