Elvis Costello’s next two releases after The Delivery Man were Il Sogno, a symphonic ballet score, and a live recording of a piano jazz session first heard on a radio show. You have to love the man’s versatility.
I’m not featuring either of those albums this weekend because a) I don’t own them, and b) neither features much of Costello as a performer. So I’m skipping ahead to another unorthodox recording, a 2008 collaboration with New Orleans piano man Allen Toussaint called The River in Reverse.
Costello wrote only six of the album’s 13 tracks (and five of those he co-wrote with Toussaint). The rest are tracks written by Toussaint in the 60s and 70s. The one song Costello penned on his own is the title track. It, like the album itself, is a response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
How long can a lie be told?
What would I take in exchange for my soul?
Would I notice when it was sold?
Wake me up
Wake me up
Wake me up with a slap or a kiss
There must be something better than this
‘Cos I don’t see how it can get much worse
What do we have to do to send
The river in reverse
Every man a crawling kingsnake
Every girl a half a heartbreak
Every woman sold into shame
To any son without a name
Are your arms too weak to lift?
Another shovel on the graveyard shift
Here comes the flood if you catch my drift
Where the things that they promised are not a gift
If man falls through the mirror of a lake
They fish him out quick and they call him a fake
Give him all the temptations he can take
Tie him up high ’til his bones break
Wake me up
Wake me up with a slap or a kiss
There must be something better than this
‘Cos I don’t see how it can get much worse
What do we have to do to send
The river in reverse
I thought I heard somebody laugh
Look out your window
They’re chasing shadows in the dark
And counting widows
I felt a sliver of glass
Saw a cross in splinters
I felt the truce of spring
Dig me out of the trench of winter
So count your blessings when they ask permission
To govern with money and superstition
They tell you it’s all for your own protection
‘Til you fear your own reflection
But the times are passing from illumination
Like bodies falling from a constellation
An uncivil war divides the nation
So erase the tape on that final ape running down creation
Wake me up
Wake me up with a slap or a kiss
There must be something better than this
Meet Me In Montauk 
I’m rather fond of this album, including this song. Haven’t played it for awhile though. Elvis has definitely done some interesting collaberations -, usually elevating the game of the artists with whom he is working. That was certainly the case with Bacherach and even McCartney. I can’t say that I knew Toussaint from a hole in the wall before this album, but I suspect Elvis brought out the best in him as well.