‘Til Tuesday’s Aimee Mann, Buck Owens

On the third album from ‘Til Tuesday, “Everything’s Different Now,� Aimee Mann--she of the shocking blond hair, piercing blue eyes and fragile voice--writes with amazing clarity and astonishing candor of a real-life romantic breakup.

“I did feel a bit wary with this album that I might face a bunch of ‘Here comes Aimee again being gloomy and horrible.’ . . . If they paid attention, they’d think I was pretty resilient,� Mann said.

“It’s very difficult for all concerned when relationships don’t continue, and if you’re trying to save one, it puts you into a really difficult position, but it’s not particularly a whiny position--I mean, most of it is like a fighting position, it’s quite aggressive. It’s hard not to feel sad, but sad doesn’t mean that you’re a victim.�

The ex-beau in the affair in question is Jules Shear, leader of the band Reckless Sleepers and writer of Top 10 singles for Cyndi Lauper and the Bangles. They speak, but relations are still strained.

Shear said in a recent Times article that he thought Mann’s new songs were first-rate, even though they didn’t always paint his role in the demise of the relationship in the most favorable light.

Mann said she does know at least one track bothered Shear--�The Other End of the Telescope,� co-written by Mann and their mutual acquaintance, Elvis Costello--�although he likes it now. It bothered him because it was sort of that harsh Elvis vibe.�

“He’s actually quite concerned what people think of him on one level,� claimed Mann. “Yeah, a lot of the album is about him, and some of it’s not, and the stuff that’s about him is not word for word anyway because everybody always writes in a bit of fiction.

“As far as somebody like Jules goes, he drives quite hard to not appear autobiographical, but he’s amazingly so. He’s just not somebody who likes to admit it because he feels like it’s gonna be used against him. That’s kind of my whole thing--I know it can’t be. How could just telling the truth about your experiences be used against you? Because you know what it meant. To me it’s not a weakness to be honest.�