Rank the Records: King of America (1986)

In honor of the recent release of King of America & Other Realms, a healthy box set detailing Elvis Costello’s 1986 album and other musical travels in the New World, we’ll briefly skip ahead in our Rank the Records journey. Next time, Imperial Bedroom.

We come on the ship they call The Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours
And sing an American tune

–Paul Simon, “American Tune”

Being born and raised here in the good ol’ US of A, it’s hard for me to imagine how those from other countries perceive this place. 

Of course, the entire American story is one of outsiders and escapees, immigrants and refugees. To be American is to come from somewhere else, whether that happened in 1492 or far sooner. (Except, of course, for Native Americans, who were here when everyone else arrived and have suffered unjustly for it since.) 

And so the easiest way I can understand America from a non-American’s perspective is in parts and pieces. For example, to any musician outside these fair shores, success in America has unique meaning; those artists perceive American music in ways we can’t. From the Beatles and the Stones on down through Charli XCX, the UK has its own parallel history of American music, filtered through equal parts ambition and fear. Ambition, because breaking thru in America has a cachet that other parts of the world can’t match; fear, because America wears its sins far closer to its sleeves than other places, and so to penetrate the culture in America is to reckon with those sins, in ways small and large, whether you want to or not. 

So many artists from the UK have found their own sound through appreciating and emulating the music of black America, especially during the 1960s, but onward until today. Black music in the 60s was created through deep adversity, forced upon them by white America. While the Beatles were conquering the United States, the artists they worshipped were relegated to separate bathrooms and hotels; they were playing Smokey Robinson songs on stages at baseball parks where Smokey Robinson himself wouldn’t be allowed to play. 

Is there any other country on the planet where to succeed in pop music requires facing some of the country’s darkest sins, many of them happening on repeat in real time, like a playlist of horrors that no one shuts off? 

Of course, it’s possible to find success as a pop artist in America and just deliver more of the same–emulate whatever is popular, and sell records and concert tickets and be happy. So maybe it’s just some artists who feel the need to confront America itself, even as they jockey for success amongst its listeners. 

It starts with the title: King of America. A country who quite famously resisted the idea of a king, suddenly bestowed with one. A guy in a crown and a jean jacket on the cover who crossed the ocean like so many before him in search of his own chunk of the American sound, only to self-destruct and find himself stuck at arm’s length. A British performer with his own hurricane of a band, setting aside his sound and deliberately seeking out the best America has to offer. 

It’s an ironic masterpiece of a title, but it’s also maybe more true than any American would like to admit. For all our platitudes about “for the people” and freedoms, we are a country always in search of a king. Whether it’s a kid from Tupelo who shook his ass like a devil, or a fascist narcissist who’s been twice elected President, we want to be free and we want to be ruled and we won’t have it any other way. 

The characters on King of America are trapped in a state of self-delusion, in thrall to something or someone that is poised to destroy them. The “Indoor Fireworks” between two doomed lovers, who continue to light the wick in spite of the burning smoke in their eyes. “My baby gave me notice to quit/I just can’t get used to it,” from “Lovable,” another lost narrator unwilling to untangle from their entanglements. Metaphor helps illustrate the damage; a poisoned rose, a marshmallow valentine stuck to her clothes. 

There’s a few happy delusions on King of America, characters who are lying to themselves and seem happy enough to do it. They too are exposed, even if they can persist in their delusions anyway. But there’s maybe only one really happy song, “I’ll Wear It Proudly,” and what leads the singer to his newfound love is the disintegration of his delusions, a partner who will turn him upside down, “and nail my feet up/where my head should be.” Whatever impressions of love and relationships he once had, they’re scattered away by what he’s feeling now. To prove it, he willingly accepts a new delusion: 

If they had a king of fools, then I would wear that crown 
And you can all die laughing, becuase I’ll wear it proudly
I’ll wear it proudly

All of these stories are told through a more nimble and flexible approach to recording than EC had ever experienced before. Nearly every album he’d released to this point involved Costello and the Attractions locking themselves in a studio with a passel of new songs and beating their heads against the walls and each other until they had enough to fill two sides of vinyl. Based on anecdotes from the era, this also involved copious amounts of alcohol. 

As EC has mentioned, King of America coincided with the curdling of the relationship between him and the Attractions. With producer T Bone Burnett as a willing partner in crime, the album weaves between varying combos of exceptional session players and guest stars. We could spend pages just digging into the careers of the musicians that Burnett assembled for Costello’s sessions; the entire TCB Band that backed the original Elvis (Presley) during the later era of his career is present on several tracks. Jim Keltner played with three of the four Beatles on solo recordings; Earl Palmer played on all of Little Richard’s hit singles. And so on. 

It’s too easy to say that the sound of King of America is “Americana.” It’s American music, but it’s interpolated through EC’s songwriting, and it borrows liberally from more than one genre at a time. “Our Little Angel” has twang and a dobro solo, but it’s not “an Elvis Costello country song.” This album’s secret weapon is the accordion, which has a way of stitching different genres together; you can really hear this on some of the live recordings that followed this album, where EC played with a crew of these musicians. The accordion enters each tune with equal parts country and western, New Orleans zydeco, and folk; it nods to each of those traditions and synthesizes them in the music. 

King of America swirls its genres together in service of a set of songs that peek under the rocks strewn in the American backyard. Costello doesn’t need to deploy broad platitudes to uncover the original sins he’s found on the other side of the pond. In these characters, Americans see themselves and know the reflection, whether it’s a happy recognition or otherwise. Whatever level of success Costello found as a pop star in the United States, King of America proves that he’s had our number for a long time.

2. Trust (1981)

3. King of America (1986)

5. My Aim Is True (1977)

6. Get Happy!! (1980)

11. This Year’s Model (1978)

15. Armed Forces (1979)

26. Almost Blue (1981)