Like a Cardboard Sophisticate

Elvis Costello describes “Magnificent Hurt” as a song about “the pain of desire.” 

There is some pain here, for sure, but also a fair bit of…glee? Delight? The singer is someone who is maybe enjoying the pangs of want a bit more than the average bear. He must like the thrill of it. 

EC has been twisting up the language of love and the language of war for decades, ever since the allusions of “Night Rally” on This Year’s Model and the more explicit analogy of “Two Little Hitlers” on Armed Forces. We get another taste of that here. 

Costello plants enough questions in our minds to question the sincerity of another unreliable narrator. The singer takes “another stimulant,” speaks “low and intimate/Like a cardboard sophisticate.” He questions whether what he’s feeling is true love, and “not some town hall certificate.” 

Is this nothing more than performative desire, our singer a master actor treading the boards of someone else’s heart in search of his latest great role? It could be. Or maybe the truth is buried in the bridge, as it so often is. 

It’s easy to think of The Boy Named If as just another “rock record” from Costello and the Imposters. But the real joy of it lies in hearing the pieces he pulls from his bag of tricks and the tools he uses to hammer them together. On “Magnificent Hurt,” the riff is muscled onward by guitar, bass and drums all revving together, which leaves plenty of room for a counterpoint.

Steve Nieve’s keyboard parts throughout the album are more deliberate than usual; it was recorded remotely, and apparently his work came in after Costello and drummer Pete Thomas had already put down base tracks. So Nieve isn’t just reacting live from instincts honed over decades; he’s picking his moments.

On “Magnificent Hurt,” it’s his Vox Continental organ that’s the real Red Alert, biting into the verses like an accusation, mirroring the guitar riff like a truth you just can’t shake.