Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink
- Aug 5, 2016
- 2 min read
★★★★☆
For the sake of brevity, something neither Elvis Costello's lyrics nor his memoir know much about, there are just two things I want to say about Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink. First, Elvis Costello is a man in love with words. He has, after all, written a lot of them—nearly 600 songs as far as I can tell—in the course of creating some of the most wonderful pop songs of the past 40 years. Even at their best, however, many are overloaded, jam-packed with so many words the songs are bursting at the seams as Costello delivers his lyrics with a frantic urgency that says, "There simply isn’t enough time to say everything I want to say."
At 672 pages, Elvis regales us with stories aplenty, from his earliest childhood memories to his collaboration with The Roots on his most recent album, 2013's Wise Up Ghost. While some recollections are richly detailed—Costello lingers longest, and returns often, to episodes from his childhood, particularly as regards his father—others pass in a blur as if seen from the window of a speeding car, which is how much of a life spent on the road must feel. Still others, like the 1979 episode in which Costello incited a brawl with some drunken, racist remarks, are written with the exasperation that such indignities must still be addressed and in the coded remove that turning life into lyric can provide. Which brings me to my point about this first point: much like the TV show Seinfeld portrayed how simple, often mundane, day-to-day life became the fodder for Jerry Seinfeld's standup routines, Unfaithful Music draws infinitely close the connection between Elvis Costello's life—and the events in his life—and the lyrics he’s penned.
Second, perhaps the best compliment any musician's memoir can hope for is that it reaffirms the reader's love for the music he knows and provokes a desire to explore the music he doesn't. In this way, Costello's book is a total success. Learning about his life and seeing that his music (and yes, his lyrics) has been a way for him to deal with his world—whether as confrontation, condemnation, exoneration or celebration—has increased my joy for the songs and albums I know, but, more importantly, has given me a new-found desire to reexamine the music with which I am less familiar or, in some unfortunate cases, of which I am completely ignorant.
I think I'll start with Costello's '90s period, which is as dark to me as any. But before moving on, I'd be remiss to point out that the irony of my lack of brevity here isn't lost on me. After all, I'd wager that Elvis Costello put every word in song and book for a reason, and would see no reason to remove any for the sake of brevity. Why shouldn't I do the same?
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