Beyond Belief

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  Seven Songs for the Week #163 - 20th May 26

  Jason Carty

  This year I have been going back and listening to Elvis Costello's catalogue chronologically. Trying not to rush it. For about a decade, I listened to little else, and know a significant amount of his music inside out. Also, depending on how you count, I've seen him live nearly 30 times. That's a lot of gigs. However you can drift away from things and I couldn't really remember when I last listened to EC for pleasure.

  I can viscerally remember hearing Beyond Belief for the first time. I became an EC fan in the slipstream of Spike in 1989, saw him in concert that May and then set about getting all his albums in some kind of order. I was given a copy of Imperial Bedroom for the family summer holiday, and I recall managing to hold off until sitting on the runway waiting to take off to press play. Beyond Belief is magic. He's singing different, a torrent of words but there isn't an attack, yet it has more angst and stress than his more explicit polemics. The Attractions are just creating this magic wash of noise behind him. It's still the best, imagine being able to conjure this up. And listening to Imperial Bedroom from front to back for the first time in a while, man it's good.