Elvis Costello 15: Mighty Like A Rose

With the success of “Veronica” driving the sales of his last album, Elvis had a hit on his hands. An attempt to record with the Attractions failed, so he went back to the studio with many of the session cats who’d helped on Spike and on the road. Many EC obsessives hated Mighty Like A Rose upon release, lumping in how much they hated his new look—long frizzy hair and an unkempt beard that brought to mind a Hasidic Jerry Garcia. To this day the album still divides fans, despite its improvement over the chaotic Spike. This time the variety of styles is much more cohesive, helped by a liberal dose of Costello-brand bile.

“The Other Side Of Summer” opens the proceedings with a big Beach Boys production, complete with harmonies and Spector touches. The irony is deflated by the clanky “Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)”, an apocalyptic rant whose main redeeming quality is to give Jim Keltner songwriting royalties for the drum loop. “How To Be Dumb” brings things back to normal, with a diatribe against Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas, who’d used his downtime to write a book about his life as a musician (though it’s hard to say why Elvis was so pissed, since the worst thing the book says about him is that he suffered from aviophobia). “All Grown Up” is one of the more lush numbers here, with the vocal matching the histrionics of the plot. “Invasion Hit Parade” is an angry response to that year’s Gulf War, and sadly hits the same salient points today. “Harpies Bizarre” recalls the ornate sound of Imperial Bedroom; it must be said that his lyrics have become increasingly cryptic over the years. That doesn’t apply to “After The Fall”, an uncanny Leonard Cohen homage, except that the lyrics are a lot funnier.

The second half of the album has just as many peaks. “Georgie And Her Rival” is pure pop, again arranged like the early ‘80s. The tragedy within “So Like Candy” is as aching a Paul McCartney collaboration as “Playboy To A Man”, featuring the yowling Elvis in a new guise as “the Mighty Corsican”, is silly. (In between “Interlude: Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 2”, the instrumental fragment almost as long as its title, brings back the Dirty Dozen Brass Band as a palate cleanser.) “Sweet Pear” goes a step further to Beatle fandom with a nod to “Don’t Let Me Down” in the intro, and includes Elvis’s most labored and lengthy guitar solo. Most people’s least favorite track is “Broken”; written by Cait O’Riordan, its spare delivery and spooky production show some similarities to Sinead O’Connor’s style. “Couldn’t Call It Unexpected No. 4” provides a grand finale, its chorus of horns, banjo, and toy piano leading a march into the sunset out of the man’s passionate vocal—one of his greatest. (Those of us wondering where the other two parts of the song were might have listened in vain to the soundtrack for the British miniseries G.B.H., which came out a few months later and sported orchestral music co-composed with Richard Harvey.)

Mighty Like A Rose found nowhere near the success of his previous album, and was unfairly maligned as the decade went on. We think it still holds up, even though he’s never gone back to the full beard look. (Stubble doesn’t count.)

Rhino’s reissue of the album was lavish, with its bonus disc lasting over an hour. The completed outtake “Just Another Mystery” was a big surprise, having never been mentioned or rumored before. Irish-flavored detours with Mary Coughlan and the Chieftains are balanced with the wonderful “Put Your Big Toe In The Milk Of Human Kindness”, recorded with Rob Wasserman and Marc Ribot. Some excellent live tracks dip into his hoarse appearance on MTV Unplugged, including a rearranged “Other Side Of Summer” in waltz time, along with a live “Couldn’t Call It Unexpected No. 4” with Elvis at the piano. Scattered throughout are some home demos that can best be described as “orchestrated”, dominated by keyboards and once again showing how much of the arrangements he had already envisioned. A revisit of “Forgive Her Anything” is a surprise, and there’s even a preview of “Starting To Come To Me”. (As with the last album, demos for the two McCartney collaborations on the album would emerge elsewhere.)

Elvis Costello Mighty Like A Rose (1991)—4
2002 Rhino: same as 1991, plus 17 extra tracks