Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello - Painted From Memory
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CD Details
Artist: Burt Bacharach, Elvis CostelloEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 1998-09-29
Music Label: Island / Mercury
Soundtracks:
- In The Darkest Place
- Toledo
- I Still Have That Other Girl
- This House Is Empty Now
- Tears At The Birthday Party
- Such Unlikely Lovers
- My Thief
- The Long Division
- Painted From Memory
- The Sweetest Punch
- What's Her Name Today?
- God Give Me Strength
Music reviews of Painted From Memory
Music Review: Opposites AttractJust How Opposite Are They
Rating: 5 Stars
I'll come clean...I`ve been a huge Burt Bacharach fan for as long as I can remember. (Six years old, riding in a school bus over the Triborough bridge and seeing day after day the 8-story high ad for his Broadway musical "Promises, Promises"...my favorite song at the time and getting all happy inside.) I loved his warm, yet oddly off-beat and simultaneously tuneful songs. Even throwaways like "Nikki" (His theme for the "ABC Movies of the Week") held me in sway. I loved everything he did. And as is the case with things you like a lot, they go away. I stopped hearing his music on the radio. Tastes had changed. I was changing...developing my own tastes. P-Funk. Carly Simon. EWF. The Beatles. The O'Jays. And eventually as my teens ended, Elvis Costello. Who I liked...but did not love. Maybe the early stuff I heard from him was a little Ska-heavy and didn't fire me up as much as it did other folks. But I did like a lot of his work, notably the song "Alison". (Even the cover version by Linda Ronstadt was great!) But again...it was like. Not LOVE. Flash forward 15 years. Older and now able to buy all the records a near-reasonable salary could afford. My love for Bacharach still intact like some folks need for guilty comfort foods AND a broadened appreciation for Costello's lyrics. I owned almost all of Burt's albums and maybe four of Elvis' when I heard about a song they did for the movie "Grace of My Heart" which I remembered got strong reviews but no box-office. I rent the movie and fall in love with it...forgetting about the song until the end of the film when I hear it performed by Kristen Vigard. And then after the movie ends there's a clip of Burt and Elvis doing it. "God Give Me Strength". I'm knocked on the goddamned floor. The weird yet perfect Bacharach chords and time signatures, those achy but up-front Costello lyrics. Who'd have possibly thought they could work together? Not me! And I appreciated them both! The soundtrack version I find is even better than the clip. I get the "Perfect Song" chill up my spine. (The kind you get from Aretha songs circa '67-'75) And I know why. I'm hearing an actual musical ARRANGEMENT for God's sake! The strings weave with the horns which run like a little river next to the piano which nestles atop the drums and ahh...you get the picture! A real arrangement with lyrics that mean something worth a damn! I was thrilled! And soon depressed because I knew the odds of getting more stuff like this were Callista Flockhart slim. A year later, who but a fellow sentimental goof (Thanks, TC) should surprise me with the "Painted From Memory" CD as a gift. This time, I am knocked into the goddamned basement. The murky, end of one's rope melancholy of the first track, "In The Darkest Place" sets the tone. These are songs of heartbreak, loss and wanting. Bacharach's breezy tunefulness was always shot through with a marbling of dark, unexpected emotive chords and Costello's "angry young man" persona has always worn a freshly tattooed and still bleeding heart on it's sleeve. The alleged "artifice" of Burt meets the oft-maligned "bluntness" of Elvis and the two mate like glove in hand. Burt shows (a heretofore known only to his biggest fans) depth and Elvis lets the anger go and gives you his (to some surprisingly very warm) heart. "Toledo" is the best example of this with it's slinky bossa-nova offset by it's "I'm not really crying, I've just been slicing onions" lyrics. "I Still Have That Other Girl" is a cathartic gut-spiller from a guy who knows that she knows that HE knows there's a problem with their situation. "This House Is Empty Now" speaks for itself. By song's end you want to send the police over to check on the poor guy. Track after melodious, emotional track on this album you will find something that prevents you from hitting "skip" on the CD player. From the green-eyed, devolution to child-like acting-out of "Tears at The Birthday Party" to the helpless resignation of "My Thief" the duo does the impossible; namely resurrect the spirit of the pop standard. The wonderful "God Give Me Strength" is included here but...the standout is the title selection "Painted From Memory". It is merely one of the most heart-breakingly wistful songs you will ever hear. A near perfect marriage of words, music and raw emotion, this tune makes you wish the mid-50' s Capitol Sinatra were around to sing it. But guess what? Costello does a world-class job with it. Bacaharach melodies and time-signature jumps can try even the most gifted singers. But these are Elvis' lyrics and when the music pushes his voice to the breaking point, his lyrics are there to push him too. It's an effect that only heightens the albums emotions. My advice: turn the lights down, get a good bottle of wine, pop this CD in and don't answer your phone for an hour. By the time the album ends, you'll have found something you weren't even looking for...namely the bottom of your heart.
Description of Painted From Memory
Our Seller's Notes and Fine Print :.Columbia Records Classic.As promised, Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach's long-awaited full-length collaboration Painted from Memory bears the hallmarks of Bacharach's classic '60s work with the likes of Dionne Warwick--full-force melodies, traditional pop instrumentation, clever and occasionally pained lyrics. It finds the pair reveling in their gifts on a dozen tracks that range from concise under-three-minute gems to sprawling art songs. The result is a set of instant classics that stand head and shoulders above much of Costello's '90s recordings. --Rickey Wright
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