Trust is the fifth studio album by the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, and his fourth with the Attractions—keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation). It was released on 23January 1981 through F-Beat Records in the United Kingdom. Produced by Nick Lowe, with assistance by the engineer Roger Béchirian, the album was recorded in London from October to November 1980 between DJM and Eden Studios. The sessions were riddled with alcohol and drug issues and tensions were high between the band members. Squeeze's vocalist Glenn Tilbrook and the Rumour's guitarist Martin Belmont made guest appearances on "From a Whisper to a Scream".
Envisioned by Costello as crossing the melody of Armed Forces (1979) with the rhythm of Get Happy!! (1980), Trust is a pop rock album that exhibits several musical styles, including jazz, rockabilly and country. The lyrics were partly inspired by events in Costello's own life at the time, including the effects of being a touring musician and his failing marriage. The songs depict scenarios with a lack of trust and are filled with puns and double entendres. The cover artwork, in an ironic nod to the title, is a headshot of Costello appearing mistrustful.
Trust charted in the UK top ten and at number 28 in the US, while its singles performed poorly. It received positive reviews on release; critics highlighted the artist's change in tone from his earlier records, a growing maturity in the lyrics and praised Costello as a musician; it appeared on several year-end lists. The album has retrospectively received acclaim as one of Costello's best, and most underrated, works. Commentators have viewed the album as exhibiting an artist and band at their creative peaks. Costello himself was initially displeased with the album, but reversed his opinion in later years. It has been reissued multiple times with bonus tracks.
Background and development Elvis Costello released his fourth studio album Get Happy!! in February 1980. A departure from the new wave sound of 1979's Armed Forces, Get Happy!! took influences from the soul and R&B sound of the 1960s and reached number two on the UK Albums Chart, although it sold fewer copies than Armed Forces. Throughout March 1980, Costello and his backing band the Attractions—keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation)—toured at smaller cities throughout the United Kingdom, although Costello suffered several moments of instability during the shows due to alcohol and drug abuse, including forgetting lyrics, freezing in place and poor vocals. The band were back on the road throughout Europe in mid-April, although a car accident left Nieve unable to join; his absence led to poorly received shows so he was temporarily replaced by the Rumour's guitarist Martin Belmont.
In early 1980, Costello purchased a small grand piano, which would greatly influence his songwriting over the next year; it was on this instrument that he primarily wrote "Shot With His Own Gun". Throughout the year, he began stockpiling a large number of songs he would record for his next album, including "You'll Never Be a Man", "Lovers Walk", "Clubland", "New Lace Sleeves", "Watch Your Step" and "From a Whisper to a Scream". Many of these songs were debuted during live performances in July and August. In his 2015 memoir, Costello states he had begun writing "New Lace Sleeves" and "Watch Your Step" when he was 20. Other songs that dated back to the mid-1970s included "Different Finger", "Luxembourg" and a short instrumental titled "Weeper's Dream". Around this time he also struck a working relationship with fellow new wave band Squeeze and would collaborate with its members over the next several years; Costello's manager Jake Riviera also began co-managing both artists.
Recording
Costello and the Attractions demoed material at London's Eden Studios throughout September 1980 before commencing work in October at DJM Studios in Holborn, central London, with the team of Nick Lowe and Roger Béchirian returning from prior albums. These sessions were riddled with issues, with Costello stating that they were "often frantic, swinging from elation to despair for which I must take most of the blame." Unlike previous albums, Lowe and Béchirian worked back and forth as producers, each taking charge of separate sessions. Their work ethics were different, which slowed progress. Similar to the sessions for Get Happy!!, the band was consistently intoxicated. Béchirian recalled: "By that point, I think everybody was just fed up with seeing each other. There was a real sense of animosity, a cloud over the project. It was just a real struggle, because nobody seemed to care about it." The atmosphere at DJM was similarly problematic, as the studio was constructed for the "tight, dry and muted" sound of the early 1970s and was ill-suited to the expansive sound Costello wanted, although the group "took advantage" of the dry sound for "New Lace Sleeves" and "Watch Your Step". According to Costello, the "working method" at DJM entailed being disenchanted upon playback of the previous day's efforts, followed by getting intoxicated at the local pub, before coming back to record, after which the cycle would continue, although this method produced "coherent" performances in "Shot With His Own Gun". In the liner notes for the 2003 reissue, Costello stated:
Like Get Happy!!, the band decided a different location would be better-suited and moved recording back to Eden, where they were more productive. Nieve exerted more control on the arrangements, so his piano and organ dominate the songs, particularly on "Shot With His Own Gun", "You'll Never Be a Man" and "Black Sails in the Sunset", as well as "New Lace Sleeves" and "Watch Your Step". Costello also experimented with a soft croon, having done so on Get Happy!! "Secondary Modern", but by this time, had developed into, in the biographer Graeme Thomson's words, "a silky, lascivious moan, at once amused and disgusted." At one point, Costello's voice was shot so Squeeze vocalist Glenn Tilbrook offered to sing a guide vocal on "From a Whisper to a Scream". Costello liked the performance so much he made it a duet. Belmont was also invited and added guitar to the same track. The band recorded for several days without Lowe while he was struck with flu; Costello felt the final version of "Clubland" lacked in his absence. During the final days, Costello also recorded a solo track, a re-working of "Big Sister" titled "Big Sister's Clothes", which featured melodica, skin tambourine, vibraphone, timpani, as well as "backwards accordion". Production for the track was credited to Costello alone. The sleeve credits the production to Lowe "in association with" Béchirian "assisted by" Neill King.
The new album was finished by early November 1980. According to Béchirian, the atmosphere remained fraught throughout: "I remember when we were mixing there were fights. Bruce Thomas walking out of the control room, leaving the band and Jake chasing after him. The whole thing was mental." Costello later concurred that despite these tensions, he felt the final album contained some of the Attractions' best performances, naming "Strict Time", "Lovers Walk", "White Knuckles", and "New Lace Sleeves". Trust was chosen as the title over working titles Looking Italian and Cats and Dogs.
Music and lyrics
Costello's original intent for Trust was to cross the melody of Armed Forces with the rhythm of Get Happy!!. The author Mick St. Michael states that he took the best elements of previous albums for Trust: the "lyrical zest" of My Aim Is True (1977), the "energy" of This Year's Model (1978) and the "commerciality" of Armed Forces. As such, Trust displays a wide variety of musical styles. An overall pop rock album, genres exhibited on Trust range from jazz ("Clubland"), soul pop ("Watch Your Step"), rockabilly ("Luxembourg"), Tin Pan Alley-style pop ("Shot with His Own Gun") and country ("Different Finger"). AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine also notes the "more complex arrangements and musicianship" that accompany "White Knuckles" and "New Lace Sleeves".
Despite having previously expressed a desire to distance himself from the pop music mainstream, Costello revealed that a number of songs on the album were influenced by other contemporary artists. "Clubland" incorporated the guitar style of the Police, "You'll Never Be a Man" borrowed from the Pretenders, "White Knuckles" was modelled on XTC records, and "Fish 'n' Chip Paper" was an homage to Squeeze. "Lovers Walk" featured a Bo Diddley-type beat while "Big Sister's Clothes" had a bass line based on work by the Clash. Additionally, Costello's newfound appreciation for songwriters such as Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and Sammy Caine, singers such as Frank Sinatra, and his own father Ross McManus – a singer and trumpeter – would influence the writing of Trust.
Costello describes the album's lyrics as depicting a world with a lack of trust. Partly taking influences from events in his own life at the time, including the effects of being a touring musician, the songs delve into politics ("Clubland", "Big Sister's Clothes", "Pretty Words"), ennui ("Watch Your Step", "Strict Time") and the slow disintegration of personal relationships ("Lovers Walk", "Different Finger", "You'll Never Be a Man"). Costello later recalled that his failing marriage was reflected in "Different Finger", "Lovers Walk", "Shot With His Own Gun", the brutal portrait of "White Knuckles" and its companion song, "You'll Never Be a Man", while "Clubland", "Pretty Words" and "White Knuckles" were influenced by the violence encountered on the Get Happy!! tour. "Watch Your Step" and "Fish 'n' Chip Paper" both reference boxing fans, while the latter features a great distaste for the media. The biographer Brian Hinton later commented that the album concerned "sour and rotten doings in different areas". Using his signature wordplay, Costello filled the songs with puns and double entendres. The narrators range from being observers and participants, to inflictors and the inflicted parties. The author James E. Perone summarises the album as an exploration in the betrayal of trust, either on or by the narrators.
Side one The album's first two songs, "Clubland" and "Lovers Walk", lack first-person narrators and instead observe different individuals. In "Clubland", Costello targets the people who frequent nightclubs, such as gangsters and drug addicts. The biographer David Gouldstone interprets the nightclubs as a metaphor for Britain in the 1980s and compares the setting to This Year's Model, particularly "Pump It Up". With a jazz-inspired piano line and James Bond–style electric guitar, Perone draws comparisons to Costello's earlier single "Watching the Detectives" (1977). AllMusic's Stewart Mason stated that its "richly detailed" arrangement presaged the "ornate constructions" of Imperial Bedroom (1982) and Costello's other explorations into Baroque art pop. In "Lovers Walk", Costello expresses his suspicions of love as a concept and the narrator's hesitation about falling in love, with Perone singling out the lyric "making promises that they can't keep" as a perfect summary. Like Costello's "Girls Talk", the title is used as a statement rather than a phrase, warnings listeners to "be on caution where lovers walk". Perone argues that this lyric establishes a sub-theme that purveys throughout the album, wherein Trust is not only about the concept of broken trust, but it is also a direct warning to not make the same mistakes as the characters in the tracks.