Thank you for the flowers
I threw them on the fire
And I burned the photographs that you had enclosed
God they were ugly children
So you're the little bastard of that brother of mine
Trying to trick a poor old woman
'Til I almost had a weakness
So begins "I Almost Had a Weakness," a darkly amusing and arresting element of The Juliet Letters, a song cycle written and performed by Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet in 1993. This album has long been one of my favorites among Costello's dozens of excellent and occasionally superlative albums released since the late 1970s. The Juliet Letters is the subject of an enjoyable hour-long documentary (available via Netflix) in which the musicians talk about the process of writing and performing the pieces and during which many of the pieces are performed.
The Juliet Letters song cycle was recently adapted into a theater piece complete with a narrative to hold the pieces together. The songs, each written in the form of a different kind of letter, are strong and beautiful enough to stand on their own without having some artificial thread strung between them in an attempt to make them more powerful or accessible. It is hard to think of a composer of popular music who writes more accessible melodies or more arresting hooks than Elvis Costello, and the combination of his plaintive voice and the masterful playing by the Brodsky Quartet, by turns swooning, insistent, humorous and angry, makes for a powerful work of art. Each song is like a new scene in a stage play, or like a whole play unto itself: a letter from a female soldier fearing that she won't live to return home; a letter from a law office reducing a highly emotional breakup to a legal document; a letter of disinheritance from a half-mad aunt to the relatives she suspects are out to take her for her money; even a chain-letter-style Faustian come-on:
Don't send any money!
Fate has no price
Ignore at your peril this splendid advice
An invaluable link in an infinite chain
An offer like this will just not come again . . .
Would I lie to you?
Would I sell you a dud?
Just sign on the line.
Could you possibly write it in blood?
Each is written in a different musical style appropriate to the text and the feeling of the song. The range of feelings and styles is wide and satisfying. For example, "Who Do You Think You Are?" is an insulting letter written to expose the foibles of an ex-lover. Costello's trademarked snide and sneeringly eviscerative style are very much in evidence here:
The hunted look, the haunted grace
The empty laugh that you cultivate
You fall into that false embrace
And kiss the air about her face
Who do you think you are?
The très bon mots you almost quote from your quiver of literary darts
A thousand or so tuneless violins thrilling your cheap little heart
Who do you think you are?
The Juliet Letters song cycle was recently adapted into a theater piece complete with a narrative to hold the pieces together. The songs, each written in the form of a different kind of letter, are strong and beautiful enough to stand on their own without having some artificial thread strung between them in an attempt to make them more powerful or accessible. It is hard to think of a composer of popular music who writes more accessible melodies or more arresting hooks than Elvis Costello, and the combination of his plaintive voice and the masterful playing by the Brodsky Quartet, by turns swooning, insistent, humorous and angry, makes for a powerful work of art. Each song is like a new scene in a stage play, or like a whole play unto itself: a letter from a female soldier fearing that she won't live to return home; a letter from a law office reducing a highly emotional breakup to a legal document; a letter of disinheritance from a half-mad aunt to the relatives she suspects are out to take her for her money; even a chain-letter-style Faustian come-on:
Don't send any money!
Fate has no price
Ignore at your peril this splendid advice
An invaluable link in an infinite chain
An offer like this will just not come again . . .
Would I lie to you?
Would I sell you a dud?
Just sign on the line.
Could you possibly write it in blood?
Each is written in a different musical style appropriate to the text and the feeling of the song. The range of feelings and styles is wide and satisfying. For example, "Who Do You Think You Are?" is an insulting letter written to expose the foibles of an ex-lover. Costello's trademarked snide and sneeringly eviscerative style are very much in evidence here:
The hunted look, the haunted grace
The empty laugh that you cultivate
You fall into that false embrace
And kiss the air about her face
Who do you think you are?
The très bon mots you almost quote from your quiver of literary darts
A thousand or so tuneless violins thrilling your cheap little heart
Who do you think you are?
Though he started out as one of New Wave music's premier Angry Young Men, Costello has always had a melodic bent and a brilliant ear for ballads like his first big hit, "Alison," as well as for driving, powerful rock anthems like "Pump It Up." His beautiful but half-ravaged voice, alternately brooding, cooing, wailing and pleading, is put to fine use in the darkly witty, sarcastic, spot-on observations and insights of his pop and rock works. In The Juliet Letters he further proves his versatility and shows himself capable of creating art songs in a pop-infused style that was surely influenced by the brilliant, dark and heartbreakingly beautiful popular art songs of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht found in works such as The Threepenny Opera.
