The Gaze That You Provoke

With “The Difference,” Elvis Costello and the Imposters take us from the curdled innocence of a young girl in love to the hardened defiance of a woman ready to reclaim her power in a toxic relationship. All in just under four minutes–and at the risk of diminishing the narrator’s struggle, it’s a catchy-as-hell four minutes. 

Costello tells this story from the point of view of a woman who has fallen prey to a powerful man who has dominated her, manipulated and lied to her. He’s the one who shapes her view of the titular “difference,” the barometer between wrong and right, which he twists to convince her that their tryst isn’t a betrayal of another woman. 

He quickly loses patience with their dance and instead takes what he wants, in a way that only toxic masculinity could justify: 

It’s not his fault, you see. She asked for it. And that sets the stage for the second half of the song, where a new figure enters the story—the singer’s father, who is ashamed by her behavior and drinks to dull the pain. 

The pronouns blur events at this point; does she attack the man who led her on and manipulated her into vulnerability? Or is it her father who came to her in the night and met the business end of a blade? And did her father’s actions come before or after the relationship in the opening verse? 

In the end, it doesn’t matter. This isn’t just the story of one relationship, but of many; she’s every woman used and discarded, betrayed and abused. It’s a timeless tale and Costello underscores this with language that suggests almost a renaissance-era setting—you can imagine the singer as a maiden-in-waiting to a duchess or queen, sharing a glimpse of her ankle to titillate “upon a reel of the finest fiddlehead.”

(According to Google (and when has it EVER steered us wrong???) “fiddlehead” is a fern that grows in eastern Canada, considered a delicacy when it appears in the spring. It’s also a euphemism for…well, you can figure that out. It’s possible that Elvis heard about the plant during his time living in Vancouver and couldn’t resist the savage double meaning.)

Costello draws a straight, vicious line from the innocence lost in the first verse, through betrayal, to the righteous violence of the final verse. It all pivots on the moment when he surrenders any blame for his actions—like so many abusive men, he uses power dynamics to get whatever he wants, only to claim powerlessness in the face of imagined desire. There is no universe in which she couldn’t want him; he can’t fathom it, so it must somehow be her doing. He can accept no agency. 

When she reclaims her power through violence, Costello underscores the act by repeating the final verse and stopping the song cold on the final line: “…to show him…the difference.” It’s a telling moment; the chorus is so diabolically catchy that you want that gratification one more time, with Steve Nieve’s descending piano figures guiding the ear into a soaring melody line that will implant itself in your brain and threaten never to leave. 

But there’s no relief to be found. This story has found its own dark resolution, but the song doesn’t resolve in kind. Costello leaves the final word hanging in midair, beyond accusation, a grim insufficient justice.