Trust/Almost Blue & National Ransom

[cwr]

I don't know why this thought hasn't occurred to me before-- I mean, it has, but not in such a clear way-- but with the albums Trust and Almost Blue Costello really set the stage for almost every part of the rest of his career.

With Trust, he made his first album where he mixed-and-matched sounds and styles with abandon, unafraid to throw in a country song or a stark piano-and-voice art song among the more frantic rockers or moody pop ballads. So many of Costello's records from this point on would seem to be made from the Trust template. Much rarer are those records which follow the lead of his first four albums, which more or less devoted themselves to one overarching sound or genre.

And while Almost Blue seemed like a bolt out of the blue, an oddball project from this "limey punk" (as Costello perceived Billy Sherrill took him to be) that required a warning label on the sleeve, that record now seems like the beginning of Costello's role as a music enthusiast, covering countless songs by others over the years for b-sides, tribute albums and on his own albums, penning lengthy Vanity Fair pieces promoting records you "should" own, or in his much-too-infrequent stints as a superb guest DJ on various radio programs. And for a long time, it was sort of all by itself in Costello's oeuvre-- I'd argue, untill 1993's The Juliet Letters, which was the next Costello record to truly confound so many listeners. Costello Does Classical was just as much of a shock as Costello Sings Country, although by this time he'd experimented enough on albums like IbMePdErRoIoAmL and Spike that there was a little more precedent for it.

Since then, this particular strain of Costello's discography has grown considerably. I'd argue that Painted From Memory and North are both part of it, and there are also numerous "side projects" like Il Sogno, My Flame Burns Blue, and For The Stars. Interestingly, Costello's career has come to be defined, in recent years, more by his musical eclecticism than by his early "style" (which was never one style to begin with.) It's gotten to the point where most of his "regular" albums like The Delivery Man, The River In Reverse, or Secret, Profane & Sugarcane actually have more in common with Almost Blue than they do with his first four albums.

I think the reason that this thought is occurring to me now is that National Ransom really feels like a record that really unites the approach of both Trust and Almost Blue. Maybe that's just my own personal takeaway from the record, and I mean it in the best way possible. Costello seemed to take umbrage in a recent interview with the idea that anyone would compare a new album to any of his past albums, but I think that's because he's so used to having a new work unfavorably dismissed in comparison to King Of America or This Year's Model. But I think a body of work like Costello's is always in dialogue with itself; if he writes a song of heartbreak today, it will be different than "I Felt The Chill Before The Winter Came", because he already wrote that song, and has no need to write it again. Once, on a long train ride, the friend of mine who introduced me to Costello's music developed a game where we tried to match up Costello songs as if they were "friends" and figure out which songs hung out together, which songs didn't get along, and which songs simply never crossed paths. (For instance, "You Hung The Moon" is friends with "Kid About It" and "Almost Blue", but also "What Lewis Did Last"; "The Only Flame In Town" hangs out with "Everyday I Write The Book" but they secretly resent one another.)

Thankfully, Costello goes to great lengths not to repeat himself. We've been spared the potential embarrassment of him trying to reclaim old glories with a failed "return" to the style of This Year's Model, and mercifully so. And that's because the main thing that Trust and Almost Blue have in common (both with one another AND with the 4 albums that preceded them) is that Costello is, as ever, forward-moving, even as he draws upon the music of the past. The next album will be nothing like National Ransom, you can be sure...

[jardine]

That great dylan line "What do you mean 'you can't repeat the past'? Of course you can" comes to mind, because repeating the past only happens if one's career is dead.

That why I so love your beautiful image of what Costello is doing: "a body of work in dialogue with itself." In that sense, a living body of work never simply repeats or fails to repeat parts of the past. Your post does a lovely job of re-reading trust and almost blue. Living parts of a living body of work. Many thanks.

[Jack of All Parades]

Would argue that 'repeating the past' is not synonymous with a 'dead career'- all good artists wrestle with the past; in effect building upon that tussle. In that point Dylan is right. CWR, you point out rightly the seeming sensitivity EC has to suggestions that a current work be compared to a past work-have never been able to understand such sensitivity as we all come to an artist's work with past associations in tow- we cannot remove the past from our enjoyment of current work; it remains a valid frame of reference. Within "National Ransom" one sees this dynamic productively utilized. History permeates this record and one such aspect of history is the past recorded output of this artist. This does not mean the album cannot stand strongly on its own merits; it means it does not exist solely outside the 'historical' recording career of this artist.

[wardo68]

CWR -- it's posts like this that have kept me from writing at length about Elvis. I can't seem to organize my thoughts and opinions into anywhere near as coherent a statement as the ones you make. Well done, sir.

[cwr]

Thanks for the kind words!

One additional thought: one of my favorite sections of any Costello interview is this one, from Bill Flanagan's excellent 1994 article in Musician magazine, at the time of Brutal Youth's release:

COSTELLO HAS an almost touching faith in his audience to understand what he’s on about in his music. With Brutal Youth, he figures his listeners will pick upon the fact that ‘London’s Brilliant Parade” is a tribute to and send-up of the Kinks, on which he plays dobro as Ray Davies did on “Lola.” He thinks pop fans with good ears will find it as funny as he does that the bass on the Faces-like ‘Just About Glad” plays the melody line of the song, because that’s what Ron Wood often does. (He thinks it’s a further hoot that the Faces always sang randy songs about getting laid and in his version the singer is relieved that he did not get laid.)

Costello assumes his listeners get inside musical jokes because he himself always catches such things."

I thought of this passage because when I first heard National Ransom's title track, hearing Steve Nieve playing the exact organ part from "You Belong To Me", I naturally assumed that this was Costello deliberately quoting his own song, as if this was the message from The Powers That Be to all of us "paying off the national ransom": YOU BELONG TO ME.

Costello sort of brushed the similarity aside in a recent interview, as if to say that it's just a very basic organ part that is heard in a lot of different songs. But I don't buy it. I think he just didn't want to cop to his own musical in-joke!

Can anyone else think of an example of Costello potentially making such an in-joke or reference to his past work-- even if it's something that might just be a figment of your imagination? He's never, that I can recall, done anything as overt as how The Beatles would specifically reference old songs ("Glass Onion", the fade-out of "All You Need Is Love", etc.), or done anything like what Dylan did when he called back to "The Times They Are A Changin'" with "I used to care but... Things Have Changed." Or has he? Maybe I'm forgetting a good example of this. I have a feeling that Costello would take a particular delight in hiding such references if he made them, right?

[pophead2k]

Posts like this make me really, really miss Bright Blue Times! The lick in 'Next Time Around' was copped by REM for 'Stand', so shortly after that song became a hit, EC used it again in 'How to Be Dumb'. I felt he was almost daring someone to suggest he stole it from REM!

[EarlManchester]

...for a long time, it was sort of all by itself in Costello's oeuvre--

Speaking of Costello's oeuvre, there's a very amusing moment in this interview when EC hears and reacts to the interviewer's pronunciation of "oeuvre".

Skip ahead to about the 7:30 mark.

[cwr]

That Spike-era interview is great! I highly recommend watching all 6 segments on YouTube.

I thought of another inside joke-- a fairly obvious one, actually-- in "Episode Of Blonde":

Every Elvis has his army, every rattlesnake his charm

I think EC might have actually credited Cait with that line, but it's a terrific one, since it harkens to both Presley's stint in the Army and EC's biggest UK hit single...

[Ypsilanti]

That Spike-era interview is great! I highly recommend watching all 6 segments on YouTube.

I thought of another inside joke-- a fairly obvious one, actually-- in "Episode Of Blonde":

Every Elvis has his army, every rattlesnake his charm

I think EC might have actually credited Cait with that line, but it's a terrific one, since it harkens to both Presley's stint in the Army and EC's biggest UK hit single...

I always think of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons who talk endlessly and un-ironically about "The Kiss Army". I remember one of them proudly saying, "The Kiss Army is larger than you think". I've always wondered if Elvis might have been having a little fun with that.