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Beyond Belief
Shabby Doll
Man Out Of Time
Almost Blue Released in 1982 |
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Elvis Costello is a great all-around songwriter. His work features creative and catchy melodies, deftly honors a range of musical genres, and delivers lyrics that can be both narrative and poetic.
Imperial Bedroom is among his better LPs. Elvis’s artistic restlessness often results in his albums lacking in cohesion. But Imperial Bedroom succeeds due to its diversity and craft; no wonder it is regarded as one of Elvis’s best.
Released in 1982 — his seventh album in five years — Elvis teamed up with a new producer, Geoff Emerick. Emerick was an engineer on many of The Beatles’ later records (the first track he engineered was “Tomorrow Never Knows”), and his influence on Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ sound is clear.
 Elvis earned the cover of Rolling Stone just after the release of Imperial Bedroom. |
The album starts off with the two-and-a-half-minute epic “Beyond Belief.” The lyrics feel great rolling off the tongue (“History repeats the old conceits. The glib replies, the same defeats”), but my poetic interpretation skills are insufficient to decipher the song’s meaning; my best guess is that he’s awed by a woman who can be cruel.
“Shabby Doll” — which is really fun to say — is filled with idiosyncratic touches: Steve Nieve’s bouncy piano, Bruce Thomas’s bass popping up in unexpected places, and Pete Thomas’s driving rhythm punctuating the final minute of the track.
“Man Out Of Time” is one of those tracks where there’s a lot going on, but the sum is greater than its parts. The riotous shrieking that bookends the song is incongruous with its more serene middle. The lyrics can be inscrutable (“There’s a tuppenny ha’penny millionaire. Looking for a fourpenny one” Huh?). But when that chorus hits, it’s hard not to sing along.
The last featured track is definitely my all-time favorite (and 5-star classic) Elvis song, “Almost Blue.” Musically and lyrically, it could have been performed by Frank Sinatra or Nina Simone in a smoky lounge. Elvis really digs deep on his vocal performance, landing slightly behind the beat to heighten the melancholy.
In the liner notes that came with a CD reissue of Imperial Bedroom, Elvis reflected on his achievement:
Many of the… songs on the record… exhibit a malaise of the spirit and a sinking feeling about happy endings.
That pretty much sums it up.
Though it’s not my favorite by Elvis, I do really like this album. “Beyond Belief,” it seems to me, is about a bar-room drunk making a feeble pass at a woman, and his own sense of worthlessness and alienation both before and after the predictable rejection. Always clever, Elvis here gets in a few of his better puns: “charged with insult and flattery,” “I might make it California’s fault,” etc.
“Almost Blue” is superb. “Not all good things come to an end, now / It’s only a chosen few” — brilliant.