By Jeff Salamon he dreams of performing a few songs in front of the entire world and then OU RKKI) CAMK. TO NEW YORK Elvis Costello's original spin telling the assembled how much last month, commanded a pain he wants them to feel. Broadway stage and played How strange—the only commu- L the song "Rock and Roll" for nity he can imagine is based on the umpteenth time. The rendition mutual hostility. But then, Newman was passable—springy, lively, the doesn't write songs to establish a audience was up and dancing—but common ground between him and for a song about somebody whose his audience; he'd rather justify his life was saved by music, there was own alienation. The songs work be- little at stake. cause he's talented enough to dig Odd, but not surprising. Safe at the same hole for the rest of his life last in his middle years, Reed is and find art sticking to the end of struggling to defy Neil Young's fa- his shovel every time. mous dictim about burning out or Costello finds himself in a similar fading away. The solution Reed's situation. Politics for him has long most recent album offers—politi- been not an opportunity for solidar- cal commitment—is as noble as it ity but an affirmation of his essential is intermittently successful (see In aloneness. And there are many who These Times, Feb. 22). Not all of would be happy to see Costello do Reed's topical verses succeed, but nothing but crank up that o!' per- on his best new songs (the Andy petual anger machine once a year Warhol eulogy, the AIDS song), he's for the rest of his life. found a new muse: his own mortal- Costello, fortunately, isn't one of ity. them. Spike is a stab at establishing At 34, Elvis Costello is 12 years a sense of community, and its most Reed's junior, but on his new ^•[•MBH^^^^^I^Kt ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^fmemmimprnm^^m moving song, "Satellite," shows how album, Spike, he's also got death iill angry after all these years, Costello grasps the power of restraint. far he's willing to go to get it. "Satel- on his mind. "God's Comic" fea- butt afteaftprr a whilpe hi«s witherinwithprinog fnrfurvy tioHnn asideaciHp, Costellfnetpl1r>o wearurparsc hies rpolitu - hope you live long now," he tells lite," like his earlier "Watching the tures a weary deity who lies on a seems creepy. What, after all, is this ical sympathies on his sleeve. Thatcher. Detectives," details the lives of waterbed and greets the deceased supposedly happily married, artis- "Let Him Dangle," the story of a / pray the Lord your soul to people who find in mass media the with a half-hearted harangue about tically successful man so damn wrongful execution, puts Dylan's keep intimacy they can't experience in the state of popular culture. Sipping angry about? Rather than resolve similar "Hurricane" to shame. Ellip- I think I'll be going before we real life. But where "Watching" was a cola while He spouts off about tically written, sparsely arranged, fold our arms and start to weep caustic, "Satellite" declines to judge. everything under the sun, He could MUSIC it sidesteps the sort of grandstand- I never thought for a moment As someone who himself chooses to be the inspiration for Reed's avun- ing that passes for social commen- that human life could be so cheap communicate through a commercial cular stage patter. In any case, the the contradiction of growing old tary nowaways: there's nothing 'Cos when they finally put you medium, Costello realizes that any music—from the sprightly verses and continuing to rock and roll, here but Costello's sense of wound- in the ground finger he points will eventually be to the chorus' echo of a beer hall Costello simply is talented enough ed justice. They'll stand there laughing directed his way. sing-along- is a far cry from the to have avoided it. Righteous reserve: He also and tramp the din down. This is, indeed, a kinder, gentler apocalyptic fury Costello embod- Spike faces this dilemma and keeps himself out of the picture in The song's structure is perverse. Costello. But don't get the wrong ied on his debut record's "Waiting comes up with the same answer as "Any King's Shilling," an old sol- It starts off with a malevolent im- idea, Elvis hasn't repented; he's just for the End of the World." Reed: go left, young man. Costello's dier's plea that a young friend not pulse, justifies it for three minutes, realized, as he once sang a long time Whither fury? Like Reed, Cos- politics have always been what follow in his footsteps. When Cos- and then turns against its own hate. ago, with very different meaning, tello's in the midst of a mid-career you'd call progressive, but his Old tello's voice quavers on the high Costello sounds genuinely weary of that there's no such thing as original crisis. Twelve years after his scab- Testament sense of vengeance hint- notes, it's like he's fighting back the this anger that doesn't change sin. [•] rous debut he still puts out more ed at a separate agenda. The con- disgust that's become an involun- things. He wonders how he's al- Jeff Salamon is an assistant editor at wit and bile than you'd ever need, stant demonization of his enemies tary reflex. The reserve is worth it; lowed himself to get so twisted up the Village Voice. —fascist leader Oswald Mosleyon his tone of righteous fatalism could inside that his first political im- "Less Than Zero," corporate Britain have been lifted from a Wilfred pulse is akin to assassination. in "Night Rally," any number of Owen poem. Where these songs tie their mes- women on any number of songs- "Tramp the Dirt Down," the sages to concrete circumstances, has always been more an act of self- album's centerpiece, is more expli- "Last Boat Leaving" keeps its his- definition than social critique. For cit in its self-abnegation. Costello torical context open, A father, in Costello, the political was per- starts with a snapshot of Margaret the middle of the night, says sonal—and in the worst possible Thatcher on the campaign trail farewell to his son for the last time. way. (When she kisses a baby, he asks, "Do you know what I've done?" he The first sign of a change was "Can you imagine all that greed and asks over and over, and we defi- 1983's "Shipbuilding," about how avarice coming down on that nitely don't. He could be lots of war (the Falkland Islands was the child's lips?") and goes on to ex- people—a laid-off Pittsburgh steel- inspiration) affects a small town in press avsincere hope that when she worker hoping to find a job in England. Pleased by the wartime dies, he'll "stand on [her] grave and Alaska, an IRA terrorist who can no boost to its economy, the town tramp the dirt down." Even for the longer remain safely in his own seems perplexed that people actu- vitriolic Costello this is a real country, or just a beleaguered teen- ally die in combat. Yet, ridiculing shock—set as it is against a sedate age parent unprepared for the de- the small town's small minds, Cos- Irish folk melody. mands of family life. tello sounded crushed by the way Apparently it scared Costello Costello a new man: That's the circumstances reduce people to too. After settling down to a series final song on the album, and it strikes this sort of blood-and-butter cal- of rips at Thatcher, the song ends a faint echo of the last song on the culus. with an ambiguous retraction. "1 latest Randy Newman album, Land 1985's King of America featured i —•—•»-^»—••^^=1 of Dreams. Newman, another mid- moments of similar generosity, but dle-aged misanthrope, closes with "I amidst his typically opaque lyrics Eclectic pop master Just Want You to Hurt Like I Do," they seemed mere ploys in the Elvis Costello's about a masochist who enjoys bring- elaborate cat-and-mouse game ing his loved ones down with him. Costello has played with his listen- new album Spike is Unlike Costello's narrator, who ers for years. Spike opens with a stab at sounds torn apart over leaving his another evasive maneuver—the son, Newman's delights in abandon- first verse of "...This Town..." dis- establishing a sense ing his. parages some cheesy singer who of community. Newman, like Costello, has always burdens his audience with his "top- had problems relating to a mass au- ical verse." But that initial reserva- dience. In "I Just Want You to Hurt" IN THESE TIMES MAY 3-9, 1989 21 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Rio area, most of it unavailable in this coun- cians in New York, although 1 have recorded ' rian pop] that's going over big in Paris. And Brazil try. There are some tracks by Martinho da little bits of it elsewhere. It's a mixture of there's the Cumbias from Colombia. It's got Continued from page 24 Vila, but he's probably the only name that new songs and some things that didn't fit on a great groove, very commercial, not aren't going to be overly impressed by my you'll be able to find in North American rec- the last Talking Heads album.