The career of a typical rock star can be divided into four seasons, as follows:
- SPRING: Armed with talent, a chip on his shoulder, and an invincible desire to be rich and famous, our hero storms the world and demands to be heard. Against the odds, the world starts to listen.
- SUMMER: Our hero is the man of the hour. Everything he says and does is subject to intense public scrutiny. He quickly concludes that fame and fortune aren’t all they were cracked up to be, and is crushed by both his own and the public’s expectations.
- FALL: The public has moved on and found new idols. No longer captive to outsized expectations, and with plenty of money, our hero experiments with a variety of genres and sharpens his craft. He will never again be the center of the universe, but he still has plenty that is worthwhile to say.
- WINTER: Death or endless nostalgia tours. It’s hard to say which is worse.
Elvis Costello entered his autumn phase about 35 years ago. He has collaborated with a wide range of artists, from the Brodsky Quartet to Questlove, ever since. He was the host of a wonderful interview series called “Spectacle” on TV. He has dabbled in movies. Once an enfant terrible, today he is almost universally admired. He’s married to a beautiful and brilliant jazz singer. Life is good.
His new CD, “Look Now,” has been described by critics as his best work of the 21st century, which it is. The comparisons to “Imperial Bedroom,” to me, are inaccurate; “Imperial Bedroom” was full of anger and self-reproach, while “Look Now” is more rounded and matter-of-fact. The analogy to “Painted from Memory,” on the other hand, makes sense, given that Burt Bacharach collaborated on both. The best songs on “Look Now,” however, are much better than the best songs on “Painted from Memory.”
To me, the highlights of “Look Now” are two collaborations with Bacharach that were apparently supposed to be part of a musical that hasn’t seen the light of day. “Photographs Can Lie” is a gem of a song that would hold up next to Bacharach’s hits from the sixties and seventies. “He’s Given Me Things” sounds like a prequel to “I Want You;” it’s vivid, mournful, and kind of creepy. It concludes with lines that sound like a warning that extends beyond the boundaries of the musical:
“He’s got an awful lot of money/The past can be bought, and then erased.”
Let’s hope not.