The Elvis Costello fan forum is busy and those fans are interested in every twist and turn. There has been a lengthy debate as to whether Steve Nieve’s piano is intentionally or accidentally low in the mix on the first track, Under Lime.
Piano included, soft or loud, who cares too much, as Under Lime chugs along pretty much business as usual Costello and The Imposters-style. The mild pomp of strings, woodwinds and horns is added in for divilment.
Then there is a Steely Dan vibe to the backing singers – never thought one could write that about an Elvis Costello record - On Burnt Sugar is So Bitter which master McManus wrote with Carole King. A discordant brassy riff plays the song out, that discord supposedly a paradigm for the bitterness of the title.
Sting got away with four potentially pear-shaped words, to wit "that book by Nabokov" in Don’t Stand So Close To Me. Those few little words worked on that song because they sat so neatly on the metre of the song. However, like poets name-checking contemporary musicians, quoting writers is a risky business. Costello has never had much truck with showing off any kind of book learning, yet he has always come across as a particularly literate, alert lyricist. Stripping Paper shows him to be still the supple, imaginative wordsmith charting his old specialty, domestic upheaval, a thread which all seemed to begin with Alison.
He takes an ordinary activity like peeling wallpaper and make it serve his purpose to build the sly tableau. I got time on my hands/ I’m just stripping paper/It’s amazing what you will find/ Stripping paper/ When you get down to the past. The route here is reminiscent of Indoor Fireworks and it confirms the enduring gift.
Suspect my Tears is a little soul gem, while Why Won’t Heaven Help Me begins almost Bossa Nova-style in the verse before the chorus lifts it bodily into the suburbs of Motown.
Photographs Can Lie - music by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Elvis - continues the domestic discord drama, yet it doles out few clues as to the mystery of the imbroglio. It's like listening in on one side of a phone call on some discreet BBC TV drama of the 1970s.
The tender He’s Given Me Things was also co-written with Bacharach and its import leaves you wondering. Is it about prostitution, is it about money, is it about love? Who knows. It's a thoughtful final track.
The live shows will probably be terrific when these songs will come into their own, but the short bursts of brassy soul and expressive ballads on Look Now are enough to be going on with. There is the odd echo here and there of the works of the Thin White Duke himself, particularly on Why Won’t Heaven Help Me. So, file maybe under 'complex pop' as you might file much of Bowie.
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