As I like to do when I highlight a particular artist, I end this week with a live set of said artist. This week, it has been Elvis Costello. And do I have a wonderful one: Elvis Costello at Woodstock 99. It will make up for my slighting the early albums at the same time that it is too early for him to perform stuff that I’m not intimately familiar with.

The second song is one that I had thought about using this week, “Mystery Dance.” When I first heard that song, I was still in my teens and I knew exactly what he was talking about. Sex really is an art, and it should not be attempted by two novices. So at the time, it made me feel normal. As an old man, it’s just hilarious, but in the kindest way.

There are lots of things to love about Elvis Costello. He’s got a great voice — capable of conveying any emotion (something I find distinctly lacking in the huge pop stars). Musically, he’s always interesting — never boring, but never too difficult (even on The Juliet Letters). But mostly, he’s just really smart. It’s nice to know what he has to say. I feel like I grew up with him. When he was angry, I was angry; when he started figuring out life, I started figuring out life. I really ought to get some of his newest albums to see if we are still growing together — or more likely, not growing together.

Today in our adventures with Elvis Costello, I’m going to highlight what I think is the first CD I ever owned: Spike. It’s certainly the case that I originally had Blood & Chocolate on vinyl. And yes, I know, I’ve completely neglected the first three albums. I think that’s because of something James said. I assure you, I could do Elvis Costello songs for the next several months and manage to write 500 words about each one of them. I’m still not 100% and today we’re doing Spike so get over it!

The thing about Spike is that I don’t think it is a very good album. But it has some of my favorite songs on it. It has “Let Him Dangle” and “Tramp the Dirt Down.” But I already highlighted both of those songs (along with the exquisite “Shipbuilding”) a year ago, Three Elvis Costello Political Songs. In that article, I say I that I hadn’t actively sought out his music after this album, but that’s not true; I followed him closely through All This Useless Beauty. But it is probably true that Spike was the album that kind of ended the romance.

The real standout song on the album is “God’s Comic.” Maybe I say that simply because I get it, unlike so many other of his songs. For example, on the same album is “Veronica,” a little pop annoyance he wrote with Paul McCartney. I really tried to figure out what that song was about, but it was only after I read an interview with Costello that I found out. How the hell was anyone supposed to get that from the song? And given what the song is about, why is it such an upbeat tune?

On the other hand, in “God’s Comic,” I’m in on the joke. I even get the final line that turns everything on its head. And I think this is a wonderful bit of sly writing:

Get it?! God is listening to Webber’s requiem mass, but God isn’t that into it. He prefers Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar. In addition to everything else, God has base tastes. It’s a brilliant song with lots of other great lines like, “Sometimes you confuse me with Santa Claus; it’s the big white beard I suppose.” And I was going to feature it today, but this week, I’m feeling a little down. And so we’ll listen to another song I quite like from the album, “Baby Plays Around.” It was written with Cait O’Riordan, the woman who did a better job than anyone else at putting up with his crap.

This week of Elvis Costello is truly random. It’s just whatever comes into my mind. Everyone seems to have a soundtrack for their lives, and Costello is certainly a big part of mine. One such song is off King of America, “Sleep of the Just.” I’d never heard that phrase before I heard it in the song, but it is so clear. As Oxford puts it, “A deep, untroubled sleep.” It is something I don’t ever recall having.

I have a vague memory of seeing Costello do the song live in San Jose around that time — 1986. I think it was the Blood & Chocolate tour. Nick Lowe opened for him. Costello did two sets: one on guitar and one (rather silly) on piano. And for an encore, he did “I Want You” with even more intensity than he performed it on the album.

Regardless, lyrically the song is opaque. There are some things that are fairly clear. There is a brother and sister. The brother is in the army and the sister is a pinup girl. The brother is ashamed to have his fellow soldiers ogling his sister. What’s so frustrating about the song is that he plays around with point of view in a most careless way. But I’ll still give it my own narrative.

The singer has a confrontation with a soldier in a bar. The guy’s a jerk, but nothing comes of it. The next day, the singer is on a bus (Tour bus?) and it breaks down, so he has to spend the night there. He meets and sleeps with a young woman. He imagines that she is the sister of the soldier. And the final verse is his imagining of what the sister is imagining. Or not. I’m more interested in it from a formal standpoint.

Costello couldn’t help but throw in a little reference to Madonna, although I think it’s awkward. I think he means it as in, “Is it immaterial, girl?” And not, “Is it immaterial girl?” It is, in fact, immaterial given that all women are some mother’s daughter. But ultimately, we all need, and I dare say deserve, the sleep of the just.

Afterword

For all you Costello fans, I just found this set of acoustic demos for the album: King Of America Demos.

I’m sorry to say that today is rather a bad day. I don’t write these articles in order, so I know what’s coming. But I thought I would present you with a song to get you ready for it. It’s Elvis Costello’s “I Want You” off Blood & Chocolate. It is a supremely creepy song. I remember doing this. After a relationship ends, tormenting yourself over it.

I remember a woman I knew thought one line was wrong, “Did you call his name out as he held you down.” She thought it should be “as I held you down.” True, that has a certain power, but it totally misses the point of song: the imagination of just what the absent lover is doing. And yet, still you want her. You want to protect her; you want to kill her; you just want her.

I am very glad to be past those times. I have certain expectations of people in my life. I am disappointed and lonely at times. But no one has the kind of power over me that Costello sings about. And it may be the height of hubris to say that no one ever will have that kind of power over me again. It isn’t that it couldn’t happen. But I just would not let it happen. I don’t have that kind of trust in human nature. But you can all laugh heartily at me if I ever allow it to happen. And as you doubtless already know, I would write about it here first.

When I was in graduate school, a fellow student loaned me a copy of Almost Blue. I had avoided it because it was just an album of covers — and country covers at that. But I was blown away with how much I liked it. Some time later, I bought a re-issue of the album, that contained a whole bunch more songs. And there at number 18 was Costello’s version of Leon Payne’s song “Psycho.”

It is a perfect song. It tells a very compelling and complete story while maintaining the emotional core that all songs should have. It also has perhaps the best payoff line of any song I can think of. It reinforces the theme of the song while re-framing the plot. The interesting thing is that I have found no one covering the tune before Costello. He seems to have been alone in realizing what a great tune it is.

There is a live version (but I can’t embed it). So here is the album cut:

I was learning to play the bass guitar when I first heard Get Happy!! The bass playing on it is incredible. That would be Bruce Thomas. For whatever reason, he and Elvis Costello do not get along. I suspect that it is a personal thing. But it could be musical as well. Costello has talked about his tendency to rewrite in the studio. This causes problems for a bass player of Thomas’ brilliance. It is hard to get a bass part that really works, and it has got to be annoying to get something that works and have the song suddenly changed.

Regardless, I’ve always been particularly taken with the bass part on the song “Black & White World.” Even after all these years, I don’t really know what the song is about. It has various references to photography and cinema — and the difference between the fantasy and reality. But more than that, I can’t much say. Still, it is a fine song.

So I find myself down south staying with my sister for the Thanksgiving holiday, many days of writing ahead. Still, since I will be driving all Sunday, I realized that I hadn’t written Sunday’s posts when I got here. And it’s kind of hard to get work done here. It’s a little better now. But still, I was panicking. So as I think I mentioned, I decided to do a week of Elvis Costello. I don’t just have to get Sunday done; I also have to do Monday, because I’m sure I’m going to be a mess all Sunday night and probably all of Monday as well.

Costello does a great cover of the Rodgers and Hart classic “My Funny Valentine.” But I really don’t remember when I first heard it. I thought it had been on Get Happy!! But it wasn’t. According to the Elvis Costello Wiki, it was actually on, Taking Liberties — which until now I didn’t know was a compilation album. Regardless, the two albums came out at the same time, so I’m not totally insane.

Anyway, here he is performing the song live. It’s a great combination: three of my favorite songwriters working together (although not as writers — both Rodgers and Hart were dead by then anyway). After our week of Thanksgiving music, this should be pleasant.

Okay, let’s end this week with some nice Thanksgiving-ish songs. I was going to just do the Mary Chapin Carpenter song “Thanksgiving Song.” It really isn’t bad. I wish there were more songs like it. You know what the real problem is: Elvis never released a Thanksgiving album. And because of that, I definitely won’t be doing this next year.

Starting tomorrow, I think I’m going to do a week of Elvis Costello. Certainly a week of California punk would better get rid of the sticky sweetness of this last week. But Costello is really easy for me — especially if I stick to the first 15 albums or so, which should be pretty easy given I only need six songs and a concert.

Anyway, here is a short set that Mary Chapin Carpenter did Paste Studio NYC! We had one major thing to be thankful for that day: Mitt Romney wasn’t going to be president.

Okay, it’s almost over. Today, we will do “My Favorite Things” from the 1965 film The Sound of Music. I liked the musical very much when I was young. I don’t care for it so much now. I’m not that fond of Christopher Plummer — except when he’s playing a Klingon. But mostly, there is just something offensively earnest about the whole thing.

When I was younger, I always wondered about something. In the play, the new Nazi Youth Rolfe does not summon the Nazis — allowing the family to get away. In the film, he does, leading to a rather stupid car chase. I had wondered if this was an indication of changing ideas about human nature. But later I concluded that it was formal. In a play, you couldn’t have a chase. In a film, you can. Simple as that. I still prefer the non-chase, because I want to believe that people are basically good.

Luckily for you all, I just remembered that John Coltrane did a great version of the song. That’s piano by McCoy Tyner — another of my favorite things.

It is the day — Thanksgiving day. Why didn’t I do something else? Really. I’ve hated doing this. But okay, at least I’ve found a few clever animated parodies. This one is a parody of Gloria Gaynor’s mega-hit “I Will Survive.” In this case, it is a very self-assured turkey singing the song. We have one or more flocks of turkeys around where I live. A lot of people hate them because they cause damage. But I find them quite charming.

Just the same, I don’t think much of them from a culinary standpoint. They don’t taste that great. And if you are going to go to that much trouble for a meal, why not make a prime rib? Still, every year it seems that I find myself fighting with family members who want turkey because it is traditional. It turns out, it isn’t. At the first Thanksgiving, they most likely ate duck. And isn’t it interesting that we make a big deal out of the fowl that were killed by the Pilgrims, but not the five deer that the Wampanoag killed.

This is a very hard week for me. For one thing, I have to go out of town and I’m super busy even while feeling under the weather. And then we have a week’s worth of songs that I don’t especially like. Today I thought I would feature, “Over the River and Through the Wood.” It is based on a poem by Lydia Maria Child. She was an amazing person and so we ought to honor her. But the poem does not exactly inspire me.

Since I am the son of two black sheep, I don’t exactly relate to the song. We almost never visited relatives when I was a kid. And when we did, I mostly remember people arguing. But that is the way of my people. There is nothing worth saying that it is not worth saying loudly and angrily. This may be how it is that I developed a feisty writing style, but am in person very quiet and non-confrontational.

Anyway, I went through dozens of versions of this song and could find almost nothing that didn’t make me suicidal. But I did find this very nice and short ukulele version from Fingerstyle Ukulele Uke Channel. It’s actually pleasant. It could have gone on for another few minutes:

When I found myself listening to Adam Sandler, I figured it was time to listen to Thanksgiving music. He really is one of the most annoying people on the planet. So let’s try to forget about him as quickly as possible. In 1968, the musical Oliver! was released. It is one of the better filmed musicals. The truth is that musicals don’t translate well to the screen. This is because musicals are odd art forms regardless. It’s one thing if people are going to stand in front of you and sing and dance. But film is static. Who are these people singing and dancing for? Obviously, it works best when it is something like Pal Joey, where the numbers are part of the story.

Anyway, Oliver! was directed by Carol Reed, who directed one of my all time favorite movies, The Third Man. And I would rather watch any of that than anything from Oliver! but we do have a schedule, and we must stay on it. Plus, the song “Food Glorious Food” works rather well. And it is a wonderful illustration of inequality of the most unfair kind. This Thursday, I will be eating very well, just as I do every day. But perhaps the universe will equalize things a bit by killing me off soon in a most painful way.