Cover illustration of How to Operate the No. 19 Teletypewriter, 1962
A while ago, I observed that the 1994 album Split by British dream-pop combo Lush was ripe with Title Fight opportunities. I did "Lit Up" in that first match-up, which Lush won. But I thought it would be fun to put some of Split's other tracks up against their titular dopplegangers to see how they match up. So this is the first in a series, I guess. I was planning on putting this Lush song up against the Breeders, but when I saw the "The" in the title, I switched things up to the more appropriate opponent, "The Invisible Man" from Elvis Costello's 1983 album Punch the Clock.
I've always liked Punch the Clock, and "The Invisible Man" is a decent track from it - I'm not a big fan of the oompah-oompah horns on the intro - they're pretty corny - but as soon as the lilting verse melody comes in, backed by a staccato keyboard, I'm loving it. The whole song is a push and pull between those two elements, though, and they only really blend well on the big horn break after the second verse. It's got a nice chorus, but those horns are intrusive and lack a good deal of subtlety.
Lush, on the other hand, opt for a creepy vibe on their "The Invisible Man", coming out of the gate with machine-gun snare drums, a wall of shoegaze-style guitar, and cooing vocals. The verses are no great shakes, but the best bit is on the chorus, where Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson repeat the phrase, "Please let me start screaming!" over and over in an anxious whisper. It's a nice, genuinely disturbing moment the first time you hear it, and it's enough to give Lush the "win" here, giving Split a 2-0 record. Let's see what happens next time, though, when they go up against one of Pavement's best songs.
Winner: LUSH
"The Invisible Man" by Elvis Costello & the Attractions
"The Invisible Man" by Lush
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