There are two recording artists that I miss very much: Warren Zevon and Elvis Costello. Both put out intellectually edgy tunes, powered by cynical lyrics that tried to say something profound and yet keep you from getting too comfortable with it. Warren Zevon is dead; and as to Elvis Costello, I saw him on TV the other day singing a duet with Tony Bennett. So Elvis is just as good as dead. (And as to the OTHER Elvis, well, who knows.)

As to Warren Zevon’s songs, I just don’t know where to begin. So I won’t right now. Let’s just say that it isn’t everyone who could get airplay with a song about Phillip Habib, an U.S. State Department career official involved in middle-east negotiations in the 1980s (recall Zevon’s “The Envoy”).

As to Elvis Costello, I DO know where to begin (even if Elvis didn’t, in “Accidents Will Happen”). Let me tell a little story about how one of his songs lifted an emotional burden from my shoulders.

I used to feel a bit guilty whenever I heard John Lennon’s “Imagine”. Especially the part where John wonders if we could even imagine a world with no possessions. Truth be told, I never could. In my opinion, people just aren’t ready for that; no more today than back in the late 1960’s, when such communal sentiment was popular amidst the young. And ditto for 1971, when Imagine was released. People are just too diverse in their thinking. It’s awfully hard for most people to agree about most things. Sharing everything from toothbrushes to shoes to refrigerators to 6-packs of beer just doesn’t seem like a good idea. It’s tough enough for married people to do it; 4 out of 10 couples who try it eventually wind up in divorce court. I couldn’t imagine it working properly for millions and billions throughout the planet.

But still, “Imagine” was an emotional song, a compelling song. So I felt sorry for not being able to imagine the peaceful world that John tried to sell us on. The world would not be one, and maybe it was my fault.

Then in 1991, Elvis Costello came along with an angry song entitled “The Other Side of Summer”. One of the most memorable lines in it went like this: “Was it a millionaire who said imagine no possessions?”

Darn, we need singers who know how to cut thru crap just like that. But it’s really tricky for an artist to catch the public’s fancy with a catchy tune that also acts as an intellectual smart bomb. Well, I’m glad that I was there when Warren Zevon and Elvis Costello were given air time on the radio and shelf space in the record stores. It may be a while until we see another one like them.