You Tripped at Every Step

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  Seven Songs for the Week #62

  Jason Carty

  Brutal Youth has just had its 30th birthday, and depending on the day, it's my favourite Costello album, possibly his best. I will make the case that it is a concept album, one that deals with time. This is particularly true in the back end of the album as EC thinks about London (London's Brilliant Parade), his possible alternate lives (My Science Fiction Twin, Rocking Horse Road), alternate partners (Just about Glad). Then there's the retrospective aspect of the cover image.

  At the time, this album was a big deal for me, having come on board with Elvis in 1989 I did not think I would get to see and hear the Attractions ever again, but here they are on some, but not all, of the tracks. YTAES is one of them, and to me it sounds perfect. Every instrument sounds like it should, gorgeous melody, a climbing frame of a song structure, wild harmonies. What's it about? Still not totally sure. It opens with more of the album's childhood imagery and might have something to do with an alcoholic parent. Somebody decided to put this out as a single.