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I have always laboured under the ... no, that's unfair, I have never laboured. I have always fannied about under the misconception that Elvis Costello was a glamourless righteous politico, Braggish, not my thing, all CND badges and peace marches and anti-vivisection lobbies. Which are all ... whatever, whatever. Songs, surely, should get under the individual's skin, should reveal and rebuke and rejoice and sting, should say things that can't be said, should weep and kick and scratch and bite. Though every other year I might begrudgingly notice a deft line, I never realised that this is what Costello does best and does more often than he does anything else. Mighty Like A Rose sacrifices fringe sociology to personalty involved spite, and is bitter and twisted and magnificent.
Recently converted via the Girls Girls Gads albums (but spare me all that country tosh), I was struck at how revelatory it was to hear hirsute hooks and intelligent impassioned lyrics. Is anybody else doing this after the semi-successful wave-of-sound tides? Barely. If Costello is the last melting icicle in Romantica then I'm on his side to the tip of the scraggiest whisker.
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