When it gets dark, a little light can help. And before darkness falls, Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, both masters of the song, light torches that will blaze for a long time. The songwriters, it was thought, had passed the zenith, lost the magic. “Painted From Memory” proves the complete opposite: the summit has only now been reached.
“Does the extinguished candle care about the darkness?” Elvis Costello sings once more and definitively about love in these torch songs – and the real wonder of this album is the way Costello uses his voice: he knotts, bruises and bleeds, he does violence to the voice and soars to heights that seemed unattainable – and the song carries. The partner has a “loud, powerful voice,” says Burt Bacharach laconically. And built his majestic arrangements not over Costetlo’s vocals, but around them. This is how it happened that a non-singer, who was lovingly smiled at, achieved the most impressive singing performance of his career.
Aging men about love – doesn’t that sound like a final rebellion, stale clichés and later loin lust? Yes, but it’s nothing with all that. Because Costello and Bacharach actually paint these scenes from memory and in the knowledge that all love is nothing but memory and possibly an illusion: “She is lost to me now/ But I can’t look away just yet/ Though she smiles for someone else/ And so that had to be painted from memory/ Funny how looks can be deceiving.” A man looks back without regret, the violins sob like in the most beautiful melodramas and like Scott Walker, the congenial Bacharach singer, Costello still exalts once the voice in pain, but without hope: “She is gone / And I must accept it” The chorus repeats this, but it would be a consolation.
All wounds open
Elvis Costello used to hit back in “Shabby Doll” and “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” furious songs about jealousy and madness. Meanwhile, he offers mercy to the Almighty in the awe-inspiring song the two songwriters first penned, which now closes Painted From Memory – “God Give Me Strength”: “She was the light that I blessed/ I might as well wipe her from my memory.” He speaks solemnly, he whispers imploringly, in vain. And all wounds open.
The secret, the magic of these pieces lies in the grandezza of both talents: they are Costello’s lyrics, but it is Bacharach’s sound. The Costello touch, the Bacharach touch. We say here only once that it cuts into the heart. Because you can’t talk about love. Listen at home, at night and alone.
A text from the RS archive