Love Is Short And Painful

King of America is an album full of emotional extremes. Maybe that’s true of all Elvis Costello albums. Or even the totality of all recorded pop music. 

Compared to some of the dark sad bedrooms in songs like “Indoor Fireworks” and “I’ll Wear It Proudly,” “King of Confidence” comes off as almost bright and cheery. It’s got a light, airy acoustic sound. It appeared on the 1995 Rykodisc reissue of King of America and sounds like an essentially complete outtake from the finished record. 

But as you might expect, a closer listen reveals a story that’s just up the hall from the folks obsessing over a poisoned rose. 

The titular king is the self-flagellating narrator for most of the action; you could consider him broadly as a textbook “love ‘em and leave ‘em” type, except that he seems to be flubbing the dismount. Because he can take these lovers so closely into his confidence, he leaves behind collateral damage, “untidy lies in self-defense.” You open yourself up to this royal bastard at your own risk. 

He doesn’t deserve much sympathy, but the confidence game is wearing on even the king himself. Time can collapse in on itself when you’re trying to keep that much emotional baggage off your trolley. 

There are moments of intimacy that call to mind some of the squirrely dudes EC would write about ten years after “King of Confidence” on his All This Useless Beauty. (“She held his head/like a baby and said/it’s OK if you cry.”) But those characters are played for derision, where the King is using his vulnerability as just another tool in his belt. Every opening is just another opportunity for control.