by Elvis Costello

I was six years late to this discovery, but that was somewhat typical to my situation. I grew up in small town Texas and, whereas disco had already died by 1980 elsewhere, it fought a losing battle in the cultural outskirts until at least the mid-1980s. Maybe even longer, but in 1984 I moved to Austin and that made all the difference in my musical education.

Most of my high school classmates favored the pop country and rock of the time, although some heavy metal and hard rock stalwarts existed. Myself and a couple of others had even discovered "progressive" rock bands like Pink Floyd and Genesis. But no one I knew ever professed their favor for punk, so my first exposure to it in Austin was as revolutionary to my tastes as the British Invasion was to 60s Frankie Avalon listeners. At first I thought it merely noise--and in some cases, like the Sex Pistols, still do--but there were bands that I responded to, mostly of the LA and New Wave variant (X and Joe Jackson are my favorite representative examples). But towering over these in their influence over my twenties was the original angry young man, Elvis Costello.

Strangely enough, I associate Costello with another 70s subculture icon, the comic character Howard the Duck. Both personas were charactures of traditional figures: Donald in Howard's case; Elvis Presley (by name) and Buddy Holly (by style) in Costello's. Both tweaked the nose of the establishment, yet were both beholden to it for their own existence (best captured by Costello in his song "Radio, Radio" off his second album). Both were strangers in a strange land, Howard surrounded by all us hairy apes, Elvis in a music landscape of mirrorballs and platform shoes.

Which is what makes My Aim Is True such a revelation. The instrumentation harkens back to the Beatles, but the fierce energy is similar to contemporaries like the Sex Pistols. The opening lyrics reveal that this isn't the same old stuff:

Now that your picture's in the paper
Being rhythmically admired

Both upfront and coy, those lines exemplify something that "the singing dictionary" brought to rock that had been missing throughout much of its short history: an intellectual's approach. In fact, you might even say that's the hallmark of the New Wave, which also brought us those design college kids, Talking Heads, in addition to Costello and his Brit contemporary, Joe Jackson.

That opening ditty, "Welcome to the Working Week", is just a minute-and-a-half long, and reflected Costello's pointing back to a time before disco and blues-rock, to the 1950s of his doppelganger Buddy Holly, where songs were quick and to the point. However, Holly's love ditties to Peggy Sue never made reference to the subsequent breakup and lover's dissolution ("I'm Not Angry") or a total confusion about sex in the first place ("Mystery Dance"). In "Sneaky Feelings," Costello sings about how he wants to be the breaker of homes rather than the one whose home is broken, wanting to become the betrayer rather than the betrayed. The red shoes of the title, "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes," are akin to Hester Pryne's red letters, in that it's the victim wearing the stigma of a sexual crime (not to mention encompassing the best expression of a jilted lover's pathos in the opening line, "Oh, I used to be disgusted / Now I try to be amused" that is simply apropos to so many more things than just a simple lover's spat). The song that would seem closest to the Holly tradition, the ballad "Alison," is still about a lover's betrayal ("...but I heard you let that little friend of mine / take off your party dress").

Betrayal is the guiding theme between all of these songs, mostly by a lover, but sometimes about the promises of society and culture in general. Of the latter songs, "Less Than Zero" is the most opaque, although its chorus fit nicely with the apathetic context of a generation of intelligent children of converted baby boomers. Nihilism pervades the story song, "Waiting for the End of the World," which could also be read as the theme song for a new beat generation.

Most rock and roll up to the time of this album had been about, well, rock-and-roll: the kind of thing that happens in the car when you're out on Make-out Lane or at least the pleading and promises of those who want to take a drive out that way. Especially in the 1970s, when disco held sway, the popular music celebrated the mating ritual and subsequent actions like never before. What Costello set his sights on, and hit the bullseye with My Aim Is True, was the aftermath, the more likely ending to a sweaty night in the backseat than "happily ever after." In later albums, he would broaden that vision, expanding his targets to the cultural commentary briefly explored here, to take aim at the radio industry, government, and consumerism. But for this first album, he skewered relationships like the anti-Cupid, in a Valentine's gift for us all.