{"id":8943,"date":"2022-03-09T08:47:20","date_gmt":"2022-03-09T08:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=8943"},"modified":"2022-03-09T08:51:10","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T08:51:10","slug":"elvis-costello-seeing-himself-as-a-songwriter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2022\/03\/09\/elvis-costello-seeing-himself-as-a-songwriter\/","title":{"rendered":"ELVIS COSTELLO: seeing himself as a songwriter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ELVIS COSTELLO: <\/strong>seeing himself as a songwriter.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norman Warwick reads his freakonomics interview<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So explain what you mean when you say you had reached the point in your career when were almost sure you were a songwriter. Do you mean a song-writer for other people?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Paul Simon <\/em><\/strong> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Well, by then, I\u2019d got possessed of the idea. I\u2019d watched too many Hollywood movies where somebody burst into a room to go, \u201cI\u2019ve got a song for you\u201d and make them listen to it. And I did do that for a few years when I returned to London in 1973. I was playing my songs still around, wherever they let me play, which were the remnants of the English folk club scene where Bob Dylan<\/a> and Paul Simon<\/a> (left)<\/strong><\/em> had made the first steps in the early 60\u2019s. It was only 10 years, 12 years later that it was quite changed, the scene. We\u2019d had all of the late 60\u2019s psychedelia. The music that was in the pop charts wasn\u2019t really yet quite disco, but it was like dance music and glitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the acoustic music, which I really loved was mostly played by Californians, or people that came out of California: James Taylor<\/a>; Joni Mitchell<\/a>, although she was Canadian was seen as Californian; Crosby, Stills and Nash<\/a>; and that kind of music. It seemed quite remote, somehow glamorous. And you never thought you would see those people. And there were lots of really good musicians playing around you could see and I\u2019d run across them. But we didn\u2019t hold them in the same regard as the American musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s always been the way the English think. Whether it would be jazz, or rock and roll, or even acoustic music. So I <\/strong>would go to publishing houses and try and get them to listen to my songs and I think of them now they were not at all suited to other people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would go with a reel-to-reel tape, I\u2019d made in the bedroom and and I\u00b4d take my guitar, and I\u2019d make them listen to the songs, which they would take calls in the middle of the songs, and it was pretty not good for the confidence \u2014 or maybe very good for the confidence, because I got a little tougher. And I got a few paying gigs playing my own songs. I abbreviated my name to my initials. My dad always called me D.P. so I adopted that. Then, I adopted my Irish great-grandmother\u2019s name Costello; but everybody said it like an Italian name. I let them think that I was Italian. Not that anybody really cared, but it looked better on a bill? And then I became the resident singer in a club where quite good people came and played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u00b4Elvis\u00b4 didn\u00b4t come in Not until I took a tape to my first record company Stiff, which was a little company that started with like a thousand bucks, maybe not even that, borrowed money, and started putting out singles in 1976. My producer, one of my favorite singers, Nick Lowe<\/a>, was their first artist, and I was the first person to knock on the door with a demo tape. And at first, they they had me record a couple of songs, but very much with the view of somebody else singing them. They were still seen as demos, they weren\u2019t seen as releases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

. <\/strong>Stiff weren\u2019t sure that I wasn\u2019t a writer for somebody else. That was really the objective. My managers were managing Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds<\/a>\u2018 band, Rockpile (right) <\/em><\/strong>; and Dave didn\u2019t write. So, they tried to sell Dave on a couple of my songs and they tried to give them to other people<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And people found them too quirky, so that, in the end, they suggested first putting half a record out with another songwriter, like Chuck Meets Bo. There\u2019s a jazz record with one side of Chuck Berry<\/a>, one side of Bo Diddley<\/a> on it. And thankfully, I just ended up writing so many songs that there were 12 and they put that out. I was still working in an office till the week before my record came out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was at <\/em>Elizabeth Arden<\/em><\/a>?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I was a computer operator. I\u2019d sit in a little air-conditioned cubicle and pretend I knew what was happening with the computer and write my songs in a book. And sometimes if I had to work at night, an evening shift, it was just one operator \u2014 it was only an I.B.M. 360, it wasn\u2019t a complex computer. It was probably not as powerful as your phone, and I just wrote my songs in the evenings, and I was still working there. I had singles out, and I was still working there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me ask you an existentially depressing question, which is for every one of you, Elvis Costello, or Declan MacManus, working that job and writing songs, for every hundred thousand of you, there\u2019s one who actually gets to do what you did. And there are questions of talent versus hard work and opportunity and luck and so on. What do you say to all those people out there who have some kind of dream of being a creative? And many people are realistic, they don\u2019t expect to reach huge success, or even do it as their livelihood even partially. But, do you discourage those people from hanging onto that?<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Right now, it would seem to be tougher to start, because I am beginning to think there was a narrow window of opportunity which I caught the last few years of, where it was possible to make a reasonable amount of money from making records and having a musical career, other than to just fund the next go around on the machine. Obviously, before that, people bought the rights to songs; they sometimes put the names of the publisher or the singer on to the song. That\u2019s how you come to see songs that are credited to Al Jolson<\/a> (left)<\/em><\/strong>  or Elvis Presley<\/a> or Frank Sinatra<\/a>, who to my knowledge never wrote anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course latterly \u2014 and when I say I latterly, it\u2019s almost 25 years now \u2014 there\u2019s been a shift to the ownership of all of the medium through which music and most other entertainments appear. And it\u2019s transformed the sense of ownership. On the one hand, the delivery of those things has become a commodity owned usually by super-corporations who are not in the same business as I\u2019m in. In other words, say, Universal Records, who hold the rights, for the time being, to my catalog, are owned in turn by a French utilities company. They run trains, sewage works. They\u2019re not really in the music business, are they? They\u2019re not in the art business, for sure. So, they are the people to whom, the bosses who are above the people who hire me to work, make records. That\u2019s who they are. Now independent companies, like the one I\u2019m recording for now, still have relationships because you have to get the physical records out somewhere. And those people control the distribution networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But of course, as it\u2019s become a matter of instantaneous access, we\u2019re moving to a model now where nobody really has any physical records anymore, or at least, as generations of people who have no knowledge of that, they have no expectation of owning a physical copy of a record, unless it\u2019s a fetish object like a vinyl record that they bought in a hipster store. They can access something much more readily on the Internet, whether through YouTube or Spotify or such a system. So why would they want to clutter up the house with a bunch of records? There are people that will contradict that. But that is a big model now for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why can\u2019t you have all of those systems, rather than sitting around whining about it. Why not just say, \u201cWell, that\u2019s happened.\u201d You can say there are some things that are unfair or possibly even dishonest about it, but so it\u2019s always been the way that people will say, \u201cYeah, you can make that record for me, I\u2019ll give you a Cadillac,\u201d and then they would go make millions off that title and the guy would just be driving around until the wheels fell off the Cadillac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The artists have always had a difficult, hard time getting \u2014 In their more egotistical moments, some of the megalomaniac moments they probably believe that they\u2019ve been cheated in some way of a fate, but maybe they just didn\u2019t work hard enough. One thing that really affects some people is that they\u2019re too hip towork. I know a lot of people that that think of themselves as very groovy, that disdain major popular music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

You know who I like? I like Bing Crosby<\/a> (right) <\/em><\/strong>. He was a huge-selling artist. I don\u2019t dislike pop music and actually what music I don\u2019t care for is boring rock music that\u2019s so pompous. I like rock-and-roll a lot, but I don\u2019t hear the thrill in this square music. And each type of music gets infected by that kind of squareness or self-satisfaction or self-fulfilling prophecy that happens in every form of music. And somebody else will tell you that happened to me because they they judge it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where did your tremolo come from ? Is that what it\u2019s called? Tremolo, vibrato in your voice, when you sing. Did you always do that? Was it a conscious thing?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s about three different factors. One is that I was aware of that way of singing. My dad definitely listened to Billy Eckstine<\/a>. My dad, on some records that he made \u2014 he doesn\u2019t have a lot of records under his own name \u2014 but the few where he sings in his true voice, oddly enough, you can hear elements of Eckstine in his vocal delivery. And he\u2019s one of my mother\u2019s favourite singers, along with Tony Bennett<\/a>. And ballad singers tended to use vibrato. The vibrato that might have been inherent in my voice, I think wasn\u2019t so obvious because there were so many words in my songs, there were not many long held notes in the early songs, they mostly very quick fire. And when I slowed the pace down to sing ballads, then it became more apparent \u2014 and also simultaneously to that, I have to credit Chrissie Hynde <\/a>with reintroducing the warm vibrato idea into pop, popular music of the then time. I\u2019m talking about \u201980 to \u201983, that period after she made her appearance about \u201979, \u201980, and it reminded me of the sounds that I loved about Dusty Springfield<\/a> \u2014 who was probably my favorite singer, at that time. I think beyond that there\u2019s a certain amount of vibrato as a product of maybe a physiology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, and I think also that part of it is physiological. I guess it\u2019s a flaw, in my breathing that the whole engine works like that, and it\u2019s like, if you live with something like a heart murmur it can be like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>I hear, really, beauty in a lot of the opera singers. I mean, there\u2019s times when you go and it isn\u2019t good. But I know the physical dedication that goes into that. And if you listen to Chaliapin<\/a>, or Hans Hotter<\/a>, or Fischer-Dieskau<\/a>, or any of the great recorded singers \u2014 and then there\u2019s the people I\u2019ve seen, my friend Anne Sofie von Otter<\/a> (left)<\/em><\/strong> . I was a fan of hers from the, from just going to the concert hall to always hear her sing, and then we became friends and we made a record together. And she wanted to make a record where she let go of some of the training of her voice, but she\u2019s incapable of signing an ugly note. And of course some of the things that are proposed in the singing of a popular song are sounds that are an anathema to a trained singer. So, it\u2019s quite difficult for them to unlearn some of their training and to be unbuttoned enough to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you still have the scream? Do you still scream, ever?<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not going to try it now, but I mean, yeah, it\u2019s not something I was conscious of doing. It\u2019s not really a thing, \u201cI\u2019d better put a scream in there.\u201d It\u2019s just something you do. It\u2019s a harmonic. I\u2019m thinking particularly in terms of the beginning of \u201cMan Out of Time,\u201d that sounds like an alto saxophone playing harmonics. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s actually more than one note. And I like that. When it came out, it all went squirrely and I love those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, there\u2019s different singers whose techniques I\u2019m fascinated by. I used to love Bobby \u201cBlue\u201d Bland<\/a>. He used to sound like he was clearing his throat. And Al Green<\/a> has a \u2014 and these are singers that have so much voice, compared with me. I like singers who are kind of tryers, like Rick Danko<\/a>, who sounded like there\u2019s was a kind of nervous thing to the way he sang that I really loved, and it felt very human. There\u2019s something very beautiful about that, and that\u2019s probably why we\u2019re able to respond to music in other languages without understanding what\u2019s being sung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re maybe fascinated by where the emphasis lies in the kind of music that uses either a different rhythm or a different scale. So it\u2019s always surprising us and the timbre of the voice, as \u2014 you cantell, there\u2019s a yearning in it, or a sense of joy, or a sense of lament. I can listen to religious music in the same way without necessarily believing the same thing that the singer is. I can listen to gospel music or cantors, or whatever recordings. It\u2019s just what the singer believes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

photo 6 Joe Loss<\/em><\/a> (right)<\/strong>  was Jewish, I assume. There was a line in your book about how he wanted your dad to have been Jewish.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was absolutely convinced that my dad was, but I honestly don\u00b4t know. I actually don\u2019t know because \u2014 I think it\u2019s a bit unlikely, but of course \u2014 because of the background of the family. Who knows? I mean, we can\u2019t get back very far with records with Irish people. My great grandfather was what would be called now an economic migrant. He left in the generation after the famine, and unlike a lot of people, he didn\u2019t go to America; he just went to Merseyside. And so I have no idea. If he hadn\u2019t have died in a relatively avoidable industrial accident, I might not even be sitting here talking to you, because maybe I\u2019d be digging a ditch, or loading coal onto a ship, because that\u2019s what he did. And the only reason that the occupation of musician appears in my family is because my grandfather was placed in an orphanage and from there became, joined the British Army when he was 12 as a boy soldier, as a bandsman. And that chance event seems to have derailed our family into a line of work in music. I\u2019ve no way of knowing whether it would have been any different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never, oddly enough, it sounds really strange, but I didn\u2019t have any other ambition than just to do this. Including, I didn\u2019t imagine any of the things that happened to me because they were all, from the making of the first record to right now, just the thing that happened next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, I feel enormously grateful for that.. Even though, in many ways I could have had much more conventional form of success, but I\u2019ve watched friends of mine who are much better known become confined by their success and to the expectationsof an audience, and not being able to outdistance their own shadow, and things like that. <\/strong>So, it seems like a life you\u2019d want. The grass is always greener. I have managed to kind of stay ahead of the wolf by basically working most of the days since I was 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And most people would regard me as very, very fortunate, but I\u2019m sure a lot of people that imagine I\u2019m wealthy beyond all dreams. I\u2019m really not. I work to maintain, to look after the people that I want to look out for, for as long as I can do that, and to do the next thing. Quite often the money that comes in to make a record funds that project, like being an independent filmmaker. It\u2019s not about, it\u2019s not about hitting some imaginary number or moving yourself to some other echelon. I\u2019ve never ever thought that, I mean \u2014 I think five minutes in the late 70s, we had dreams of breaking America, or cracking America. That was the thing. But when you get there, you sense the vastness of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is crazy, but here\u2019s my question for you, really. The creative part, I want to know: do you feel that your work is an exercise in creativity, and you carve out time and place and mood in which to be creative, or is it work for you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t really think in terms of definition like a name tag, but if you actually asked me the difference, I say I was a worker of a kind. I work at what I do. And then there might be moments of inspiration that visit you unexpectedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any song arriving is a mysterious sort of thing. I mean it can range from carrying around a phrase in a notebook for four years before it joins up with some other thoughts, or a line of melody that seems to bring it to life and allows you to kind of to represent something that you want to share with people. Or a song can just appear, the whole thing, the words and music. Time stops and \u2014perhaps that doesn\u00b4t happen quite as frequently when working on collaboarations. Then, obviously, you\u2019re making a statement and waiting for somebody else\u2019s reply. So it\u2019s like writing away for something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The instrumentation, that\u2019s a different thing. The instrumentation and the orchestration of the songs was more like, were very complete to me, when the songs were finished. The minute I decided that we were going to do them as a band, then I also started to think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I was hearing everything, the vocal and the background voices, the vocal arrangements, the string arrangements, the horn arrangements, they were all to my mind almost extensions of the composition. So as we arranged the parts, I wanted the \u2014 I wanted \u2014 the whole point of the exercise was to trust in my cohorts. We had gone out last year and looked at the songs from the album \u201cImperial Bedroom\u201d which, the original band we played it, The Attractions \u2014 two of whom played in The Imposters \u2014 we truthfully never had the patience to play many of those songs well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ones that survived into our live repertoire were songs that were easily adapted to the way we more commonly played, which was more frenetic, and the other songs which were quite detailed in the studio, we didn\u2019t have the patience for the little details and nuances \u2014 nor do we have the voices. Nobody could sing in that band except me. So, we never had any vocal harmony onstage for the last 15 years or whatever it is. Davy Faragher<\/a> has been in the band, his bass playing, a singer, a singing bass player. So we\u2019ve had two-part harmony, but we\u2019ve also started to incorporate two other singers in our live, so Kitten Kuroi<\/a> and Briana Lee<\/a> in this case, and on some songs, Davey\u2019s elder brother Tommy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davey being a very good vocal arranger in his own right, although I sketched out all the parts in my demos, we would, Davey and I, would then discuss what combination of voice is best used, just the same way as I didn\u2019t arrange every song for the same configuration of instruments. There\u2019s a bassoon on one song, there\u2019s a woodwind quintet where you might have expected to hear a string quartet, you could imagine them playing the sameparts on paper, but I wanted the sense of something breathing, which the wind instruments brought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was hearing all of that in my head and then it\u2019s just something that I\u2019ve learnt over the years which is \u2014 whereas I used to, whenever I had something outside of the regular instruments of the band, I had to trust somebody to write it down. Sometimes, it would get a little changed, or something would get lost in the translation, and in the early nineties, I learned how to write music down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean I grew up knowing what music was, and reading it but I never had any need to write it down, because the songs I started out with. in some ways they would have been attenuated by writing them down. You had to feel them. But these songs \u2014 it was all the process of pairing down the arrangements to the essentials and the rhythm section. And Steve Nieve<\/a>, who\u2019s been my cohort for nearly 40 years, I mean, he\u2019s a remarkable musician. I mean, he was a 19-year-old Royal College of Music student. So his education was obviously not complete there, but what he brought to the band, and then what he\u2019s developed in all of the music, not just playing with me, but his own compositions. I mean, he wrote an opera. I mean he\u2019s explored things, and piano records, where he\u2019s followed his own instincts about music. He\u2019s the kind of person who can give you lots of invention to any theme you gave him, but also you have to have some discretion about which part of what he\u2019s playing is really magical and which complements the song and which \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we worked \u2014 I think there are some times when I\u2019ve just been inclined to let Steve go, and when I think about it later maybe I could have been more discerning, but it was so thrilling to hear him play I didn\u2019t do that. So I\u2019m not going to retrospectively re-edit the records. Nearly all of the credit for the production should go to Sebastian Krys. He recorded it. He was the one that made sure the order was kept to things. He got the beauty of the sound. He mixed it. My contribution to the production was really in the editorial of the music, in that I had to be the discerning voice of anything there; I\u2019d say to Pete, \u201cPlay a simpler fill,\u201d or \u201cgive me something different there if you can.\u201d \u201cSteve, leave this hole because there\u2019s going to be strings there and then you\u2019ll play together the next time,\u201d I mean, he couldn\u2019t know that, because I hadn\u2019t told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, in some cases we would get in and he\u2019d start to play, and I\u2019d say, \u201cWe maybe need to leave more of a hole there,\u201d or \u201cDon\u2019t do that variation because it\u2019s not agreeing with what else is coming.\u201d Because we did do everything separately. Most records I\u2019ve done in the past, 90 percent of them are being arranged from the voice outwards. So, I would sing on a live take and often that would be the take. So, that was a lot of pressure for the band, in that if I got something I liked, they would have to live sometimes with a flawed performance, if you couldn\u2019t fix it in some way. In this case, I didn\u2019t want to do that. I wanted everything to be \u2014 that we would agree what we were going to play and we would draw on everybody\u2019s strengths independently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was that experience like for you then, as a singer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s really like getting my dream to be Dusty Springfield (left) <\/em><\/strong>of going in. If you see those old pictures of where they had the band in the studio and the vocalist in the booth, that\u2019s what it felt like. Because usually, when you\u2019re singing in the studio, you\u2019re imagining, \u201cI\u2019m going to add some stuff to this.\u201d And sometimes when you re-sing a song, it\u2019s because the weight of the original performance wasn\u2019t quite right. There\u2019s nothing the matter with the singing, but maybe it was too aggressive, or not aggressive enough, or not forceful enough, and then when you add those other instruments, the vocal sounds muted. In this case, I had everything to support me. It was like being on stage with an orchestra or an ensemble behind you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, I don\u2019t mean to be a shrink here. But to some degree, was it \u2014 your father died a while back?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, the people said that when I worked with Burt Bacharach<\/a>, because I wore a tuxedo, but they\u2019d never seen my dad in a caftan. You know what I mean? It was never psychological. I\u2019m not given to that kind of thing. I mean, I just enjoy doing it this way. But equally, when I invited Burt Bacharach to play with the band we had written about 25 songs over the last 12 years for two musical projects, one of which was based on our original album \u201cPainted From Memory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s quite difficult to thread a story through a group of existing songs, unless it\u2019s a biographical show about the songwriter or the artist, and therefore we ended up with another 10 or so songs written for \u201cPainted From Memory,\u201d but they were also very slow and melancholic like the original collection which, I guess, scared the producers that we were engaged with, and the show seemed to stall. And after a couple of years of no further movement, I asked Burt two years ago if he would consent to let me bring them out into the light, or the ones that I felt I could sing, because I just thought they were too good. I mean it was absolutely crazy, for good songs \u2014 in the case of the two that he leads, they were all his music and I\u2019m only the lyricist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

photo 8 One of the most amazing things to me, and wonderful things, is that Burt entered into a different kind of collaboration 25 years ago than he\u2019d ever had, and he continued to return to that style of collaboration with me. Actually, I think uniquely, I don\u2019t think he\u2019s co-written music with anybody else but maybe Neil Diamond<\/a> (right)<\/em><\/strong> . So, that\u2019s pretty good company to be in. Neil, who has written tremendous songs as well. But Burt was open to a different form of collaboration, a dialogue in music. Why would he need to do that? He\u2019s Burt Bacharach. But that just shows the curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has always been the beauty of this collaboration that on the one hand, you had somebody who was open to something different, despite all the experience, despite all of his achievements. And the second thing is, you can\u2019t get anything past him because he hears everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was the song you said you sent to him and he said, \u201cNope, it\u2019s done.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stripping Paper. Because that was also written with a view to being in this musical production. But I\u2019m pretty shrewd about these things, because I\u2019ve read all my musical Broadway biographies, and I know how many great songs have been in and out of shows that\u2019ve been cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The <\/em>Gershwin<\/em><\/a> song you wrote that was in three shows.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Man I Love. Yeah, unbelievably, in three shows and I think lots of Rodgers and Hart<\/a> songs went the same way. So, much better songs than I\u2019ll ever write are being cut out of shows, so I make no apology for being tricky enough to make sure that the song stands up on its own, because I don\u2019t really care for songs even in opera where they go, \u201cI\u2019m walking up the stairs, I\u2019m walking down the stairs, it\u2019s a lovely day today.\u201d I don\u2019t care about that stuff, I want to hear about the feelings, or something to do with the story that\u2019s unique. And obviously, these songs that we ended up with quite a few of them are about how we decode the way people look at each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Look Now,\u201d the second song on the record, is a woman looking at a man saying, \u201cI see you looking at me,\u201d and trying to imagine what is contained within the gaze. She\u2019s trying to see what\u2019s contained within that man\u2019s gaze: Is it admiration? Is it appreciation? Is it lust? Is it ill intent? Another song that Burt wrote the music for \u201cPhotographs Can Lie,\u201d the story of a daughter realizing, upon discovering her father\u2019s infidelity, he falls from a pedestal on which she\u2019s placed him. That seemed to be the way these particular songs worked out. They weren\u2019t the last 12 things that happened to me. Maybe that\u2019s something to do with \u2014 Well, obviously, it\u2019s something to do with the fact that originally they had a theatrical origin, but even contained within the two or three, four minutes of the song, I just didn\u2019t have the feeling of wanting to be selfish and them being my direct experience, rather than the things that I knew to be true, and things I\u2019d observed, the kind of reactions people had to a discovery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song, \u201cStripping Paper,\u201d that I mentioned a moment ago, is the words of a woman who\u2019s discovered her husband\u2019s infidelity and absent-mindedly almost pulls a layer of wallpaper from the wall; and it\u2019s just peeling off, and she peels it back and behind it is a simpler pattern that is a symbol of when they had less money, and beneath that another even simpler one that may have been on the wall when they first got that apartment, and where they had drawn a pencil mark for their daughter\u2019s, to measure their daughter\u2019s height. When you describe it, it sounds a little sentimental, but when you sing it, it doesn\u2019t read as sentimental because the idea of somebody having almost, like, this book of their life and including, like, joyful erotic memories that she\u2019s wrestling with. I don\u2019t think that, that\u2019s not something that anybody is going to have any problem understanding. It\u2019s not opaque. And the lyrics are pretty to the point on this record, with the possible exception of the first song on the record, which is in itself a sequel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Lime?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I mean I took the character Jimmy, from my song \u201cJimmy Standing in the Rain\u201d which I wrote \u2014 well, it was released on a record in 2010. And Jimmy was a portrait of a vaudeville singer, or musical singer in the north of England, who was traipsing round doing this kind of \u2014 trying to sell cowboy songs to. That would be the worst time in life to try to do that. And I pictured him kind of beaten down, alcoholic, could have TB; he\u2019s got the full challenge. He finds some comfort in the arms of a woman who in the throes of passion calls out the name of another man. I mean, nothing about his life is encouraging, and he feels himself abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I just left him there at the end of the song and, I don\u2019t know, started thinking about what if he were discovered and kind of disinterred and brought into the realm of light entertainment in England in the 50s? It\u2019s only 20 years later. We think of these eras as totally independent, but of course they\u2019re not. Now he\u2019s on one of those shows where they used to blindfold people and make them guess people\u2019s occupation or identity, and he\u2019s put in the charge of a young woman who is the production assistant of the show, and they tell her, don\u2019t tell him your name don\u2019t let him, whatever you think, don\u2019t let him drink, because he\u2019sdisreputable and he might potentially be going to hit on her when they get alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when they do get alone, he is charming and he starts to ask her all about herself and about her boyfriend and about her family. And then you see how he\u2019s maybe making, a trap and she almost leans into it and she finds him \u2014 you can see he\u2019s a ruin but people are fascinated by ruins sometimes, even when they know they shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there\u2019s the line, \u201cI can\u2019t believe this is happening to me.\u201d What is that ?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe she\u2019s flattered momentarily by his attention, and in that little indecision is the risk. But I tried to make it so that I wasn\u2019t judging her or judging him even. He\u2019s obviously not right. In the last verse, it says he shuttered his eyes, that he made a very conscious effort not to look at her. And he thought of a drummer and considered a snare, because he\u2019s laid this trap before, and he may have even taken advantage of that situation before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I\u2019ll leave it to the listener to decide whether \u2014 He says, \u201cyou don\u2019t get a record if you never get caught.\u201d And it\u2019s a scene. It\u2019s a scene that isn\u2019t exactly a new one. It\u2019s not made up last week. And it\u2019s been there, it\u2019s been a scene I\u2019ve seen, I\u2019ve witnessed. I just thought that was where we\u2019d leave him. I don\u2019t know whether Jimmy\u2019ll ever make another appearance now. Maybe, maybe in a stripe-y suit. I don\u2019t know. Yeah, I mean that\u2019s the terrible thing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plainly you read and listen to a lot of music and you have a family and so on.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s really enough, isn\u2019t it? I like to see my friends. I keep in touch with people. Life is full and between the people that you care for and as people get older and more vulnerable in your family, you have to spend time with them because that time becomes more precious. I don\u2019t feel that I\u2019m oppressed by anything, really. I\u2019m curious about things. I\u2019ve never reallythought of myself as being cynical. I don\u2019tlike when I see the word \u201ccynical\u201d attached to me, I think I\u2019m very skeptical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think you\u2019re right to be skeptical about institutions and the things you mentioned and systems of control, but whether they\u2019re the small ones between two people or the larger ones that are governments or corporations, I just laugh at the idea that people tell you, people in my line of work shouldn\u2019t make a comment, particularly when the comments are not unsubtle slogans. I try, even in, say it\u2019s, \u201cUnder Lime,\u201d it\u2019s got three or four points of view within the song. It\u2019s written so the music opens with a strong rhythm and then becomes, as it becomes, there\u2019s more doubt in the motivation of what\u2019s being said, the music changes, and then it explodes into a more celebratory type of music which I suppose has a meaning in that the show does go on despite all of this, and often the scene in the backstage is something we draw a veil over sometime, or we used to draw a veil over.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Elvis Costello<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the same with everything. I mean, problems thatI thought would have gone away a long time ago are still there. Everybody sang that song, and it didn\u2019t change. So you\u2019ve got to keep trying. Some people are in a lifelong service to a better way to live. And some people are just jesters. And I guess I\u2019m one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I gather that doing this, sitting down and talking about yourself is not what you do for fun. But I very much appreciate it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your questions are not any pain to me to answer. I hope there\u2019s been something of worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to Elvis Costello for taking the time to speak with us; thanks also to Mark Satlof for making it happen. If you haven\u2019t already done so, check out our \u201c<\/em>How to Be Creative<\/em><\/a>\u201d series, episodes <\/em>354<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>355<\/em><\/a>. It features other creative types like Ai Weiwei, Jennifer Egan, Wynton Marsalis, James Dyson, Rosanne Cash, and Maira Kalman.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freakonomics Radio <\/em>is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica, with help from <\/em>Alison Craiglow<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Greg Rippin<\/em><\/a>, and Rebecca Lee Douglas. Our staff also includes <\/em>Alvin Melathe<\/em><\/a>,  <\/em>Harry Huggins<\/em><\/a>, and Zack Lapinski. The music you hear throughout the episode was composed by <\/em>Luis Guerra<\/em><\/a>. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on <\/em>Apple Podcasts<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Stitcher<\/a><\/em>, or <\/em>wherever you get your podcasts<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The above interview offers such an insight into the mind (and the heart) of Elvis Costello that a response he made in the summer of 2021, when seemingly defending Olivia Rodrigo (right) who had been accused by plagiarising one of his songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNN reported at the time at what was becoming a pretty chilly summer for Rodrigo. The teenage star came in for criticism from Courtney Love, the Grand Dame of grunge, who called her “rude” for imitating Hole’s album cover. Then social media users accused herof plagiarizing a song by the veteran British artist Elvis Costello.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, however, Costello proved to be far more forgiving — and even encouraging — about the similarity between his music and the latest offering from Rodrigo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After reading an article about Love’s angry accusation, a British teenager called Billy Edwards took to Twitter to remark: “First song on Rodrigo\u00b4s  album is a pretty much direct lift from Elvis Costello.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Costello suggested his own song had been influenced by Bob Dylan, who had himself been inspired by Chuck Berry. Edwards was comparing a guitar riff from Brutal, the first track on Rodrigo’s album Sour, with Costello’s 1978 hit Pump It Up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much to Edwards’ surprise, Costello himself replied, writing: “This is fine by me, Billy. It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did. #subterreaneanhomesickblues #toomuchmonkeybusiness”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The primary source for this article was  an interview between Kark Satlof for an on line broadcast of Freakonomics and from reportage by CNN Entertainment in 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our occasional re-postings Sidetracks And Detours are confident that we are not only sharing with our readers excellent articles written by experts but are also pointing to informed and informative sites readers will re-visit time and again. Of course, we feel sure our readers will also return to our daily not-for-profit blog knowing that we seek to provide core original material whilst sometimes spotlighting the best pieces from elsewhere, as we engage with genres and practitioners along all the sidetracks & detours we take.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was collated by Norman Warwick, a weekly columnist with Lanzarote Information and owner and editor of this daily blog at Sidetracks And Detours.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norman has also been a long serving broadcaster, co-presenting the weekly all across the arts programme on Crescent Community Radio for many years with Steve Bewick, and his own show on Sherwood Community Radio. He has been a regular guest on BBC Radio Manchester, BBC Radio Lancashire, BBC Radio Merseyside and BBC Radio Four.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a published author and poet Norman was a founder member of Lendanear Music, with Colin Lever and Just Poets with Pam McKee, Touchstones Creative Writing Group (for which he was creative writing facilitator for a number of years) with Val Chadwick and all across the arts with Robin Parker.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Monday to Friday,<\/strong> you will find a daily post here at Sidetracks And Detours and, should you be looking for good reading, over the weekend you can visit our massive but easy to navigate archives of over 500 articles.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of this daily not-for-profit blog is to deliver news, previews, interviews and reviews from all across the arts to die-hard fans and non- traditional audiences around the world. We are therefore always delighted to receive your own articles here at Sidetracks And Detours. So if you have a favourite artist, event, or venue that you would like to tell us more about just drop a Word document attachment to me at <\/strong>normanwarwick55@gmail.com<\/strong><\/a> with a couple of appropriate photographs in a zip folder if you wish. Beiung a not-for-profit organisation we unfortunately cannot pay you but we will always fully attribute any pieces we publish. You therefore might also. like to include a brief autobiography and photograph of yourself<\/strong> in your submission. We look forward to hearing from you.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sidetracks And Detours is seeking to join the synergy of organisations that support the arts of whatever genre. We are therefore grateful to all those share information to reach as wide and diverse an audience as possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

correspondents                                Michael Higgins<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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                                                            Graham Marshall<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                                            Peter Pearson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hot Biscuits Jazz Radio                      www.fc-radio.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

AllMusic  <\/strong><\/a>                                          <\/strong>https:\/\/www.allmusic.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

feedspot                                              https:\/\/www.feedspot.com\/?_src=folder<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jazz In Reading                                  https:\/\/www.jazzinreading.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Lanzarote Art Gallery                  https:\/\/lanzaroteartgallery.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8958,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8943\/revisions\/8958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}