Yet Again Misunderstood

Thinking yesterday of Yusuf's take on Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood inevitably brought to mind my favourite version of the song, the one by Elvis Costello. I believe this was released as a single, which promptly got nowhere. Fortunately it appears on King of America and I had a good old wallow in the album this afternoon. One of the wonderful things about following the work of top-rate musicians with extensive back catalogues is that you forget just how utterly great those albums are until you give them a spin and realise what you've been missing simply by not playing them.

Elvis's take on Misunderstood is blistering. He sounds like a guy who really is on some kind of personal edge in this pressingly intimate, one-to-one, claustrophobic version of the song. When I first heard the version, as a single, I actually had the impression the band were not quite in tune, or that something was off somewhere. In fact it's the voice - so hurt it sounds discordant when it's not. When Elvis sings with this much passion you know it's no fun to fail to make your intentions clear.

I read one reviewer somewhere once, saying the vocal was overly dramatic. Idiot.