In 1998, Elvis Costello followed up All This Useless Beauty with Painted From Memory, a collection of songs co-written with Burt Bacharach. Even longtime Costello fans, accustomed to the man’s musical detours, were understandably taken aback.

My initial reaction to Painted From Memory was along the lines of the old guy at the Past Lives Pavilion in Defending Your Life: “What the hell is this? What the hell’s going on here?” [To see what I’m referring to, check out this clip, and as an aside, if you haven’t seen Defending Your Life, you should do so right away.]

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