40 DAYS OF ELVIS COSTELLO: A Countdown To WISE UP GHOST

[cwr]

And as far as I know, Von Otter and the Brodskys did a European tour that included "Three Distracted Women" in their repertoire. But that's it. And I've never heard of a live recording of it-- maybe someone out there knows of one that exists?

[FAVEHOUR]

And as far as I know, Von Otter and the Brodskys did a European tour that included "Three Distracted Women" in their repertoire. But that's it. And I've never heard of a live recording of it-- maybe someone out there knows of one that exists?

Yes, I remember this...there's a radio broadcast or something of this. I have it somewhere!

Dave

[Otis Westinghouse]

Is there an actual song called this, or is it just the name of the suite which includes Speak Darkly My Angel? Costello's notes imply the latter:

“Speak Darkly, My Angel”: One of a set of songs entitled Three Distracted Women, this number was first written for a concert tour by Anne Sofie von Otter and the Brodsky Quartet and performed by them in Paris, London, Madrid and Bologna.

The songs portray a trio of woman in contrasting predicaments. The first song is concerned with a vaudeville diva and her scheming understudy, and the last is about a woman living in the isolation of crumbling wealth that she compares to the life of a cosmonaut.

“Speak Darkly, My Angel” is the central black comic ballad that describes a wealthy divorcée who, after tiring of her younger lover at the end of the season, is considering pushing him out of the window.

For the arrangement heard in this recording, I turned to Richard Harvey, with whom I collaborated on the music for Alan Bleasdale’s eleven-hour dramatic television series G.B.H. in 1990.

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... iner_notes

Many thanks for that first page link, Connor. Had missed that somehow!

[cwr]

DAY 30: WHEN I WAS CRUEL

http://connorratliff.tumblr.com/post/60 ... ile-in-the

[Jack of All Parades]

This album has never been 'underated' or 'overrated' by me. It has consistently sat next to the bottom in my appreciation of his catalog. It is a dreary record that rarely achieves a re listen. I never thought of it as a comeback but more of an attempt to seem sadly 'Au currant'.

There are only three songs that I still retain on an ipod- another solid 'blue' tune- "My Little Blue Window" and "Tear Off Your Own Head", which is a superb spoof of power feminism. The third is the alt version of "When I Was Cruel No 1" from Cruel Smile- its measured attempt at self-reflection has held up well. The two songs, "My Little Blue Window" and "Tear Off Your Own Head", work because they recycle the past to good effect with strong hooks, incisive lyrics and a tightness that is greatly missing on the majority of the album's songs.

As to the rest I still hold with my previous feelings:

"15 Petals" is blaring Latin infused horns presented in an irritating and blaring nasal vocal. There are too many obtuse character sketches lacking the exciting hooks that in the past would have redeemed them like "Tart", "Spooky Girlfriend" or "Soul for Hire". The two "Dusts" are limited conceits. "When I was Cruel#2" is likeable with its disparaging of gossips, newspaper editors and what not but it ultimately stretches out into a long bore. "45" plays with that number and its associations quite well but gets destroyed by its lazy repetitions. "Episode of Blonde" is self-parody- coming dangerously close to recycled Dylan- with its dysfunctional lyric. "Dissolve" is boring distorted guitar as an exercise. "Radio Silence" has moments and is a political song that avoids being a rant. "Alibi" just drones on unmercifully."

It is the only record of EC's that I have felt is just product and substandard product at that. It has remained 'soulless' to me this past decade.

[Ymaginatif]

It's a splendid album that put him back on the right track!
(and pulled me back in, after I'd gone off the fan-rails with Painted From Memory)

I really don't understand why so many people have a grudge against it? Because it had a vaguely modern sounding production? No, not really.

[cwr]

See, I would tend to think that classifying it as "product" and "soulless" would probably shift it towards the "underrated" category a little, at least in the sense that someone coming to WIWC fresh today with that as the description would probably be pleasantly surprised by much of it. It's so thoroughly disliked by some that I think its reputation is worse than it probably should be, overall.

(Not to you, obviously! If you hear it as "soulless," that's game/set/match! I think I know what you're responding to, though I have a different reaction to the same effect. For me it's that the album fares better on songs that are funny or clever than it does when it needs to have real feeling behind the song. That's part of why WIWC#1 actually doesn't work for me in its b-side form-- I think it doesn't convey anywhere close to the pain you can feel on the live version I linked to. The WIWC sound aesthetic is really rough on songs like that and "45", it kind of sucks the emotion right out of 'em.)

I have my own theories of what works and what doesn't, but I don't really see WIWC as Costello attempting to be trendy. It's not like songs like "15 Petals" or "Episode Of Blonde" or "Soul For Hire" were exactly lighting up the Hit Parade circa 2002! (Not that EC is above such a thing: if This Year's Model and Punch The Clock have anything in common, it's that they were attempting to be up-to-date with the sound of the times they were recorded in!)

It's weird, though-- I was super into this album for a few months when it first came out, then I cooled on it and didn't listen to it for a long time. Then I went through a phase of not liking it, and now I've landed somewhere in between. I like a lot of it, but the ones that don't work are either songs I feel should have been saved for a different kind of album or didn't merit being on a Costello album at all. ("Dissolve" being, I think, one of the least essential songs Costello has ever written or recorded. Judging by the scant number of times it was performed live on the WIWC tour, I think Costello probably didn't think too highly of it, either!)

[wardo68]

Generally, you (cwr) and I agree on everything Elvis. Except that you like WIWC way more than I do, and I like the recording of "WIWC #1" way more than you do. This album has never grown on me, and I don't expect it will, but I'll keep listening anyway.

These writeups are wonderful. I'm almost dreading the end of them!

[Jack of All Parades]

Connor, we all have our album or albums that lie at the bottom or near the bottom of this artist's catalog. This will seemingly be one for me. You have clearly found a way to make peace with it over the years. I have yet to do so. That experimentation with 'loops and beat box' you cite in your balanced assessment combined with too many half-baked song ideas and some questionable execution of those songs has consistently failed to allow me entry into this record. What you wrote at the end of your piece speaks for my feelings about the record:

"If the record has a real weakness, it is that it feels strangely unemotional— there isn’t really a single genuinely heartfelt song on it, a statement that would be hard to say about any other Costello album."

That is why I term it 'product'.

One final comment from me. The shows, or touring, around the release of this record were the only ones that I consciously avoided attending in all the years I have been listening to EC. It was a still born thing for my ears, both then and now.

The album I assume you will present tomorrow, however, thrilled me and left many others cold. Go figure.

[Kevin Davis]

It's an inconsistent album with a few duff tracks, and the sound is kind of abrasive, but I owe my entire Costello fandom--one of the most sonically pleasing and intellectually stimulating musical excursions of my life--to "When I Was Cruel."

I was 19 and my tastes were going through some growing pains, as those artists which I loved during my adolescence but which had no destiny in my adult life were in the process of falling out of favor, while others were asserting their permanence. I was consuming new music (entirely new genres of music, in many cases) at an alarming rate, stunned at the vast musical universe that existed beyond the narrow confines of mainstream radio rock. Dazzled by the 9.0 it received from Pitchfork Media, which carried a great deal of cache with me at the time, I picked up "When I Was Cruel" on a whim on my 19th birthday, along with Tom Waits's "Rain Dogs" and Bob Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home" (two artists I was already well on my way to loving). To someone who grew up listening to alternative and classic rock, with little awareness of musical history beyond those things, Elvis Costello was pretty much the character he played in Austin Powers--the idea that he had a storied past as a rock musician was completely elusive, especially since everything about him from his look to his name seemed to fit that schlocky lite-pop persona too perfectly. So, for me, the early reviews of "When I Was Cruel" were basically my history lesson on Elvis Costello (the "return to his rock roots!" and all that), and the way critics were describing his music seemed totally in line with the sort of thing that was really tickling my fancy at the time (basically, the literate writing virtues of the Waits and Dylan I was listening to at one end of my spectrum, combined with the eclectic indie pop sensibilities I was listening to at the other end of it).

And that's pretty much exactly what "When I Was Cruel" ended up being. I was pretty much sucked in from the first song--each song had a handful of lines that gave me that same rush I would get when I heard Dylan just really knock a lyric out of the park ("Bass and treble heal every hurt/There's a rebel in a nylon shirt/But the words are a mystery, I've heard/Till you turn it down to 33 1/3"; "The shutter closes, exposes the shot/She says are you looking up my skirt/When you say no, she says, Why not?"; etc.), and the songs were kinetic and had a sense of purpose. Regardless of whether or not this was his finest effort (not the sort of thing I was wasting time contemplating at the time), this was clearly a guy in command of his art, with an obvious knack for melody-making and songcraft but with an equal gift for observation and reflection, for taking life's absurdities and laying them out in such a manner that caused you to realize that, though you never knew it, you had always seen things pretty much exactly the same way.

So, how much of it "holds up," and how much of it is just an affectionate blind spot rearing its head and obscuring critical objectivity? Hard to say, but I'm certainly not going to put any effort into trying to enjoy the album less. For what it's worth, I enjoy the album pretty thoroughly for the first seven tracks, thinks it hits a bit of a rough patch at the first "Dust," but rebounds famously with "Episode of Blonde" and "Radio Silence" (I think the former is probably what really sealed the deal for me--the Jack described it as bordering on Dylan imitation, and to be honest I think that's exactly the kind of thing I wanted as a listener at the time). It does make the odd concession to a sonic trend or two, but--as Connor mentioned--it's hardly the first time Costello has borrowed a tic or two from a popular aesthetic, and it's hardly the overwhelming tone of the record. I really like the claustrophobic mood added to "Cruel No. 2" by the loops--it's pretty much exactly the way I'd feel stuck at a crowded party populated by a bunch of phony assholes. And I've always found "45" immensely creative, exactly the kind of thing that's Costello's signature; it's clever but also, as Connor's post says, "heartfelt," and something I would suspect any lifelong music junkie could relate to.

"Cruel Smile" is cool too, if an odd thing to receive a standalone release. It harkens back (if not too far) to the ill-fated "remix albums" that every artist seemed so hot to make in the '90's, and I'm not sure Costello's songs really suit the medium. But the live tracks are all pretty cooking, and I really like the "new" studio tracks (especially the two versions of "Smile"). In my mind "Cruel Smile" is kind of "When I Was Cruel"'s Rhino bonus disc; I only wish it had carried the same price tag.

(That said, 2002 was about the best time ever to be a new Costello fan. Rhino had just the prior year launched their reissue program, so I was able to lap all those up as they came out without ever having to really spend any extra money on them. Made for an odd trajectory through the canon, perhaps, but it all worked out in the end. )

This all may seem insane, a suspicion which I will only confirm tomorrow when I cite "North" as one of EC's five best records.

[Kevin Davis]

PS--thanks for your write-up on "45," Connor, there were a handful of details you pointed out that never really registered with me, and I never knew about the Leno version, which is lovely. Nice to have a little perspective on this song that kicked open such a door for me.

[invisible Pole]

Great post, Kevin.
I'm among those who like the album, though upon first listen it left me baffled and disappointed.
Plenty of good songs there. I'd probably even say that 45, Episode Of Blonde and My Little Blue Window are among the best songs Elvis has written in the last 15 years.

[Poor Deportee]

Jack has articulated my own position pretty well, so I'll just chime in to echo him. I can understand "blaming the sound" as an explanation for why some of us dislike this record - and it's true that the sound isn't very likeable as a rule, though I have no problem in principle with EC using loops and beat boxes and whatnot - but I feel that this is ultimately too generous. The most fundamental problem is that the songs themselves just aren't up to standard; as I argued with ATUB, but to a far more obvious degree, the inspiration is running on fumes.

Songs such as "Dust" "Dissolve," "Daddy," have no real need to exist. "Alibi," "Dust2," "Oh Well," "Soul for Hire," etc., no doubt seemed like good ideas but are either full of "rote" Costello writing or else poorly executed (e.g., "Alibi" is a slight conceit that can't possibly sustain the whole tedious 7 minutes or whatever it is). Even the much-balyhooed "45" and "Tart" partly elude me, the former being as much an exercise as an inspiration and the latter leaving me with the frustrating sense that EC somehow failed to get the most out of the obvious potential afforded by the melodic idea. It's not, I feel, like GCW where things went wrong in production. The whole batch of songs is basically wrong. EC was apparently going through a very bad period of his life when he made this album, trapped with an alcoholic wife, etc., and it really seems to me that rather than empowering his muse, the way his youthful travails did, it sapped the creative ebullience right out of him. Unfortunately he chose to plough ahead rather than forbear.

That said, I love "Tear Off Your Own Head" - another case of Elvis addressing the wider culture with eviscerating clarity, only to have it go mostly unheard - "Spooky Girlfriend" is cliché EC but still has its moments, and, in contrast to Jack, I think the title track is a very strong song indeed: a major EC piece dripping with pathos ("look at me now!") and striking character sketches, and a rare song in which he is actually gotten the best of in verbal sparring with his interlocutors ("I shan't report the memory of his last retort..." Sure, because that hack made mincemeat out of you!). So even at his most creatively sick, EC can still provide us with something. All told, though, this is at the bottom of the pile for me and best forgotten.

[Kevin Davis]

"45"...being as much an exercise as an inspiration

I wonder, why such a high price on this "inspiration?" Much great songwriting is "exercise"--execution, consideration, the muscle the individual songwriter brings to the table, and the care he takes in harnessing his craft. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meanings behind the words, but I would contend the "exercise" part is where the songwriter gets his credit, the sweat and toil he puts into his work ultimately meaning more than the fleeting inspiration he just happens to be the conduit for.

Not trying to call you out or anything, I just think it's wrong to dock a song points because it points more to workmanship on the part of its creator as opposed to pure, uncut passion.

[Poor Deportee]

"45"...being as much an exercise as an inspiration

I wonder, why such a high price on this "inspiration?" Much great songwriting is "exercise"--execution, consideration, the muscle the individual songwriter brings to the table, and the care he takes in harnessing his craft. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meanings behind the words, but I would contend the "exercise" part is where the songwriter gets his credit, the sweat and toil he puts into his work ultimately meaning more than the fleeting inspiration he just happens to be the conduit for.

Not trying to call you out or anything, I just think it's wrong to dock a song points because it points more to workmanship on the part of its creator as opposed to pure, uncut passion.

Yeah - there's no question that craft is important. Absolutely. Indeed, inspiration without craft brings us perilously close to the realm of clever high-school students expectorating all over open-mics.

I think I'm using the term "exercise" to convey just that workmanlike quality whereby deep feeling is absent and the craft, in its absence, isn't sufficiently strong to move, surprise, or excite the listener. A really good song sucks you in, suspends your disbelief, while one like this has a paint-by-numbers quality to it - literally in this case! - that makes one think, "OK, Elvis is now writing a song the point of which is to extract as many variations on the number 45 as possible. Let me just check my watch." And though "45" is by no means a bad song, part of the problem may be that writing about a number just isn't all that compelling an idea to begin with.

[cwr]

I'd say that, in the case of "45", it's a little more than that. Not to just re-hash my original post, but that first performance on The Tonight Show has some real feeling to it-- he's writing about his parents, his birth, buying that first record, a 7" of "Please Please Me" with his own money, and then a pretty rapid fire rise-and-fall in show business, with all the personal fallout that accompanies it.

Much more than just a song where he riffs on the number 45! It's connected to his life and his love of music, I'd say there's almost a direct line back to "Radio Soul" one of his first songs, and one of the single most defining traits of his personality, his Love Of Music. It's the core of his being, the thing that has defined him...

Again, I think much of this is lost on the WIWC version, but it's all there in that original 1999 performance. I remember watching it back when it aired, it gave me chills...

[Poor Deportee]

I'd say that, in the case of "45", it's a little more than that. Not to just re-hash my original post, but that first performance on The Tonight Show has some real feeling to it-- he's writing about his parents, his birth, buying that first record, a 7" of "Please Please Me" with his own money, and then a pretty rapid fire rise-and-fall in show business, with all the personal fallout that accompanies it.

Much more than just a song where he riffs on the number 45! It's connected to his life and his love of music, I'd say there's almost a direct line back to "Radio Soul" one of his first songs, and one of the single most defining traits of his personality, his Love Of Music. It's the core of his being, the thing that has defined him...

Again, I think much of this is lost on the WIWC version, but it's all there in that original 1999 performance. I remember watching it back when it aired, it gave me chills...

Fair enough. I'm aware of what the song was trying to do - and I'll concede that I may have exaggerated a touch to make the point (which is that I don't find the song very moving, one way or the other, at least on the album cut). This is a song - like much of the album - that I wanted to like and originally told myself that I did, before concluding that it just wasn't happening. But it's certainly not the tune I would wish to isolate as exemplifying the mediocrity of WIWC; and it may actually be one which, if recorded differently, could win me over. Who knows.

[cwr]

I don't have much affection for the album version, either!

I doubt we'll ever get the version I'd want-- basically just a clean studio version of the Tonight Show performance-- unless he recorded an alternate take back in 2002 that was closer to the original feeling.

Little point in him re-recording it at age 59!

[Neil.]

Yeah, I don't find myself returning to WIWC very often. I'd got used to the bare-bones early live version of '45' from a recording from the Lonely World tour, and found it passionate, confessional and very moving - so I've never been able to love the thumping rock version that Elvis ended up at.

I'd like to stand up for 'Oh Well' - a little snapshot of someone at the end of his tether, realising he's never going to fulfil his dreams, never going to break free from his life of drudgery. The astronaut moment is lovely and chilling at the same time: 'even an astrounaut goes into the ground' (we hear an astrounaut floating off into space - the opposite of being buried) It's one of Elvis's little gems, like Secondary Modern and Hoover Factory: short, sweet and sad. It sounds gorgeous cranked up on headphones, in the dark!

Lots of lovely lyrics as ever - one of my faves is in Dissolve, ice caps melting while elsewhere in the world, the level rises in a gin and tonic glass. And I like the imagery of 'Dust', as well as the sleazebag portrait in 'Spooky Girlfriend' - another one to add to his gallery of sleazebags (Doctor Luther's Assistant, Mr Feathers, the comedian in 'God's Comic', the entire cast of 'This Town').

I also like the close mic, disgusted-sounding vocal on 'Tart', with those suggestive, exotic lyrics with the oranges, and Davy's hopping bass. I just wish the song had a middle eight!

Glad to hear WIWC#1 again - haven't heard that in a while. Must give it another listen.

[Fishfinger king]

I agree with Neil and others who support When I Was Cruel.
I've always enjoyed it and don't understand the criticism.
It's pop music for goodness sake - it doesn't always have to be heartfelt and meaningful.
45, Blue Window, Blonde, Spooky, Doll Revolution, WIWC2 and Dust are all great. What's so wrong with Dissolve and Daddy? They rock, they don't mean a lot, but so what?
The only disaster is Alibi, which is such a disappointment after the live version. However with modern technology you can delete one and replace with the other!
I realise I seem to like the trashy end of the Costello oeuvre - I would also strongly support Mighty Like A Rose and Momofuku.
North leaves me largely cold except Still - cue violent objections in next few threads.

[jsf]

First of all, Mr. FishfingerKing, Connor and I were JUST talking about the line, "...the moody doomed love of
the Fish-Finger King", as you posted. I like that.

Secondly, Connor: I had never listened to the Steven Kennedy track that EC co-produced and vocal'd (http://harrysmith2012.tumblr.com/post/60245798852), but I like it. I think it's the first time I've ever heard Costello commit himself to just fully cocooning a song.

[Fishfinger king]

Spooky!!

I like that Mr. jsf.

[grantprobst]

Alibi!...

...I am kind of surprised that a lot of people on here don't care for the album version.
It is like a less dramatic version of "I Want You"... A dark and dreary slow jam rock number, with a good repetitive hook line.

Plus, I am not sure how other people interpret the meaning of lyrics to Alibi,
But to me, it seems to showcase a lot of the stupid things we as human beings tell ourselves that aren't necessarily true,
but we just use to try and excuse our less than admirable behaviors/addictions...

...and that makes for a fairly unique and interesting lyric idea.

[The imposter]

Alibi's alright , just far too long. I don't tend to go for Elvis wordier 6 minute epics/rants.. WIWC 2, Episode of Blonde (although I like the chorus) Hurry Down Doomsday, Turpentine, Bedlam, River in Reverse etc.. Notable exceptions for me being IWY and Tokyo Storm Warning...

I'm not a fan of WIWC although it was a relief to have an album at the time, it seemed ages since PFM. I had enjoyed 45 and alibi on the 99 tour, and I don't mind the album cut of 45. I also like "My Little Blue Window" although I think somebody gave it a panning here somewhere. I'm with Jack on this album pretty much.

Anyway I want to thank Cwr for postin links to "Autopilot" a track I have been searching for unsuccessfully for years.. "it was not a widely distributed item" suggests the wiki ! Oh and also the Explicit version of "Who Are These People" another one of those download cuts I always tend to miss despite having the CD. So the thread has been worth it for the great song links alone, that's not to mention the great album analyses. Well done Cwr.

[jsf]

Listening to the live 1999 When I Was Cruel...

http://musicisthefutureofmusic.tumblr.c ... 0337732217

I had no idea that song was born in the back yard of Battered Old Bird and raised by American Without Tears (on the weekends). Again, while your comprehensive analysis of each album inspires me to jump back into the music, it's those damn links that keep disorienting and replenishing me. This 1999 When I Was Cruel gives me such a new picture of what this album might have sounded like. I have a fine time listening to the album, but it would have more life in it, for me, if it had rooted in whatever was happening in 99.

That said, it's never a bad idea (when speaking scientifically about music) to imagine that your talented friend comes over and plays you some of his latest songs when you are evaluating the actual nature of an album. I think this is what you, Connor, are getting at when you talk about certain albums/works being overly trashed. If Elvis has been totally silent since 91 and then came out with WIWC, I don't think the genuine excitement and interest in those tracks would be a result of giving up our standards. Fact is, we simply have deeply specific needs with regards to the artists to whom we are invested. Which explains why we find folks with great ears who've never heard EC who are so delighted with WIWC opening the door for them.

For me it was Spike.