Listicle Ranking Focus — Elvis Costello
In the recent article Reinventing the Music Listicle — part 3 — The Top 15
Written by me, IG Agent 19 because IG Agent 9 seems to have gone and disappeared off the face of the earth.
I noted that there was a lot to say about various inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that I did not have the time to put in that article, in the interest of it not ballooning up to be unreadable on the internet. Instead I would do separate articles later on various artists when the time was available, it’s now time and the first inductee to be so analyzed is Elvis Costello.
Well, anyway (sad expression on face for me at seeing the mugging above), I think I’ll quote Bill Wyman’s original description of Elvis when he put him at #24 on his original list:
You have to remember he was originally the angriest of angry young men, his name a pointed deflation of a sacred rock icon. Under the anger were exceptional melodies and rhythms, and a lyricist who was a lover of words with some scores to settle, sometimes with the mass media and the military-industrial complex but more often with women. He had huge ambition and ways of looking at love and society rock hadn’t seen before. At a time when punk had roiled the music’s reigning intelligentsia — could these bands really be as good as the Stones?!?! — he was plainly, as has been said ad nauseam and yet still irrefutably, the music’s best songwriter since Dylan. He is now a rock elder, not exactly pompous but a little overeager to share his (intelligent but numerous and sometimes tedious) thoughts about anything. His critical corner is so polite it doesn’t mention he hasn’t recorded a great song since 1986 or so.
That best writer since Dylan thing is sort of weird, I mean obviously there was a best writer after Dylan that was not Elvis Costello, it was whatever writer was the second best in between Dylan’s appearance and Elvis coming on the scene. It’s more of that adulation critics have for who came first — whoever steps through the door first must get more adulation than whoever steps through second, and so forth.
There is an anecdote that Dylan was once at a party with Mick Jagger and told Jagger that he could have written Let’s Spend the Night Together (which was a hit at the time), later as he was leaving the party halfway down the stairs Jagger thought to himself “yeah but could he sing it!” and has claimed the devastating zinger was delivered real-time in every relevant interview since (although what does it mean to say he couldn’t have sung it, surely not sung it the same way as Jagger but cover versions exist partially because not every voice is the same. I’m afraid Jagger is not as cutting as he likes to imagine himself)
A quote from Reinventing the Listicle #3:
I remember some book in which the poets of rock (other than Dylan were named) and the first three were among those named that were contemporaneous with the guy sharing the #2 spot (Lou Reed, another obvious poet of Rock is in with VU) — this was obviously read and written too long ago for me to have more than a vague memory of it.
Lou Reed, Paul Simon, Neil Young and a few others, as well as Elvis Costello were put up as the poets of rock. But here’s the salient difference between Elvis Costello and the other ones that is important for his ranking in any hall of fame of Rock and Roll, and any evaluation of both his quality and his influence:
Elvis Costello was the first great writer in rock and roll after Dylan where you could say about a great number of his songs — Dylan couldn’t have written that.
Now obviously there are many great songs that Dylan couldn’t have written exactly the way they are, one obvious example Penny Lane because very British, but he could have written a song very much of the viewpoint of Penny Lane.
I suspect if you know Dylan you’re thinking that’s not especially likely for old Bob given his naturally suspicious and cynical bent — inimical to the charms of nostalgia — but the guy who wrote Lay, Lady Lay and Tonight I’ll be staying Here With You could have written an American Penny Lane.
Elvis often is significantly more British than Penny Lane, so in that way Dylan could not have written many of his songs — an obvious example (I don’t wanna go to) Chelsea.
But the fact that Elvis is British is not the only way I mean Dylan could not have written his songs.
Think a little bit of songs of the mid 60s to 70s in the Rock canon — for example Chestnut Mare by the Byrds, it’s a pretty weird song, a long love song to a horse really,. but Dylan could totally have written that. Or think of someone like Arlo Guthrie, I like Arlo Guthrie, but basically every song he did Dylan could have done, he would have sang almost the same and they would have ‘meant’ essentially the same. Sympathy for the Devil, yes he could have done that and probably significantly more scary — Jagger makes a pretty camp Satan. Simon and Garfunkle — Sounds of Silence is really trying to write a Dylan song, Bridge Over Troubled Water I think could have been written without Dylan’s influence, because it seemed to go to some deeper strains in the English language — but Dylan could have written it and sang it (my evidence — I Shall be Released or Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door).
Almost every song that was thought of as having good lyrics in Rock and Roll until the appearance of Costello that was written by a man was also something that could have been written by Dylan, although the expectation would probably be that Dylan would improve the lyrics (improvement meaning making them more complex, deeper or just more mind-blowing!) As such Dylan comprised the extent of what Rock and Roll was capable of lyrically.
Ok now I’ve given lots of examples of what he could do — what does Costello do that Dylan doesn’t or can’t?
First off is Costello’s wordplay, he does a lot of things differently or Better than Dylan. An example — Costello is pretty good at writing puns, Dylan’s puns are just not that impressive. Dylan writes great jokes, humorous passages and amusing anecdotes but he does not do puns that well.
Here are some examples of the best you can expect for Dylan’s punning:
From Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream
Captain Arab…(which is so bad it’s offensive, and not even sure why it is used — is it really a pun, or is it just really stupid?)
Where people carried signs around, sayin’, “Ban the bums”
I ordered some suzette
I said, “Could you please make that crepe”
Which those are really the top quality of Dylanesque punning and let’s admit it — that’s pretty pathetic.
Here’s some examples of puns by Elvis Costello, various songs
from Possession
You lack lust… you’re so lacklustre.
from Clubland
The long arm of the law slides up the outskirts of town
Meanwhile in Clubland they are ready to pull them down
from Motel Matches
This is my conviction, that I am an innocent man
from New Amsterdam
Till I step on the brakes to get out of her clutches
And I mean if you listen to some of these songs almost every line is full of multiple entendres far beyond anything Dylan ever did, extremely complicated puns and wordplay that again — is just not like anything Dylan has ever done. As an example — all the lyrics to New Amsterdam, I am going to bold the lines I believe Dylan could not have writen, and italic the lines that he might have written something close but probably not that:
You’re sending me tulips mistaken for lilies
You give me your lip after punching me silly
You turned my head till it rolled down the brain drain
If I had any sense now I wouldn’t want it back again
New Amsterdam it’s become much too much
Till I have the possession of everything she touches
Till I step on the brake to get out of her clutches
Till I speak double dutch to a real double duchess
Down on the mainspring, listen to the tick tock
Clock all the faces that move in on your block
Twice shy and dog tired because you’ve been bitten
Everything you say now sounds like it was ghost-written
New Amsterdam it’s become much too much
Till I have the possession of everything she touches
Till I step on the brake to get out of her clutches
Till I speak double dutch to a real double duchess
Back in London they’ll take you to heart after a little while
Though I look right at home I still feel like an exile
Somehow I found myself down at the dockside
Thinking about the old days of Liverpool and Rotherhithe
The transparent people who live on the other side
Living a life that is almost like suicide
New Amsterdam it’s become much too much
Till I have the possession of everything she touches
Till I step on the brake to get out of her clutches
Till I speak double dutch to a real double duchess
But of course while he could conceivably have written some lines of a song, even most of the lines that he might conceivably have written feel extremely unlikely, and the whole song he just couldn’t have.
As far as the italic lines, here are examples of how I think Dylan would be likely to convey the idea:
You’re sending me tulips mistaken for lilies = You think you’re sending lillies, babe those are tulips. Something more direct, accusatory and somehow derogatory of the whoever is making this floral mistake. Think of that line from Motel Matches: This is my conviction, that I am an innocent man — Dylan might write something like — I’m feeling mighty innocent even though I’ve been convicted. But he would not have written what Elvis wrote (note also — the Dylanesque version given here would decrease the line’s value as a pun significantly)
The transparent people who live on the other side
Living a life that is almost like suicide = hmm, I don’t know, seems like it would be some sort of cross between Desolation Row and Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again — however Dylan’s losers are romantic (in the poetic sense) and imbued with meaning, Costello’s losers are sad and generally meaningless.
Dylan certainly writes complicated things, hilarious things, poetic things, multi-layered stories — but he does not pun to any degree worth mentioning.
The complexity of the wordplay Elvis uses is often more densely layered than Dylan’s, however the wordplay is often very trivial (that is to say it is actually play), consider those lines from Clubland, they are more densely packed than any two lines from A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall but less meaningful or deep. Both writers are clever, but often Dylan has something more to say.
This aspect of playfulness in Costello is also a cause of the other major difference he exhibits from Dylan — mainly that Costello is witty and Dylan is not. Again Dylan is brilliant, poetic, clever, sarcastic, ironic, snide, able to be insulting, insightful, almost everything you would want — but he is just not witty.
In this one often feels like Costello has descended from some literary lineage that includes Saki and P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh.
In the reinventing the listicle part 3 article I said this about Costello and the influence of Dylan:
There will always be a first, because that is just how time works. But of course if you have been preceded by someone and you are naturally inclined to do something similar to what those before you have done, you will probably become familiar with their work and as such you will be influenced by them, it is not that without Bob Dylan there would not have been Elvis Costello, it is that you cannot be Elvis Costello without thinking about Bob Dylan and absorbing what he has done assuming a world in which Bob Dylan exists — but you can be Elvis Costello in a world without Dylan, even if we can’t say for sure what that world would look like. Would Elvis Costello be significantly different without Bob Dylan’s existence? I actually don’t think so…
Here’s the thing — if so many of Costello’s lyrics could not be written by Dylan, how much of his work is actually inspired by Dylan?
Sure — Pump It Up was modelled after Subterranean Homesick Blues and Elvis has said lots of appreciative things about Dylan over years, but in the end I don’t think Costello really cares that much to do the kinds of things that Dylan does. Really if I were to say what lyricists did Elvis Costello think I would like to do something like that when he was coming up I would think some small bits of Lennon / McCartney, the Kinks, Cole Porter, and Noel Coward.
These Cole Porter and Noel Coward comparisons have been around for quite a long time, here is a review of Imperial Bedroom by Dave Marsh in 1982 http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/The_Record,_September_1982 relevant quote:
Though claims are now being made for Costello as a great pop writer in the tradition of Cole Porter and Noel Coward, such comparisons both underestimate and miss the point of this record’s achievement. The proper antecedents of Imperial Bedroom are Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, recordings in which the craft of composition is inseparable from the craft with which they are recorded, so much so that it is difficult to say where one process begins and the other leaves off.
Which I guess I will not vehemently disagree with Marsh’s views (here), but I don’t think I would exactly vehemently agree either. At any rate since this has so far been focusing on lyrics I guess the point is more in my favor, although sure Mr. Marsh — I quite like the production values on Imperial Bedroom as well.
Aside from the ability to write clever puns, and being witty, Costello in comparison to Dylan writes very few songs about himself. I doubt Bob Dylan has more than 2 dozen songs in which the most important person in the song is not Bob Dylan. And of those few songs a good number still has Bob Dylan in it as a strong second role — as an example Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat or Mr. Jones.
There are songs in which you the singer is singing in the first person and is obviously a character but the feeling is always of Dylan putting on a mask and playing with identity — Dylan as a wastrel hobo, a drunk gambler, a gunslinger outlaw, the anarchist rebel, or whatever else but still Dylan the myth putting on another costume. When Dylan asks What will you do now my blue eyed son, you know it is Dylan who is going to go out now before the rain starts a falling, because hey — that is just such a Dylan thing to do.
And even of the songs in which Dylan is in no way a character you have the feeling of Dylan overshadowing the narrative in some way. I think actually the only song in which I feel Dylan is a totally unimportant figure for the song itself is Hurricane. Although I could understand if someone picked something from John Wesley Harding as their example.
Elvis on the other hand has a few songs in which it is obviously about him — Radio, Radio for example — but most of the songs you feel he is divorced from the narrative, not part of it. This was of course not the feeling at first, in the first two albums you have the feeling that these are the views of Elvis Costello delivered straight as is the custom for rock and rollers. The song This Year’s Girl breaks this with the accusatory you — You want her broken with her mouth wide open. But I would say there is not a track on Armed Forces that is primarily about Costello, and from then it is hard to find a song where you feel confident that is meant to be about Costello or where Costello does not fade into the background as the narrative emerges.
This separation of the character of the artist from the song allows for one last difference in the songs of Costello. A good number of Costello’s songs are about adults. Adults are a funny thing in the history of Rock and Roll, in the early emergence of the movie the adults were the people who listened to the older music, worked jobs, had kids, went on vacations, had affairs, got divorces, had accountants, planned for retirement, sued people in courts and all sorts of adult things while the rock and rolling kids jumped up and down, had sex and didn’t give a shit about any of that adult stuff.
And then that generation of rock and rollers died off or in some way got older but did not really mature and think about that adult stuff, at least not in their music.
Then the next generation came along and they had sex, did drugs, and thought screw all your hypocritical rules adults we want to change things. And because they were in a big rule changing struggle as that went on they started to see all things as struggles between good and evil on a mythical level, which is where Dylan really came in. Which believe me, I have a lot of experience with life as a mythical figure unwilling to settle down or give in on any issue ever and being willing to die rather than surrender. Being a badass loner outlaw, yeah man.
And some of that generation died, and the pretty much won their struggles and while they might have gotten accountants and paid taxes and all that etc. they all became so rich that they didn’t really have to worry about anything and so they could be in their 20s forever, or at least skip the inconvenient and compromising middle years and suddenly find themselves old enough that they had to grapple with staring old age, eternity and death in the face. And that’s the story of Dylan.
But Costello quite quickly started writing songs about characters who were not outlaws who were gonna have one more cup of coffee before going to the valley below, his characters were going to have one more sip of gin before leaving to go home to the wife and the miserable life they cannot escape.
Dylan might worry about getting shot in the back by Pat Garrett, but Elvis wrote about the kind of guy who worried about getting caught with lipstick on the collar when he said he had to work late again on the Jones account. In short, with Elvis the suffering, faceless, unimportant, boring and commonplace adults were back in the songbook, going about their tacky little affairs and failing in a million unheroic, stupid ways.
This is why most of Elvis’ covers are of old country guys, or jazz / pre-rock pop, or pop from the more vulnerable sides of the 60s pantheon. And why he seems more attuned to the hits of Soul than 60s Rock, because these were all musical genres in which the adults might have gotten hammered a bit, but still managed to hang on.
Costello has as far as I know only done two Dylan covers — I threw it all away, a country like ballad — and License to Kill.
This return of the adults in Costello’s music reminds me of the end of that Dave Marsh review:
in the end, Imperial Bedroom is an Eighties rendition of Love’s Forever Changes: music that is truly timeless and unfortunately trivial.
Dave Marsh may know the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground, but unfortunately he isn’t clever enough to know why there is a difference.
He is correct about the triviality (in a way), the young men of Dylan’s songs (his reflections) were men who had dreams and grand ambitions, the middle aged adults that Costello often analyzed had settled and were marking time to retirement and then hopefully soon afterwards death. They had given up and people who have given up are trivial — at least in the grand schemes of the world — but perhaps not so trivial from a certain realistic form of art.
Having made this observation, let’s throw it all out to focus on one song that has been running through my head since Marsh also mentioned it in his review as one of the few songs on Imperial Bedroom that people would cover — so never let it be said that Dave Marsh doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about!
You Little Fool is about a sexually and emotionally inexperienced teenage girl who makes some silly mistakes and is going to have her heart broken by whatever boy or man she has put her hopes on, and most probably also be an unwed teenage mother, ruining her life.
It is not a very rock and roll view at all, although it is the conventional moral view. I like to imagine a typical Rock Star having to voice this view, let’s suppose David Lee Roth — the guy who once proclaimed “The reason more rock critics like Elvis Costello than us is that more rock critics look like Elvis Costello than us” which is not the only reason, and anyway in my heyday I was 6'4, 190 pounds, benched 220 and had dyed reddish / blonde hair of medium length and for extra Rock credibility spent a lot of time in trouble with the authorities.
Perhaps Diamond Dave has been caught drunk driving and now must do some PSAs and they want him to convince teenager girls not to get pressured into sex just to please some guy. I like to imagine this scenario, and then Dave’s head exploding a la Scanners at the idea of telling a Barely Legal teen not to make herself sexually available to him.
So, fun aside, imagine a male rock star before Costello trying to write this song, to explain this view. Imagine Dylan doing it. I mean given the scenario, Dylan writing the song: the girl is in love with a cruel gambling man who mistreats her and she stabs him to death for cheating on her, the baby dies of TB, and if we’re lucky maybe some famous literary and historical figures make their appearances in the song to utter cryptic words of warning that seem to have a deep poetic significance — I’m hoping for Jane Austen and Voltaire myself. There’s trains, canyons, and a biblical plague. Maybe the baby doesn’t die but the young mother has to get rid of it by putting it in a basket floating down by the bullrushes of the Mississippi.
It is a great song, full of historical sweep and poetic grandeur, in contrast Costello’s little fool does look trivial, albeit real and relatable.
Finally we should nod in appreciation how Costello’s work has probably been an influence on all the clever wordplay brits that came after him, from Squeeze, to The Style Council’s Brideshead pop, to the Divine Comedy.
This article was written by IG Agent 19.
RELATED ARTICLES
And of course Illuminati Ganga’s analysis of music from different parts of the Multiverse
