The EP version, much slower and prettier, is constructed to bring out his uncertainty, locating the tension between the daintiness of Costello's piano and the overreaching of his voice. The rush of the band and the swirling eddies of the organ give Costello something to fight against, but they also tend to camouflage his vulnerability. On the album the 'I' of that refrain is transfigured into a muted cry ('aah') that is repeated incessently throughout the song's coda. The song is essentially about guilt and though in each verse Costello points his finger elsewhere, with each refrain he comes back to himself ( 'I don't want to hear it / I know what I've done'). But this sketch does more than illuminate the final version-it takes on a spare eloquence of its own. The EP version, with Costello enunciating every word and accompanying himself solo on piano, serves as a way into the more elaborately arranged, boldly colored album take. But the EP's most telling cut is 'Accidents Will Happen,' which is also the album's opening song. The EP includes an extended version of 'Watching the Detectives' and the softer, more suppliant rendition of 'Alison' that Costello began to introduce on his second tour. While this makes the album his most ambiguous, it also makes it his most generous.Ī bonus accompanying the first 200,000 pressings of the album is a three-song EP recorded at a Hollywood High concert early last summer. On Armed Forces his use of 'you' and 'I' has become increasingly blurred, so much so that half the time it is impossible to figure out whether he's lashing himself or someone else. For Costello, everything is always personal, which means that while he is occasionally petty he is never cold-blooded, and that he's capable of identifying with his adversaries. It's this fascination with power - more than his command of metaphor and image, more than his piercing moodiness - that makes the comparisons with Dylan apt for once. If Costello is not quite as belligerent on Armed Forces as he was on his previous two albums, the title announces that he still sees the world in terms of power. These are the armed forces that the title of his new album is referring to. He has made it clear from the first that he doesn't trust anyone entirely - the British government, the music industry, his fans, his lovers, least of all himself. 'I'll do anything to confuse the enemy.' If Elvis Costello had a business card, those words (from 'The Beat') would be on it, the equivalent of Paladin's 'Have Gun Will Travel.' Costello doesn't go on to tell us who the enemy is because he doesn't have to.

The village voice its village voicey