LISTENING PARTY: Mighty Like A Rose

(Note: There are no Youtube videos for any of these songs, and trying to embed links to napster didn't work, so if you're curious what any of these songs sound like, you can listen to the entire album free here )
I've been thinking about Elvis Costello's Mighty Like A Rose a lot the past few days, for two reasons. I've recently moved into my grandmother's old house, and I purchased MLAR on an October afternoon 15 years ago with my father before visiting my grandparents. The second reason is that my beard is itching like crazy. This reason is relevant because sometime between the 1989 release of his album "Spike", which at the time was his biggest US hit ever, and 1991 when MLAR was released, Elvis grew probably the grossest beard of all time. He had a habit of following up big commercial success with something really offputting: for example, after his huge song Oliver's Army made the album "Armed Forces" a sales juggernaut, he got drunk in a bar, made racist comments about Ray Charles, and then got beat up by a girl. That he was able to claw his way back from that, primarily on the back of his single Veronica is astonishing. And then he grew the beard:


Anyway, this is the album he made. I have a deep affection for it, although it tends to be one of his more maligned albums. It has a nasty streak, but if EC's beard was half as itchy as mine is, I understand.

"The Other Side of Summer"-My favorite part of this song is that it has a verse dedicated to talking about how stupid "Imagine" by John Lennon is. I thought I was the only one who felt this way. My other favorite part is that it has, and I checked the liner notes, three different bass parts. Everything on this album is so thick sounding, the musical equivalent of split pea soup. And nothing says split pea soup like three different bass players. (The liner notes by EC also revealed that most of this song was cut live, meaning that all three bass players were playing at the same time. This is many people's versions of hell~ especially anybody who lives below someone listening to this song on a stereo system with a subwoofer.)

"Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)"- Do you need anymore evidence of the beard's misanthropic effects than the title of this song? Any song that wishes for nuclear annihilation that isn't written by Randy Newman is bound to be pretty severe. This song only features one bass player, the great Nick Lowe, which suggests to me that all the rest were killed by radiation from the nuclear fallout.

"How to Be Dumb"- This song only features one bass player, too, but it's written about a bass player, so that counts, right? This song is allegedly (like OJ killed his wife allegedly) about former Attractions bass player Bruce Thomas, who wrote a book about life on the road with EC. This might be the most vituperative song ever written. And if you don't know what vituperative means, Elvis is going to write a song about you, too. All that having been said, this is the most "classic" EC song on the record, and if he didn't call Bruce Thomas "the funniest f**ker in the world" very clearly enunciated, it might've been the single. At one point my senior year, I considered using the song's last lyrics as my yearbook quote: "Scratch your own head, stupid, count up to three, roll over on your back, repeat after me: don't you know how to be dumb?" Luckily wiser heads prevailed.

"All Grown Up"- I question the appropriateness of a man who just wrote a song called 'How to Be Dumb' writing a song about being all grown up. This is the song where Elvis first works with a string section. Perhaps coincidentally, this is also the song where many people stopped liking Elvis Costello.

"Invasion Hit Parade"- Damn that beard must be itching him like hell. Because this song makes him sound miserable. It features only one bass player, but it does feature two Elvises, as he credits himself twice, once as "DPA MacManus" (his given name) and as "E.C." Although in fairness, I surmise that the reason he uses his surname is because his father is credited with playing trumpet on the track. So maybe he just wanted to highlight his dad's involvement. Or maybe, since he credits himself as playing an instrument called "Radio Hail, Hail Freedonia Breakthrough" (which sounds like he's scatting into the blades of a small office fan) it's also possible every decision he made on this album was made just for perversity's sake.

"Harpies Bizarre"-On this song, there is only one bass, but it is hung upside down. I'm not kidding, the credits read "hung upside down Rickenbacker tremelo bass." So my question, given EC's penchant for verbally eviscerating bass players, is the bass player himself also hung upside down? This song also features a bassoon, meaning it is the favorite EC song of my friend Jess, who used to be a concert bassoonist, even though she's never heard it. Bassoonists are a loyal breed. Well, at least I assume so, since if they weren't, I'm sure Elvis would've written a song about it.

"After the Fall"- Elvis writes in the liner notes that this was the last album he recorded where he still thought in the two-sided vinyl format, meaning that he meant for this song to be the last song on side A. And since this song is probably the most depressing and tuneless song I've ever heard, my guess is that he didn't really want you to listen to the seven songs on side B. In all likelihood because you'd either hung yourself halfway through this song, or because you'd smashed the record into pieces.

"Georgie and Her Rival"-I've seen Elvis over a dozen times in concert, but I've never heard him play this song. I bet he's forgotten it even exists. But it's not terrible, and paying attention to the lyrics for the first time ever, it's a pretty clever little story song. Elvis even sounds like he used a ton of hair conditioner in his beard, because he doesn't sound like he wants to kill you musically.

"So Like Candy"- This song was co-written with Paul McCartney. From the Beatles (I know, I know, I bet you thought it was the guy from Wings.) Bass player count: two. I think it's the only song from this album that he still plays live, and it's pretty clear he likes it. There's a great line at the end about "Candy" taping a note to a record sleeve, which is one of those terrific images that seems so real. Things that seem less real? That anybody in the latter half of the 20th century is named Candy.

"Interlude: Couldn't Call it Unexpected No.2"- Who called for an interlude? Even if it did feature the Dirty Dozen Brass Band? And what kind of guy calls in the Dirty Dozen Brass band and has them play for 21 seconds? Same guy who thought this was a good look:

"Playboy to a Man"- Also co-written by Paul McCartney, except this time it's the guy from Wings. According to the liner notes, Elvis sang this song through a long rusty lead pipe. There's no joke that goes along with that. I just wonder who went to the junkyard to fetch the long rusty lead pipe? I will bet all the money in my pockets versus all the money in your pockets it was the bass player.

"Sweet Pear"- Where is Elvis meeting all these girls with the weird names?

"Broken"- This song was written by Elvis's then wife, Cait O'Riordan. When I was a teenager, I used to imagine getting married to somebody with as Irish a sounding name as Cait O'Riordan, but I would skip the part where she wrote songs that I recorded on my albums. I also skipped the part where she was a 14-year old boy, because that is who these lyrics sound like they were written by.

"Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4"- Don't bother looking for number 3. It's like that prank where kids release 3 goats into a school and paint 1, 2, and 4 on the sides so that everybody's looking for "goat number 3" all day. The final lines of this song were also contenders for yearbook quotes: "I can't believe I'll never believe in anything again." There's a truth bomb, right there. He sounds almost happy on this song. Know why? No bass player. Just a tuba. And how many bands do you think would be improved by replacing their bassists with tuba players? If you answered all of them, you would be correct. I've seen Elvis sing this song several times, and each time he shuts off his mike and sings out into the hall un-amplified. It's a show-boaty thing to do, no doubt, but he's smiling when he does it, as if to say "Holy shit was that beard itchy."