Word: elvises
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Formerly, Costello had a female antagonist worthy of sparring; "Two Little Hitlers" defined relationships as an unending series of one-upmanships and clashes, a dance of death with each power in turn vowing to return. Here, his sometime partner, presumably aging Playboy centerfold and intercontinental pleasure-kitten Bebe Buell, is...
Suicide runs through Get Happy!!, sometimes surfacing directly, always thumping as an unheard thematic backbeat, life's metaphor for despair. It's the message of "Five Gears in Reverse," shouted inside a garage, sounds like it, in a voice choked with carbon monoxide. Elvis sings:
Following Elvis's ballad of betrayal, "Motel Matches," comes one of the album's most thrilling songs, "The Human Touch." Elvis seems trapped in a bizarre reggaed polka, dreadlocks and kielbasa, an "industrial squeeze" that "looks like a luxury,/Feels like a disease." This is Modern Man bombarded by machines...
In the first three albums, Elvis didn't let go too much; he was beyond disgust, he claimed, he was only amused, it was safer to sneer than sob. Perhaps sensing his emotional limitations, Elvis recorded "Big Tears" on a single last year, in which he accused his partner of...
No one could look upon Elvis Costello's vision as anything but limited. But few would look for a comprehensive overview in August Strindberg, either. Immature and oversensitive, Elvis dehumanizes to keep from being dehumanized; he gives us nothing less than the genesis of evil. What we have in the...