The Costello Show
King Of America
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Elvis Costello
King Of America
Rykodisc, 1986
RiYL: Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Lloyd Cole |
That's one of the many reasons King Of America is an odd record; it's actually the least of several peculiarities. First and foremost is the band name -- "The Costello Show." After divorce and even more embarrassingly, Goodbye Cruel World, the man formerly known as Elvis Costello became tired of his stage name and tried to revert to being Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus (his real name, although the "Aloysius" is invented). Second is the spiritual and physical absence of the Attractions, the band which had made Costello's great albums great.
Although the band appears ("pulled out of the cold, cold ground") on the exquisitely contradictory "Suit Of Lights," everything else on King Of America is played by studio professionals who act essentially as setup men to Costello/MacManus's unsure central performer.
The lack of Attractions hurts the album's upbeat material -- rockabilly numbers "Lovable" and "Glitter Gulch" are listless and the soul cover "Eisenhower Blues" is just pointless. It's not surprising that Costello picked the Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" as a talisman for the record as a whole, but what is astonishing is how inessential his reading of the song sounds.
But despite a great preponderance of lousy ("Our Little Angel," "I'll Wear It Proudly") to mediocre ("Little Palaces," "Poisoned Rose") material, King Of America is wholly redeemed by a mere four songs. But what songs! "Brilliant Mistake," the album opener, is one of the greatest moments of Costello's career, which summarizes the singer's strained relationship with the U.S. of A. in exactly the way the rest of the record fails to do ("she said that she was working for the ABC news / it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use"). "American Without Tears" is a great narrative about British wives of American soldiers and how much of a cultural divide there really is. Then there's "Suit Of Lights," one of Costello's many nasty ("can't you give us a break / can't you stop breathing?") songs about his on-again, off-again bandmates, but the only one to actually feature said bandmates.
The other great song on King Of America, "Indoor Fireworks," is thematically more linked to the album that followed King, Blood & Chocolate, but its acoustic backing places it musically firmly on this one. In no uncertain terms Costello delivers his final word on the whole idea of romance in the modern world: "Don't think for a moment dear / that we'll ever be through / I'll build a bonfire of my dreams / and burn a broken effigy of me and you." Not subtle, but it speaks its piece.
MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.