No, not talking about some ratings war. Not even talking about that Elvis. The good one, not the dead one.

Heeheehee. I actually like both elvi, but I never fail to snicker at the expression, and since Mr. Costello is so clearly the good-er of them, it sort of fits anyway.

Hennyway.

Elvis. Alison, specifically. (Thanks to several readers for the spelling correction.) One of his first songs and still one of his finest. Just belting out of my lungs out of nowhere over breakfast this morning. (Man, what's with me and breakfast today?) Must have been trigged by the Loving somebody title of my last post, but my memory really gets strong a couple lines later, with the tragic chorus:

Allison
I know this world is killing you,
Oh, Allison
My aim is true
My aim is true
My aim is true.**

That's a chorus that really demands to be belted, but then I had to quiet down with one of the verses:

Well I see you've got a husband now
Did he leave your pretty fingers lying in the wedding cake
You used to hold him right in your hands
Ah, but he took, all that he could take*

God, how I loved that part. Careful girl--or guy--he's only going to take so much.

But is he/she? Twenty-odd years now I have lived with that truism in my head, but I'm not sure I've seen it. So many old married couples together one or both of them still taking it on the chin. My parents for example. (I'll decline to comment here on who's taking, who's given. Luckily they never read anything I write, unless published in a reputable journal.)

Immediately, the reality shows sprung to mind. A little of Survivor, but particularly the Amazing Race. We have seen the most gruesome couplings, many of whom are not yet locked into the commitment, and who not only have the experience to warn them away, but a tape of the experience.

Who the hell gets that lucky? To see it documented in cold, hard videotape. He/she treats me like total crap. And/or he brings out the absolute worst in me. We're horrible together. We'd like to announce our engagement.

That's how these bitter mismatches all seem to end up.

Is it a perverse demographic? Perhaps the egomania inherent in so many people drawn to engage in reality shows and even more prevalent in those actually cast, carries with it the related gene of blindness to ones own strengths and weaknesses.

Plausible.

But the main value in reality shows has never been in proving phenomena, but illustrating it. The sample size is far to small, and the subject pool too distorted to prove anything. But the power to illustrate--I have found that to be quite extraordinary.

The data on couples taking it on the chin is all around us. But we quickly grow oblivious to the pervasive, like the oxygen we're sucking in this very moment. Elvis Costello wrote a song so powerful he convinced me to shut my eyes to the obvious for 20 years.

No. Most people don't reach their breaking point. Alison has been married to that poor sap my entire adult life.

Thanks, Amazing Race. I never would have seen it without you.

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* There seems to be some disagreement on that last lyric line. The two sites I checked out had it differently, and both different than my ear tells me. So I went with mine. Alternates:

- But did you give more than he could take

- I bet he took all that he could take

The latter sounds a lot more likely--contestant #1 alleges three times the number of syllables actually pronounced by Elvis prior to the first 'he'--and #2's site came up first on google.)

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**My Aim Is True.

Oh, to ever write a line that good, a title that great. Can't really ever hear that song without a long wistful reflection on the title. His very first, his very best.

(Which has always struck me more than slightly sad, too. Still my favorite Elvis album, far and away his best title, the opening line of the whole thing is one of my all-time favorites by anybody . . . Peaked a little freaking soon.)

(The line is, "I used to be disgusted /now I try to be amused." Save me, that one. Plus I get to snicker over the followup: "But since their wings have got rusted / You know the angels want to wear my red shoes." -- Thanks to Catastrophile for the heads-up on my lyric screw-up.) 

Allison gets the song title, but that line captures the album title. Will I ever hear a line so sweet and so viscious at the same time? I could swear there was a third meaning, but at the moment, I can only find two: how earnest his intentions are, and how precise the aim of his gun. Man. Kind of gives me the shivers.

(Hey, sort of the theme of the bible, too, isn't it? Man, I've got God on the brain this morning. But isn't that the big tension of that book: the angry, spiteful God always threatening to smite you at any moment, and the kind, loving earnest God, whose intentions are always true?)

I know this world is killing you.