All My CDs, pt 26: The Juliet Letters

The Juliet Letters - Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet

Of the albums in my collection, this has one of the longest histories, tying together multiple generations of my family. Sometime during my early adolescence, my older brother dug it out of my father’s music collection and started playing it; we both quickly fell in love and before long, I had taken the initiative to buy a copy of it for my own personal collection. Since it comes endorsed by both members of my family whom I believe to have better taste than I, there is a significant confidence behind my claim that this is one of the best albums I own.

In my review of Mood Swings by the Brodsky Quartet, I wrote of the unique and amazing genre of music that is created from a certain combination of strings with vocals. Although Mood Swings is an excellent example of such music, the Juliet Letters - the Quartet’s first collaborative creation with Elvis Costello - is really the original and most ideal example, at least for me. When I first discovered Pandora Radio - which suggests new music based on traits of songs or artists you already love - the my first and favorite station was built around the music of The Juliet Letters.

As suggested by the title, each song on the album is loosely in the form of a letter, although some are not clearly written in that way. Although inspired by the appearance in Verona of letters written directly to the fictional Juliet Capulet, only a few even mention Juliet and only one is addressed to her (Romeo’s Seance). I sometimes get the impression that a few token references to Juliet serve mostly to justify the title and call back the original inspiration, such references never feel forced or out of place; instead they serve to reinforce a mood of intense emotion and dark circumstance.

And indeed, all these songs are very dark and intensely emotional; even the cheery-sounding Romeo’s Seance cannot escape the literal specter of death hanging over its general hopefulness. I Almost Had A Weakness is humorous, but disdainful. Swine is energetically furious. Damnation’s Cellar may seem happy, but ends on a definite dark note. And those are perhaps the happiest-sounding songs of the bunch. The rest are varying levels of bittersweet or tragic, with small bright points usually overshadowed by dangerous implications. I suspect there is something about letter-writing that provokes rumination, reminiscence, and catharsis; it is a chance to speak at length without the silencing fear of immediate response. Confidences and confessions not readily spoken of in person can be brought up more freely in a letter.

So it is natural that such an emotionally wrought form of writing be accompanied by the equally emotionally expressive instruments of violin, viola, and cello, and indeed the voices of these instruments become like characters themselves of equal stature to Costello’s vocals. They are no mere accompaniment, but equal partners in telling the stories of these anonymous letter-writers. They show off their amazing abilities in songs like I Thought I’d Write to Juliet, which ends with an instrumental passage unmatched in its portrayal of peril - befitting the story of a soldier writing letters to her favorite author. Swine begins with an equally stunning display which I could listen to over and over again.

There are a few songs I don’t like on the album, but even they do not spoil the enjoyment of the album as a whole. In Why, Costello’s baritone voice seems more out-of-place singing the words of a small child than in the songs where he sings from the perspective of a woman. And Dear Sweet Filthy World has, for me, the disingenuous feeling of a suicide note written by one who has never been suicidal. Even these songs have grown on me over the years.

So this is another album that I will encourage everyone to try out, regardless of what sort of music you enjoy. Whatever genre you try to assign it, it will fail to fit nicely within those boundaries and continue to stand very happily on its own. If you can, listen to the whole thing from start to finish. Each song tells its own story, but they are meant to be told together, in sequence.

With warmest regards,

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