Boy with a Problem

One reason I'm not terribly guilty about very occasionally downloading copyrighted music for free: at other times, I'm the record industry's complete bootlicking tool. For instance: A week or so ago I bought three Elvis Costello recordings...for the fourth time each. Rhino's been reissuing them, after Ryko reissued them, and of course I bought the original Columbia CDs at some point, after having bought the Columbia LPs more or less when they were released...

While I'm glad to have the bonus tracks, and I like the format Rhino's using better than Ryko's (one disc of the original album, one disc of bonus tracks, compared to Ryko's cramming a handful of bonus tracks after the original album's track selections), in some ways EC's liner notes are nearly worth the price of purchase. He's a witty and self-perceptive critic, and while there was a while there when it seemed he couldn't pass up any possible opportunity to throw darts at his Bruce Thomas voodoo doll, he's generally amusing rather than self-indulgent. But the notes for the new edition of Get Happy!! are rather amazing, I think: he addresses, at great length, the Ray Charles Incident. I think I understand, strategically, what he drunkenly thought he was doing: having chosen his target (self-satisfied L.A. soft-rockers including Bonnie Bramlett and Stephen Stills), and having carefully assessed exactly what they'd least want to hear - especially as it activated and irritated their own carefully buried hypocrisies - Elvis let fly with the infamous barb that, following suit from his own reluctance to repeat it in his notes, I'll omit here as well.

Of course, the word "drunkenly" above is key, and throws everything else completely out of whack, since it allowed Costello to utterly, tragically miscalculate what would otherwise have been obvious: out of context, the nastiness of his remark had unintended targets quite other than he would have aimed at - as well as clearly illustrating the truth of the cliche regarding fingerpointing and the reverberation upon self of same. It may well be that Charles, recognizing that Costello meant no harm to him, has forgiven Costello for what he said, much as one forgives a child who publicly embarrasses someone else. Costello, however, knows he's no child - and, it seems, is unable to forgive himself.

The prevailing emotion in that part of Costello's notes is shame - and it struck me just how rare an emotion true shame is these days. Certainly, it's an emotion alien to the buffoons, exhibitionists, and oafs trumpeting themselves on daytime TV - and it seems utterly foreign to certain unelected high government officials, whose arrogance in assessing what the public will swallow is exceeded only, and sadly, by the apparent accuracy of their assessments, since complacency is still our national emotion, and "whatever" our effective national motto. Since I'm trying (and will probably fail) to not make every one of these posts a political rant, I'll sidestep that issue, and instead say a few words about the open-air confessionals indulged in by Springerites.

I almost think their inability to feel shame (or, when their problems are simply embarrassing, sad, or disgusting, their inability to just shut up) is based on a misapplication of truths learned, and proclaimed by, various personal liberation movements. The Springer crowd saw, for example, gay men and lesbians throwing off the chains of social disapproval and, more importantly, their own inappropriate shame, and proudly and publicly proclaiming themselves to be who they are.

This time, the key word above is "inappropriate": no one should be ashamed of who they are, of their sexuality, especially since it hurts no one, and in fact only hurts anyone when shame is attached to it. But the more serious misbehavers of afternoon TV miss the point, and imagine it's all about bullishly and loudly refusing to countenance anyone else's inconvenience, ideas, or pain; and arrogantly proclaim themselves the Sun Kings of their own blinkered solar systems.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Catholic religion - but it's always struck me that the utility of confession is that speaking the truth of who one is is a necessary first step to becoming a better person: "better" because more honest and self-aware (and in a weird way, that aspect of confession is analogous to coming out of the closet). But that's only the first step: the rest is, having become aware, resolving to change. And again, we get back to inappropriate vs. appropriate shame: Elvis Costello knows not only that his remarks were hurtful and offered encouragement to hate-filled people, but that they spoke the bitter truth that he was a lesser person than he wanted to be. And drunkenness offers no excuse (and not because I'm some moralistic person disapproving of drunkenness): it only removes our usual public filters, allowing truths to leak forth. It's not that Elvis Costello was a racist, in the sense of possessing an active hatred for African-Americans; it's instead the realization that his own needs - to be clever, to point out hypocrisy, to be nasty, whatever they might have been - were deeper-seated than his realization of how painful his remarks might be for others.

I think, though, maybe he finally should forgive himself. The fact that twenty-three years on, he still feels such intense shame - and to me, the notes are painfully clear on that account - in itself says something. But I think, too, that it had an immediate effect on his writing. Prior to 1980, Costello was quite often a provocateur, his lyrics playing with fascism, racism, and interpersonal abuse in ways that seem almost too carbon-copy "punk rock," regardless of whom such provocations might have hurt. I think the Ray Charles incident forcefully brought home for him the fact that words can hurt, that they can be intensely harmful regardless of intent. And in his lyrics after 1980, that sense of enfant provocateur is almost wholly absent. Instead, we get almost blatantly self-confessing lines (regardless of context) like "I wish I'd never opened my mouth almighty" and "I don't mean to be mean much anymore."

And this is why, from their voyeuristic and subtly sadistic views on high, the critics and others who long for the return of Angry Young Elvis are so wrong: that Elvis, however bracing his cynical, sarcastic insight, could also be just plain mean. And I guess I have a problem with those who so cavalierly wish to sit safely to the side and revel in the carnage. They're not the ones who get hurt.