They Say You Have Nothing To Fear

As I pondered “Tripwire” (one of my favorite songs from Elvis Costello’s 2013 collaboration with the Roots, Wise Up Ghost), I started thinking about murder ballads. It’s a phrase I’ve heard and thought I knew, but hell, Wikipedia exists, let’s use it: 

Murder ballads are a subgenre of the traditional ballad form dealing with a crime or a gruesome death. Their lyrics form a narrative describing the events of a murder, often including the lead-up and/or aftermath.

“Tripwire” is not quite a murder ballad; there’s no murder in it, just a steady threat of violence. “Threat ballads” is an area where Costello excels as a songwriter; it’s practically a subgenre within his catalog. “Watch Your Step,” “I Want You,” “Radio Silence” all spring to mind. And it’s not specifically a threat of death; in most cases, it’s a far more sinister threat, because it’s not specific. 

Like many of the Wise Up Ghost songs, “Tripwire” emerged from a sample of an earlier EC song, namely “Satellite” from 1989’s Spike album. Lifting a delicate glockenspiel riff from the song’s opening, Costello and the Roots construct an entirely new tune from found parts. “Satellite” itself has a sinister undertone, carefully covered by a few sad portraits of dreamers impossibly separated from where they really want to be.  

On “Tripwire,” that equation is flipped on its head; here the pathos sits beneath the sinister, next to the violence. “Above there’s an ominous humming/below there’s a murmur of prayer.” “...The sound of an army just starting to march.” Whatever is happening or about to happen, it’s ready to flash into an explosion. All it will take is to cross that tripwire.

The song suggests terrorism; the repeated phrase “kisses forbidden on lips” specifically seems to connect with the broad, ongoing discrimination of LGBTQ+ people in America and around the world. Words of patriotism and religious faith pop like firecrackers: “The pages of scripture,” “the frays of a flag.” 

Beneath it all, a deep sad dread. Whatever once allowed humanity to accept difference and respond with mercy has rotted away. This is a world where fear has destroyed trust. There’s a tripwire, and it could be any number of things, but “you’re either for or against us/and that is where the hatred begins.” 

This song was released in 2013; here in the U.S., Obama was still in office, and while the Bush Junior years had left their mark on the country, it may have been possible to believe that some kind of shared American identity was within reach, even when crossing the vast gulf of belief that separated the left from the right. Today whatever was once inside that gulf has ossified and grown, almost impossible to be crossed; and the cruelty of half-truths and fundamentalist obsessions on one side of the gulf makes rational conversation impossible. 

This stuff was percolating more than ten years ago; today, it’s the defining trait of American culture. The threat has become very real. It’s acted upon every day. And whatever is left of compassion gets torn to bits, thrown in the air like confetti in church. 

Listen to “Tripwire” on the streaming service of your choice.

Bonus Clip: Somehow this missed my notice when it came out—on Wise Up: Thought, a remix EP drawn from the Wise Up Ghost sessions, there’s a “rework” of “Tripwire” by the Menahan Street Band, a Brooklyn funk and soul group. They’ve effectively crafted an exquisite instrumental accompaniment around EC’s vocal from the album track. It’s a brilliant alternate version. 

ALSO whatever happened to the supergroup with Black Thought, Elvis Costello, and T-Bone Burnett, among several others?!?!?!