ABSTRACT

Elvis Costello would no doubt bristle at the suggestion that he is a poet. Songwriters tend to hate that. Costello's discussion of his 'muse' with Nick Kent, just after the release of My Aim Is True, highlights the lengths he was willing to go to give this invention a unique identity. In a nutshell, McCombe argues that the Elvis Costello's ultimate target is Elvis Costello, that the early phase of Elvis Costello is 'marked by fear and self-loathing'. Costello's gifts as a humorist are well displayed on the last cut of the album as well, 'Waiting for the End of the World', where Costello exploits the mundane frustration of trying to get home on the train by hyperbolizing it as an apocalyptic death wish. Characteristic of Costello's elusive allusiveness, the writer expects us to get the reference to the death of Elvis Presley. It might be said, that Imperial Bedroom is a kind of logical consequence of Costello's debut.