Elvis Costello’s Spike features quite a few political songs — including the capital punishment commentary of ‘Let Him Dangle’ and the anti-Thatcher ‘Tramp the Dirt Down’ — and the personal songs are pretty dark.
Even ‘Veronica,’ the jaunty minor hit co-written with Paul McCartney, is about an elderly woman who has seen her identity stripped away while living out her final days in a nursing home.
So while Costello is dressed as a clown on the album’s cover, he’s most decidedly a sad clown.
Elvis Costello released two great albums in 1986 but then took a break for three years before releasing his next disc, 1989’s Spike.
Spike was the first Costello album I bought as a new release, and as such it holds a special place in my heart.
Looking at it objectively, it’s a bit of a mess, but this batch of songs was like manna from heaven for a young guy who had recently discovered a new favorite artist and was dying for new material.
It’s tough to decide which Blood & Chocolate song to highlight today.
I’m tempted to go with ‘Battered Old Bird,’ a bizarre epic that paints a surreal picture of the inhabitants of an apartment building (based on Costello’s real neighbors from his childhood home).
Or the creepy, obsessive ‘I Want You,’ the album’s 7-minute centerpiece, on which Costello repeats the title phrase ad nauseum while imagining his lover’s infidelity. But the truth is, I’ve been spoiled by Fiona Apple’s live version of that song (performed with Costello on guitar) and pretty much consider that masterpiece the definitive version.
Just six months after King of America hit shelves, Elvis Costello released another full-length album, 1986’s Blood & Chocolate.
I wish I’d been a fan at that point because I can’t imagine the glee with which this release must have been met right on the heels of its classic predecessor.
Costello has always been a prolific artist but putting out two of his best albums within half a year of each other is an embarrassment of riches.
A couple of weeks back, I described Imperial Bedroom as my first Elvis Costello album. Sitting here today, I’m wondering whether or not that’s true. It may well have been King of America.
I definitely remember receiving King of America (along with Michael Penn’s March) as a birthday gift from my sister and brother-in-law. And thinking back, that must have been my introduction to Costello.
Either way, it supports the theory that we maintain an allegiance to the work that serves as an entry point to a beloved new artist. It’s probably no coincidence that those two albums remain my favorite Costello releases to this date.
Meet Me In Montauk 