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There are some concerts that burn forever in the memory. For this reviewer, seeing Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve in 1999 at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, PA is one for the pantheon. The year before, Costello released Painted from Memory, a collection of torch songs and ballads co-written by songcraft great Burt Bacharach. It was the best work either man had done in years, and though Bacharach didn’t accompany Costello on the road, the live interpretations were some of the most impassioned performances this reviewer has witnessed. Notoriously difficult to find on vinyl, Painted from Memory has remained a holy grail collectors’ item for years until now with the release of The Songs of Bacharach & Costello, a deluxe box set featuring the record and a trove of bonus material including Bacharach songs covered by Costello throughout the years, live versions and additional material composed by the pair.
Though the combination may have seemed curious at the time – Bacharach had been regarded as sappy and out of style until a mid-‘90s reappreciation (he appeared in both My Best Friend’s Wedding and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) while Costello hadn’t had a hit for almost 10 years and had been engaging in wild experimentation for most of the decade – there existed an alchemical magic in their work together. Bacharach pushed Costello to be more considered in his songwriting and to smooth out the bitterness inherent in most of his compositions, something that future pairings with Allen Toussaint and the Roots could not replicate. Meanwhile, Costello’s penchant for duende wore down the cheesier tendencies of Bacharach’s songwriting and imbued a sense of world-weary darkness into the mix. Just check out Bacharach’s collaborative “Heartlight,” an E.T.-themed song he co-wrote with Neil Diamond and then-wife, Carole Bayer Sager, for an example of bad inclinations unchallenged in collaboration.
The genesis for the collaboration came in the form of “God Give Me Strength,” the Painted from Memory track initially written for the film Grace of My Heart by Allison Anders. Filled with the best flourishes of Bacharach’s ‘60s work, including lush strings and strident horns, the powerful song was such a success that the two men decided to continue with the collaboration, despite the movie and its soundtrack never achieving much fame. Though that first song was written piecemeal via fax machine, the two men began to meet up in Bacharach’s Santa Monica studio to work on the music and then Costello would jet back to Dublin to hammer out the lyrics.
Perhaps the reason Painted from Memory works best is that its cycle of songs allows Costello to be almost nakedly emotional, something that has eluded the singer for most of his career. Even the terrifying “I Want You” is slathered with a good helping of recrimination, despite it being Costello’s most emotional honest song prior to Painted from Memory. Bacharach knows just where to add the proper orchestral swells, deftly avoiding melodrama in the right spots and pushing well over the line when warranted.
Costello’s vocal performance here is among the best of his career, something he wouldn’t replicate until 2018’s Look Now, an album that contained some songs written initially around the sessions with Bacharach. Unlike the very uneven The Juliet Letters, the 1993 song cycle featuring the Brodsky Quartet, Costello never goes ugly with his voice. He is aware that it’s an imperfect instrument, which makes the sotto voce on “In the Darkest Place” just as effective as the moments pushed into falsetto, such as the ending of “God Give Me Strength.” In less capable hands, many of these songs would be laughable cheese, but Costello and Bacharach make us feel the ache.
In the liner notes of the box set, Costello writes that someone said people would be singing these songs 20 years later. That they would endure. Perhaps Painted from Memory remains an obscurity in Costello’s catalog but this set gives the work another opportunity to be heard. Bacharach, who died at 94 this past February, only saw his stature grow since the album’s release, reaching #32 in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time feature in 2015 for the work he did with Hal David. Costello, meanwhile, followed Painted from Memory with When I Was Cruel (2002), one of his best albums ever. Since then, he has dabbled in numerous musical styles and continues to consistently tour and put out records.
But nothing will endure like the songs on Painted from Memory. This new set, which features other artists covering them just like Costello covered Bacharach’s older music, shows how they too could become standards. The immediacy and emotional subtlety of the songs make this set essential. Just like that Costello/Nieve tour from nearly 25 years ago, the music of Bacharach and Costello feels painted from memory but can still exist on its own as time marches forward.
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