Yeah, yeah… by the time Helen decides to post this we'll all be drenched or dead or embarrassed. Stay with the song.
Blood And Choolate is an A- album without "I Want You", a C+ with it, but "Tokyo Storm Warning" is… an A+. People complain about the easy line "death wears a big hat?" Yeah, got it. But there is a ton of Dylan worthy aphorisms stuffed down your throat. I don't know where to begin? How about: "We've always been like world's apart,now you're watching two worlds collide"? "Some people can't be told, you know, they have to learn the hard way". "they're so tired tired of shooting protest singers that they hardly mention us".
It is both staccato and melodic, and Costello howls it. as if it means more than maybe it does mean mean… the steady rock beat is just keeping everyone on its toes, the Attractions are fine but he coulda beat his foot on the ground to keep time and pounded an acoustic guitar and it would have been as good. Steve Nieve has stolen many an Attractions song, not this one.
The point is the protest singer line: but the protest is an ambiguous mess. He is complaining that he is gonna die? The world wild trip, from Tokyo to Barcelona is sweet but irrelevant. So Costello was richer than we are AND MORE saw the world with a jaundiced eye. He is like a better rhyming Bono.
Still, the words and the sounds fly at you and the U2 reference seems like a slight.
After all, WHAT DO WE CARE IF THE WORLD IS JUST A JOKE? Between a cliche and an aphorism, the question resounds pretty fucking clearly.