Beat? (Russian), 1995
Translated by Marika Whaley


Beat?: Were you always free to do what you did?

Costello: Yes. The evidence is that the company agreed to the recording
of the album "The Juliet Letters". If you went into any record company
and said, "Listen, I want to do so-and-so, and so-and-so, but I'm not
going to demonstrate any of it to you, just give me more money. . .
." It was impossible for them to lose: (?) the only way they could
hear it was to come to a rehearsal. . . . But they trust my taste,
because if we work on something all year, using every free minute,
that means there's something in it. And they know that these people
are deeply devoted to the project, and I'm an impatient man. . . . In
general, they allot us a budget for writing an album. By the standards
of a record company it's not that much money: in comparison with
any rock n roll record, it's nothing, but $100,000 or around that -
not that small a sum. And then there was still a film. All of it
was pretty risky. But their expenses were paid back: the record sold
a lot better than even we expected.

Beat?: Could you tell us about the creation of the Charlie Mingus
tribute?

Costello: After I finished the record "Kojak Variety", I flew from
Barbados to New York. It was right before "Mighty Like a Rose". I knew
two musicians on this record. Marc Ribot and Michael Blair played
on "Spike" a couple of years before, and, besides that, I toured
together with them. The other musicians were known to me only by
their reputations. It was truly well done. Did you see the film? The
film's music was written by Ray Davies from The Kinks. There was an
American composer - Harry Parch (sp?). He was interested by the most
diverse theories about music, connected with tonality. He created his
own system of notation and built his own instruments, on which this
music could be played. Some of them looked like Western instruments.
He modified them so that they reflected his principles. And when you
played on them as if on an ordinary instrument, you got nonsense. This
is what you hear on that record: it's a combination of conventional
instruments and Parch's instruments.

Beat?: Would you like to collaborate with Ray Davies?

Costello: I don't know, it's hard to say. Maybe we're too similar
to work together. He has a somewhat romantic view of the world,
but at the same time somewhat melancholy. If we worked together, it
would probably sound too depressing. But I consider him a remarkable
songwriter, simply excellent!

Beat?: What about renewing the collaboration with Paul McCartney?

Costello: If he wants us to get together and write new songs, then I
would with pleasure. Because I like the songs we wrote together. But
even if we never do anything together again, all the same I think
he and I wrote some great songs. From time to time I get postcards
from him.

I have an idea to record a whole album of songs that I did with
other people. I would like to record "That Day Is Done", because
I really like that song, and I play it at concerts. Earlier it was
a typical matter that a song existed in more than one performance;
it's only now that this has become unusual. I don't know why this has
happened. Earlier the popularity of a song was measured by how many
people performed it, and not by how many copies of one performance were
sold. In the first hit parades [i.e. record charts] notes mattered,
not records.

Beat?: What do you think about what people of your generation are
doing today?

Costello: About many of them I have no idea. Paul Weller put out a
very good record ("Wild Wood"). It was one of my favorite records
of the year. I had never seen him [live?] before, if you don't count
benefit concerts. I wasn't excited by anything that he did with the
group The Style Council, besides, maybe, the first two records. I
adored The Jam. Their later albums were especially good. In my opinion,
he had some difficulties. The public wanted him to be someone that he
no longer wanted to be. And for a long time it seemed that his main
problem was that he didn't have the necessary voice for the music that
he really loved. Now he has developed a much stronger voice. On this
[latest] record he sings very well.

There are people I'm always interested in listening to. For example,
Tom Waits, Aimee Mann, I've worked with her. . . . Do you know which
record I like? I like the Bob Dylan record that came out the year
before last. A really soulful record. Many people decided that it
was simply terrible. I don't think that these people listened to it
carefully, that they really understood *what* they were listening
to. You see, the public treated it with a preconceived notion based
on some of Dylan's other work and it simply went in one ear and
out the other. In my opinion, it was his best record in the last
twenty years or so - after "Blood on the Tracks". I like a lot of
Dylan's other records recorded during those years, but in my view
this record has a lot of soul, it simply comes out now in another
way. Because he's gotten older and looks at music in another way:
he doesn't necessarily have to feel the author's itch. Many people,
including me, liked the record "Oh Mercy", but when I gave it another
listen, I understood that it was an illusion. The illusion was the
producer's work. It reminds one of a Daniel Lanois record. On the
surface they sound charming, but if you go deeper you find out that
there's nothing there. "Ring Them Bells" on that record was really
an excellent song, but the rest are simply deceiving the ear.

Beat?: Why won't you record an album like Dylan, with only one
acoustic guitar?

Costello: It's one of those other records that I would like to do
in the future, but the record company won't give me the money for
it! You need to be prepared for the fact that such a record won't
sell. You need to have a very good argument for why you want to do
something so simple. A record with one acoustic guitar doesn't get
played on the radio! Dylan is proof of that.

There are very few such records. Even "Blood on the Tracks" is not
completely acoustic. Even Leonard Cohen's records, Joni Mitchell's
album "Blue", Nick Drake. . . .

Beat?: How do you write songs? Has it changed over the years?

Costello: I never have any kind of definite method. One unchanging
way. Each time it changes. It's possible to start with one phrase,
with one line, just a whole melody can pop into your head, and then
it only needs fixing in your mind so that it doesn't slip away or
get changed. Music comes into [my] head whole, all at once. It's a
little dangerous, because in that same minute, when you begin to sing
it on tape or write it on paper, or play it, it all changes. You can
hear it in your head, but the moment you begin to play, variations
of different harmonies appear. And one small harmonic difference can
change the whole character of the song. At that stage music is very
vulnerable. When it comes into your head, you should try hard not to
go where you've been before. It always plays out in a different way.