Did You Get What You Wanted?

NOTE: For those who skim these, what’s your deal? Read, baby, read! Also you should know the next missive in 2024 will come from “[email protected]” so update your filters accordingly. 

Elvis Costello returned to the studio in 1993 for an unexpected, but not unwelcome, reunion of his legendary backing band, the Attractions. 

They’d parted ways with a bit of acrimony around 1986, and then one or two of them at a time would show up on Costello’s solo productions, until suddenly both Pete Thomas and Steve Nieve were players on most of the songs EC was cooking up for what would become Brutal Youth. 

Nick Lowe played bass on a bunch of the songs; EC himself played on two. And then there were some songs that Lowe claimed he couldn’t tackle because they were “too melodic,” and producer Mitchell Froom was working with bass player Bruce Thomas, so suddenly Bruce and Elvis were cordial again, and making music. 

Fast forward three years—a true reunion record is on the books, All This Useless Beauty, with the Attractions receiving billing alongside EC, just like the old days. Great songs, great sound, great album. They even toured together behind it! I saw them, in Rosemont, IL! 

But tucked away in the back half of the album—and the first single—was a classic Costello kiss-off song, “It’s Time.” And fans with any skill at reading loosely-arranged words that looked like tea leaves, well, they could tell what was coming. 

(I’m going to get political now, so if that is not your bag, I hope you’ll skip down and keep reading when the music starts again.) 

In today’s culture, hate has become normalized as “discourse.” There was a time when espousing views that expressed harm toward people, races, genders, or entire cultures was considered evil. 

Today, Nazis can sign up for Substack and find a user-friendly platform to share their views, one where they are easily found and easily followed. What’s worse, they can click a few buttons, add a credit card or PayPal account, and start making money from their followers for hate speech. 

I’ve kept my head in the sand about this for too long. I like Substack as a technology tool. I like the fact that I can not only publish here, but be part of a community that is as warm and open to collaboration as any you’ll find online. I like that I came up with a nutty idea and I was able to turn it into something that a little over 300 people want to see on a regular basis. 

In refusing to silence hate, the leadership of Substack has chosen to support it, whether they want to admit it or not. And that means I gotta get out of here. 

The counterarguments don’t hold much water for me, seemingly built upon a foundation of “free expression,” which seems like a convenient way for people who should know better to justify staying on a platform they really like (and may be making money from). Hate speech is not free expression. Antisemitism is hate speech. 

Sure, we can parse the difference between speaking out against Jews and wishing them harm. But what is meaningful about that difference? Do you imagine a quiet, polite antisemite somewhere, kind to his neighbors and beloved by his co-workers, who also just happens to believe heinous things about Jews? You’re cool with that? You want to support a platform that allows him to express his views and then monetize them? 

I don’t, and so, I won’t. 

This isn’t going to mean shit to anybody and I don’t need it to mean shit to anybody. It means something to me which is why I’m doing it. Writing this also means something to me, because my thoughts around this have been lazy and flaccid for a long time, and this allows me to sharpen them into a decision that’s hard as steel. 

There’s a lot to unpack and explore around the fractious relationship between Elvis Costello and former Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas. Bruce wrote a book, for one thing, which was widely interpreted as being a thinly-veiled broadside against EC in his more petulant years of fame and notoriety. And “It’s Time” isn’t the first Bruce Thomas “fuck you” song EC wrote, and definitely not the best; “How to Be Dumb” from Mighty Like A Rose is a killer kiss-off that we’ll cover someday. 

“It’s Time” stands out perhaps because it’s got some vicious moments, but they’re tempered by an air of resignation in the lyrics. For one thing, it’s someone leaving the song’s narrator, not vice-versa. The singer’s not the one leaving, unless it’s the voice of someone speaking to himself about how he has to walk away, almost convincing himself of the truth. 

It also speaks to the end of an era, not just a relationship. “The party’s over/Your time is up,” EC sings in the song’s first two lines, and that suggests not only that there’s two people who need to separate, but an entire way of life that needs to wrap up. 

I’m most drawn to the couplet that ends the first pre-chorus: 

As vehement as the chorus is, and as sharp as a few lines hit (“Our brief acquaintance/was such a mistake…”), this moment is much more evocative to me. It’s ambiguous, a shrug where you might expect a slap. 

Did you get what you wanted? That does depend–what did you want, what did you expect, why did you think you were entitled to it? And what happens when what you want, whatever it may be, has potential to hurt someone else?  

Listen to “It’s Time” on the streaming service of your choice.