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No sooner had I promised a post on melancholy but shuffle-play threw up a song which on hearing seemed so similar to something Dowland might have written (had he lived 400 years later) that I couldn’t ignore it.
It comes from the album Painted From Memory, a collaboration between Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach. They won’t tell us who wrote words and who music, but in this case I’m in no doubt. Elvis, of course, has since had more experience with Elizabethan works in The Juliet Letters, in which he reworks the Romeo and Juliet story with the Brodsky Quartet.
The things I like about this are the metaphor of the Beloved as a thief, and the concept of “glorious distress” which is very poetic and very Dowland.
The thing I hate is the baby-voiced woman who comes in at the end. WTF is it with that?
My Thief
When I go to sleep, you become my thief
Why don't you steal what you can keep?
But you won't let me be
You break into my dreams
And every day seems different
Sometimes I pretend you'll come back again
And you'll console the heart you stole
Have pity on the man
Who knows that you have gone
And has begun to break down
I feel almost possessed
So long as I don't lose this glorious distress then
You can take all I have left
I know it's over
If you can't be my lover
Be my thief
I'm so drowsy now, I'll unlock the door
What fades in time will hurt much more
So here's that happy scene
Where you come back to me
It's only found in fiction
I feel almost possessed
So long as I don't lose this glorious distress then
You can take all I have left
I know it's over
If you can't be my lover
Be my thief
"I didn't lead you on,
But there will always be
A little larceny in everyone
So hush and don't you cry
I'm trying to be kind
Because I have a perfect alibi"
Words and music by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach.
