A thematic approach to Costello and his work from My Aim Is True to River in Reverse
Here to stay, and recognized by Burt Bacharach as "a great survivor," Elvis Costello has produced a large and significant body of work. This is the first book on Costello that avoids chronological presentation in favor of a thematic approach focused on music and words over the nearly 30 years that separate "Radio Sweetheart" and "Country Darkness." In addition to engaging with the songs Costello has performed as a rock musician, the book features informed discussions of more recent albums, such as Painted from Memory, North, and Il Sogno. Also considered are the essays Costello has written to support CD reissues of his recordings, a substantial body of writing that approaches a critical autobiography. The book demonstrates that on all fronts—music, words, voice, instrumental resources—Costello's work broadens and deepens, as he sets himself the task of expanding the range of expressive material available.
Dai Griffiths is Principal Lecturer in Music at Oxford Brookes University. He has published papers on popular music, including the history of pop music since punk, cover versions, and the role of words in songs. He is author of Radiohead: OK Computer. He lives in Oxford, England.
Dr Dai Griffiths prescribes Napster members with audio
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(extract)
'Audio aspirin for heartbreak
12. Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, In the darkest
place '
Greg Lake’s words to The Endless Enigma, the opening track of ELP’s 1972 album Trilogy,
can function as an example of standard lyric-writing, where the words are closely tailored to the
implications of the music. In the same chapter which presented the lyric/anti-lyric dichotomy, I also
suggested that one way into the judgement of rhyming terms was offered by W.K. Wimsatt who
suggested, from a study of Pope, that grammatical dissonance between rhyming terms helped a
rhyme, and helped structure its couplet. Rhyming “cat” with “sat”, a noun with a verb in past
participle, is inherently more interesting, more dynamic than rhyming “cat” with “mat”, two nouns. I
used this as a way of reflecting on a sense I had that a passage of rhyme in Elvis Costello seemed
to me less interesting than a passage in Rickie Lee Jones. (Griffiths, 2003: 52-53)
Last edited by johnfoyle on Sun Aug 03, 2008 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I e-mailed Dai ( via the above profile) , telling him of our interest and asking for a comment. Part of his reply goes -
I'll let you know this, a version of which is found in the preface, and which might serve as a useful 'trailer':
The initial aim of musical discussion in the book was to home in on King of America and Blood and Chocolate (I’d worked on King of America years ago). Many friends would sympathize, having ‘switched off’ around then. They might agree with a weighty and considered comment of Robert Christgau that, with the following album,/ Spike/ (89) Costello was ‘doomed (…) never to convert the unconverted again.’ But my book turned out differently, suggesting that, on all fronts, Costello’s work continues to expand and deepen after 1986. In that view, if nothing else, the book may present a critical cat among the pigeons.
Should be interesting. Christgau - complete tosser! To me it's just a name, to himself he's 'Dean of American Rock Critics'. At 'Barrel Scraping University' perhaps. If that link is representative, the writing is poor and sloppy, and the judgement deeply flawed.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
Otis, I just want to point out that the format of the reviews found in the link that John cites for Christgau's stuff is one that was imposed on Christgau by The Village Voice, the weekly that he used to write for. Those capsule reviews became, as time passed, an excuse for him to see just how succintly he could dispose of a record, and made for some unusual reading. Not the place to look for a felicitious writing style. They were more like riffs. I grew up on his stuff, and would religiously plow through it, my young hear pounding, in search of his views on my then faves, including EC. Oh, for the days when this stuff really mattered!!
I would recoil at some of his harsher stuff on EC, but over time i've come to the view that he was right on in most cases. One thing to note, is that even though he includes some damning stuff in a lot of his EC reviews, he usually ended up giving him high grades. An A- from Chrisgau, if you were an established talent as opposed to a newbie, was not easy to earn. I regard him as the best rock music critic of that era (70s-80s). Reading over the capsules again is making me nostalgic. I can almost remember exactly where I was when I first read some of the early ones.
I gotta cite my favorites, both good and bad, but never dull:
My Aim is True
I like the nerdy way this guy comes on, I'm fascinated by his lyrics, and I approve of his rock and roll orientation... Yet odd as it may seem, I find that he suffers from Jackson Browne's syndrome--that is, he's a little boring. Often this malady results from overconcentration on lyrics and can be cured by a healthy relationship with a band.... [DID HE KNOW ABOUT THE NEW BAND?]B+
This Year's Model [Columbia, 1978]
This is not punk rock. But anyone who thinks it's uninfluenced should compare the bite and drive of the backup here to the well-played studio pub-rock of his debut [DEAD ON]A
Armed Forces [Columbia, 1979]
Like his predecessor, Bob Dylan, this ambitious tunesmith offers more as a phrasemaker than as an analyst or a poet, [THAT FIRST CLAUSE IS THE BEST BD/EC COMPARISON I KNOW OF] A-
Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Get Happy! [Columbia, 1980]
... and tropes and hooks abound--why deny lines like "You lack lust you're so lackluster" or "I speak double dutch to a real double duchess"? On the other hand, why bother digging them out? [WE PART WAYS ON THIS ONE. I WAS REALLY PISSED, ER ANGRY WHEN I READ THIS ONE. IT WAS FIRST YEAR IN LAW SCHOOL AND MY BEST BUDDY AND ME WERE READING THE REVIEW IN CLASS AND VOWING THAT CHRISTGAU WAS LOSING HIS MIND. IN THE MIDST OF OUR DISCUSSION I GOT CALLED ON (LAW SCHOOL IN THE US IS A SOCRATIC GAME) BY A SATANIC PROFESSOR, WITH SEVERE CONSEQUENCES FOR ME FOR THE REST OF THAT YEAR. IN RETROSPECT, I THINK RC WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE PUNS, THOUGH]. B
Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Trust [Columbia, 1981]
...I said he wasn't much of a poet--all wordplay as swordplay and puns for punters ... But here he makes the music make the words as he hasn't since This Year's Model. This is rock and roll as eloquent, hard-hitting pop, and Elvis has turned into such a soul man that I no longer wish he'd change his name to George and go country. A [AGREE WITH ALL, ESPECIALLY THE PART ABOUT SWORDPLAY AND PUNS. GO COUNTRY HE DID, BY THE WAY. I GOTTA TRY TO REMEMBER WHETHER HE HAD SOME INSIDE INFO ON THIS]
Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Almost Blue [Columbia, 1981]
...Take it from me, EC fans: start with the Flying Burrito Brothers' Gilded Palace of Sin, then try 24 of Hank Williams' Greatest Hits, then George Jones's All-Time Greatest Hits: Volume 1, and Merle Haggard's Songs I'll Always Sing. Then start exploring [I THINK THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT EC HAS BEEN SAYING EVER SINCE]. B-
Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Imperial Bedroom [Columbia, 1982]
I admit it--I love the lyric sheet. [FOR THE YOUNGSTERS IN THE CROWD, THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME EC HAD A LYRIC SHEET ON A RECORD. IN PRE-NET DAYS WE HAD TO TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT AS WE WENT ALONG]...it also shores up my impression that he can be precious lyrically, vocally, and musically, and gnomic for no reason at all--in short, pretentious.... B+[OH, THIS ONE MADE ME REALLY MAD. B+ IS TOO DAMN LOW, AND HE WAS WRONG ABOUT THE RECORD, BUT RIGHT ABOUT EC'S BURGEONING "PRECIOUSNESS". RC WAS WAY AHEAD OF ME ON THAT ONE]
Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Blood and Chocolate [Columbia, 1986]
(they) hasn't (haven't) sounded so tough- or single-minded since This Year's Model. .. it's a return to basics with a decade of growth in it, A-
The Costello Show (Featuring Elvis Costello): King of America [Columbia, 1986]
... The wordplay is still too private, but the music has opened up: the careworn relaxation of Elvis's live vocals fits the uncompromised careerism of this groove as simply as 1978's raging tension did the angry young speed-rock of This Year's Model. Good show [THIS IS DAMN GOOD]. A-
Spike [Warner Bros., 1989]
... Who knows which of Costello's virtues will seem equally irrelevant 40 or 10 years hence--his obsessive wit? his precise arrangements? his respect for musical history? Unless I'm mistaken, though, he's doomed to be remembered as fatally self-conscious. And doomed as well never to convert the unconverted again [DEAD ON, AS HIS STORY HAS PROVED. WIT? ARRANGEMENTS? MUSICOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS? CULT STATUS? CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK. HIS MUSIC MAY HAVE EXPANDED, BUT HE HAS NOT EXPANDED HIS LISTENING BASE WHICH WAS RC'S POINT]. B
Mighty Like a Rose [Warner Bros., 1991]
Too often his pessimism sounds like not just bitterness but spite. He didn't take over the world, and is he mad [DEAD ON]C+
However -- unless it's not included in the scan -- I find it odd that the 'E flat' notation for the live version isn't attributed to the recording being slow.
cwr wrote:Christgau is interesting at times, but anyone who gives Goodbye Cruel World a higher ranking than Get Happy!! is beyond confused.
He's a pretentious douchebag. Now I remember why I never read the Voice. If your aim as a critic is to "dispose" of a work in as few words as possible, maybe you should seek another line of work.
It's hard to figure who this book is aimed at. As a collection of information it is excellent but exhausting. Fact upon fact is presented . As a text to be examined upon I imagine it would present a perfect example of proof a student's ability to retain information. To the casual music fan it may be a handy intro. to Elvis. It may be slightly off putting ; the sheer scale of the amount of work may make one think ' Where do I begin?'.
Time and again I found myself thinking I would prefer to just listen to the albums and not bother with all this ancillary information. That's probably a reflection of my primary use of reading matter ie. for pleasure, not for work related information.
Dai does leaven the sheer steamroller effect of all the information by chipping in with some witty asides.
P.32. British musical culture bore a striking resemblance to a neatly organized class system . For example , Costello would have aimed to be heard on BBC Radio One ( pop music for youth), his father would have appeared on Radio Two ( popular music for adults), while for both of them Radio Three ( classical music ) would have been beyond reach , the pair of them like father-and-son builders turning up in a white van to fix a big house in the posh, leafy part of town.
A description of the 'descending, diatonic bass scale' in Suit Of Lights reads ( in part)
P.37 '..at the bridge (1'50) Bruce Thomas wanders lonely as a cloud from the G an octave lower twice'
I loved this -
p.43 ' ...Steve Nieve is the key to thinking about Costello's musical development , at least up to Spike , the Steve Dedalus to Costelloe Bloom.
Similarly this -
P.83 '...Costello is Marmite on slightly burnt toast for breakfast next to the pains aux chocolat of Jeff Buckley or Rufus Wainwright.
I was rubbing my eyes after reading this
P.110 -
'Episode Of Blonde’ (When I Was Cruel) displays a superb control of verbal space ,built on a lively chord progression with salsa piano flourishes. The terrific first line — “I spy for The Spirit of Curiosity’ — establishes an eleven-syllable “norm” for the tempo. By the time of the line beginning “a tornado dropped a funnel” (024), we’re used to the idea of two syllables per beat. The chorus occupies 16 bars between 0,55 and 124, its lines working out as a syllable count of 13, 14, 16. 16 (59 in all). The next section is the one to home in on, a kind of rap between I ‘24 and 209, occupying 24 beats, eight more than the chorus, all in groups of four. Here the syllable count rises dramatically to encompass lots of wordy detail, to I5, 13, 11, 13, I I, 16, 10, I5 — 104 in all (and that’s the same space as the 59 syllables of the chorus) — followed by the extension with I 5, 14, 19 (48 in all), making the rap 152 syllables in total. That’s a lot of words!
And so on. He also tackles the apparent contradictions in Elvis' public personae. The hater of Thatcherism who fires a hapless engineer ( as told in the Kojak Variety re-issue note) , and so on. Many other facets are explored, way beyond my means of commentary/summarising. His summary is encapsulated by his use of this quote from Suzanne Vega
‘Although my ideal, and I have to say lately [19921. I’ve been listening to Elvis Costello, all his songs over the last ten years, and the great thing about what he does is that he still writes about love, thwarted ambition, jealousy, all these basic things in life that aren’t particularly ambitious. Everybody writes about love. But at the same time he’ll do it in a way that it’s his and it’s distinctive. He’s not afraid to use long words, he’s not afraid to use his vocabulary. He’s not afraid to say ‘I want you’ and say it over and over again for five minutes. And it’s still Elvis Costello. As a songwriter I need to be able to say those things that are a part of everyday life: I need you, I want you. War must end. How you get to say them without sounding like a jerk or sounding simplistic, that’s my next challenge. Because everyone says, ‘Oh. she’s so intellectual’. But I am trying to communicate. How do you say it but say it in such a way that it seems as if they haven’t heard it before?”
Amongst the insights I was intrigued by was his suggestion that the Brinsley Schwarz 1972 recording was Surrender To The Rhythm was a template for Pay It Back and Sneaky Feelings on MAIT. I played them back-to- back and , lo and behold, it was like they were all recorded on the same day.
The book is worth a read but do prepare to be swamped!
This extract from Dai's preface gives a more specific detailing of the books contents -
In planning the book, I was keen to avoid a chronological presentation, feeling that a thematic approach was due in Costello’s case.
The first chapter adopts the perspective of the past, in two ways. It examines the basic issue of what we refer to in talking about Elvis Costello’s work, finding examples where this has been presented as a matter of contradiction. An interlude discusses Costello’s “iconic” status by reference to his spectacles. Finally Costello’s various allusions to the music of the past offer a platform to consider the wide range of influences upon his work.
The second chapter is a survey of Costello’s music, with additional sections on recording and voice. The main survey is presented as a conundrum, whereby Costello fits uneasily into being described as a “popular” musician, having later produced works by the procedures of “classical” music. The chapter selects examples from the entire range of Costello’s output, and supports its musical vocabulary with references to specific points in recordings so that, by listening to the recording, the reader will hear the point made. For my part, the musical detail is based primarily on listening and working out at the piano, although, where available, scores were also consulted. The section on Costello’s recording talks about the producer Clive Langer, while the section on voice makes reference to his father, Ross MacManus, among many others.
The third chapter is a discussion of the words of Costello’s songs, and includes a brief review of his collected prose, the liner notes he produced for reissues of his recordings on CD. After a brief review of other authors on Costello’s words, the chapter examines aspects of technique in songwriting, and discusses examples under the familiar division into political songs and songs of romance. In both cases, boundaries to the range of Costello’s subject matter are suggested. The chapter selects from the range of Costello’s output. but focuses on examples from King Of America, Blood And Chocolate, and Spike.
The fourth and final chapter reviews Costello’s reception. focusing on various chart summaries, and his musical influence on others. Selected readings of Costello from journalism and academia are reviewed as case studies .
I picked this up after John let us know where it could be acquired, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Especially the analysis of the music and the playing. That syllable discussion is a great example of something you wouldn't think about unless someone went to the trouble to point it out.
Dai replied to an e-mail asking if the use of quotes was o.k. -
Thanks for this, John.
Chunky quotes are fine by me, as an integral part of fostering critical
debate.
I think I got the point about the Almost Blue cover from a lovely book
called The Hip (which I trust is in the bibliography) - by Roy Carr and
Fred Dellar (if I remember correctly) - and which also reproduced the two
images side by side.
I procured this via eBay recently, and slogged through it. I'm sure if it were edited better (i.e. more like a record guide and less like a dissertation) I might have enjoyed it more. There are some nuggets of insight here and there, but it's not an easy read.
