It's a truism that, come the third album, an artist either puts up or shuts up. That doesn't apply here, this being 'Elvis' fifth album.

He has persistently 'put up' music with an IQ superior to his contemporaries, simply. His lyrics enlighten by going beyond the obvious and cliched summaries seized upon with consummate inefficiency by small fry songmerchants. They, by chewing on and dribbling out the cud of popular music, thrive on the stockmarket of 'love' and 'romance'. ('You strike a profile on the low side of my imagination').

Costello deals with the actuality of relationship – the asides, suspicions, deceits and compromises. It would require an intense ear to follow his lyrical drift from start to finish. Consequently, a line, a particularly poignant pun, may dominate (if you catch it in the right mood), and stick out of context. He nails it down once, echoes it, and runs. Beat that music, Barry Gibb.