Light On Dark Water

Okay, Ryan, I finally gave Costello a fair look, courtesy of an Amazon $1.99 special.

My old friend Robert, who once seemed to buy or somehow manage to hear every pop album, bought this when it came out. It was a time when I wasn’t hearing a lot of pop music, but I’d heard of this, and asked him how he liked it. As I recall he sort of shrugged and said something like “Well, it’s okay, but it doesn’t speak to my condition.” I borrowed it from him and didn’t care for most of it. But I remember liking “Alison” and “Watching the Detectives.”

Now, over thirty years later, my reaction is similar. But now I’d say I like most of the album, and really like those two songs. They remain the high points, though it strikes me now that “Alison” should have another verse rather than the repetitive fade. And I echo Robert’s comment: the songs are well-written and ingenious, the musicianship is excellent (way beyond what I understood was supposed to be the range of punk), but it doesn’t touch me very strongly. Part of it is that I don’t care for Costello’s singing, and part is that the lyrics don’t seem to get much beyond a general irritation; the tone is negative but the album doesn’t have the depth of spiritual melancholy that makes me like a lot of pretty dark music.

But how can you resist this portrait of a bored young woman watching cop shows on TV? (“Watching the Detectives”):

I don’t know how much more of this I can take
She’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake

Pre-TypePad

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