Lyric discussion by foreverdrone 

Cover art for Beyond Belief lyrics by Elvis Costello

hey dobryden, cool...i mean, i picked up on the images--in the chorus--being of things which provoke disbelief or awe...but to find such a precise connection! i'm sure it was entirely intentional.

in the liner notes elvis says something like: the two key songs are titled "beyond belief" and "man out of time", so do I really need to explain further? on the personal level, the first title indicates costello was at a point in his life where he could no longer believe in anything (himself most of all, I'd guess)

if you're "charged" with insults and flattery, does that carry a heavier sentence than assault and battery? unless you're innocent, in which case it might not matter. innocence, in a sense...

if you live in a fashionable place, how can it be a hovel? well, if you have nervous tics, which a battle with the bottle might worsen rather than relax--and torture and death are on your mind; the cemetery seems not so far away--your hands are clammy, and you're nothing more than a smear skittering across the ocean: doesn't all this suggest the place you live is dilapidated, soon to (in at least one sense) fall apart?

the place you live: it's one answer to the question: "where are you?" which is a question threatening to put on the table all kinds of "issues" you might prefer to "clam" up about. where are you? your body. and it's not so appealing...in fact, it's a mess. you look like hell (hades)

your hovel is about to be condemned. in a sense, it's already been thoroughly condemned...in merely two minutes and 34 seconds.