They’re all here - and not to drop names but to connect the musical dots. "Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink" by Elvis Costello (Blue Rider) Young Declan MacManus who, in 1963, squirrels away a napkin signed by the Beatles, becomes Elvis Costello, a man enlisted, a quarter-century later, to write songs with Paul McCartney. The book serves as both musical and personal anthropology. But it’s not just for fans, more “Angela’s Ashes” than Motley Crue’s “The Dirt.” “Unfaithful Music” is a lyrical tale that stretches across generations, geography and a century of popular song. The book is also a gold mine for Costello obsessives who have spent decades dissecting and analyzing his every lyrical zinger. At 672 pages, “Unfaithful Music” is actually a breeze. Dare I blaspheme by declaring I liked it even more than the excellent memoirs produced by Bob Dylan and Keith Richards? Costello embraces the basic qualities of good storytelling: the use of detail, tension and humor. In a world littered with uneven (and largely ghosted) celebrity memoirs, “Unfaithful Music” is a beautifully written revelation. with small mirrors sewn into the fabric over a scoop-necked Mickey Mouse T-shirt”) during a meeting in London more than 40 years ago. We get the artist when he’s old enough to have perspective but still young enough to remember every detail, down to the shirt his father wore (“embroidered. The paragraph, sprung midway through Costello’s sprawling memoir, gets to the heart of what makes “Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink” so fascinating. “I once referred to this process as ‘Messing up my life, so I could write stupid little songs about it,’ ” he says, “and I can’t improve on that description here, but then songs are never exactly taken from life.”
He’s drinking too much, separated from his wife and embarking on a series of dysfunctional relationships. With his Buddy Holly glasses and punk-rock sneer, he already has established himself as a masterful songwriter, whether crafting torchlight ballads (“Alison”), tortured kiss-offs (“Lipstick Vogue”) or biting protest songs (“Oliver’s Army”) as buttery as anything in ABBA’s catalogue. It’s 1979, and Elvis Costello, not yet 25, is on a creative roll.