Spellbound Baby

Although I’ve been listening to Elvis Costello so long that I LITERALLY used to be disgusted and now try to be amused, not everyone has devoted so much of their ear space to this brilliant artist. He’s one of my favorites, but why should you care? 

That’s what I’ll attempt to answer in this three-part series. You may know who Elvis Costello, when Elvis Costello, or where Elvis Costello…but I want to tell you…

Why Elvis Costello? 

I would like to crack open the door to Elvisland and invite you to join me there. Or if that makes you uncomfortable, I hope you’ll at least read, listen and enjoy. Whatever toasts your bread. 

1. The King 

Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977.

Just a few weeks earlier, Elvis Costello was “born,” with the release of his first album, My Aim is True. 

If the artistic agendas of a frustrated truck driver from Memphis and a frustrated computer programmer from England can have anything in common, it's a constant fire to incite, one that slowly extinguished for Presley as his popularity skyrocketed and that Costello has fed as the fuel of his career. The same instinct that propelled Presley to mumble "Let's get real gone" into a Sun Studios microphone and ignite his band into a frenzy on "Blue Moon of Kentucky" would drive Costello’s own “I don’t wanna kiss you/I don’t wanna touch” sneering on 1978’s “No Action,” as the Attractions collapsed into precision chaos behind him. 

Over the years, Costello has diversified beyond the "angry young man" persona for which he first became known. But when you first hear Elvis Costello, whether it's his latest album with the Impostors or any of his previous work, you hear a little or a lot of that anger–the jerking, fire-spitting spite that is the soul of his music.

I found my way to Elvis in college. He was a scrawny, clever pop star who spit venom about girls; I was a scrawny, clever freshman who couldn’t get a date to save his life. Like many of my fellow geeks, my interests made me feel intensely alone even as they pushed me into cultish communities of Trekkies and fanboys. I often felt a few steps out of sync with the rest of the world; Costello took that feeling and jammed it back into my head through my eardrums. 

My first Costello record was Spike, which I bought because it had the song "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" on it, as well as Costello's wistful pop hit "Veronica." At the time, I was busy pretending that Costello's lyrics on "Deep Dark" somehow applied to my contemporaneous crush: "One of these days you're gonna have to face a deep dark truthful mirror/And it's gonna tell you things that I still love you too much to say." 

Oh, drama.

Next time: What did I expect? He’s Elvis Costello