CD Review, April 1996

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CD Review

US music magazines

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The Mutual Admiration Society


James Sullivan

Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello form an unlikely songwriting alliance as they collaborate on material for Allison Anders' upcoming film, Grace of My Heart.

Even in Elvis Costello's early days as a gawky, amphetamine-crazed new-waver, his songs were peppered with the melodramatic flourishes of the classic girl-group sound. One of the multi-talented entertainer's favorite inspirations has always been composer Burt Bacharach, whose unconventional time signatures, chord patterns and subject matter have found their way into many a Costello tune.

Costello says that his 1979 classic "Accidents Will Happen" was inspired by Bacharach's "Anyone Who Had a Heart," a 1963 hit for one of Bacharach's surest interpreters, Dionne Warwick. For years, Costello has been covering Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" in performance, and the former angry young man's collection of tributes, Kojak Variety, features a more obscure Bacharach number, "Please Stay."

Coincidentally, and perhaps surprisingly, Bacharach returns the flattery, professing high regard for the once-ornery Costello and his work. And in a rare, unexpected coupling, the mutual admirers were asked to pool their talents on a song for the upcoming film Grace of My Heart, the fictitious story of a Carole King-like songwriter and her rise to stardom. Director Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging, Four Rooms) conceived of a unique soundtrack that would pair real-life veterans of the so-called "Brill Building," the hit factory that dominated the pop charts during the early '60s, with their contemporary protéges, obvious and otherwise. Joining a roster that includes Leslie Gore, Gerry Goffin, Los Lobos, Jill Sobule and Dinosaur Jr., Bacharach and Costello eagerly agreed to collaborate, and the resulting product, the aching "God Give Me Strength," has become the movie's signature song. Performed during a crucial scene by Illeana Douglas's main character, "God Give Me Strength" also runs over the film's end credits — in Bacharach and Costello's own version, recorded in New York this February.

Prior to their collaboration, these two phenomenally prolific composers had crossed paths just once, in 1988, at L.A.'s Ocean Way recording studio.

"I met him in the studio when I was making Spike," Costello remembers. "I was recording a song called 'Satellite,' and it was filled with all these instrumental arrangement devices, gestures that were totally borrowed from him. And somebody says, 'You're not going to believe who's down the hallway...'

"So I invited him in to listen to the track, and he was really funny about it. He could hear it was done with affection."

Bacharach says that at Ocean Way, Elvis spoke well of Chrissie Hynde's version of "Windows of the World," which he had not yet heard.

"And the next encounter was this proposal [Grace of My Heart]," he continues. On tight schedules, the two musicians reserved a single day in which they could compose together. But "the date was cancelled," Bacharach says, "so we had to do this whole thing over the phone. I'd never done that — not from start to finish. Phone, faxes and answering machines."

"I was on the road at the time with Bob Dylan," Costello says. "I was getting home at two in the morning, getting on the phone to Burt, and writing the song. It was a pretty extraordinary week.

"I had written this way before, strangely enough," he continues. "But this, we were actually doing it more or less like a tennis match." Early on, Costello says, he called and got Bacharach's answering machine: And I thought, 'Shall I just leave another message, or shall I play the music down the phone and hope that he likes it?' And I plumped for the latter option, which was a very strange moment."

Bacharach loved it. Costello: "He came back to me and said, 'Yeah, that's great.' And then we were flying. We went back and forth, with faxes of music, and me sitting in my study with a little electric keyboard across my lap, and him in his music room, playing me the piano over the speaker phone."

Costello says they knew right away they were on to something. "The minute it was finished and I was demoing it, I knew we had a good song... I have the feeling it's going to be the sort of song that other people are going to want to sing." The two men grasped each other's styles with ease. "I betcha there's a couple of sound signatures in there you think he wrote, and I wrote them," Costello says gleefully.

"I have the firm belief that he has his own musical signature. Not everybody that writes does. I think probably that my songs are recognized by a combination of harmonies and mood, the sense of the words I use. But I've crossed a number of styles — I've never really gone out of my way to work on that sort of signature."

Costello credits another experience with a legendary musician as being enormously helpful in prodding Bacharach to revisit his heyday: "Certainly," he says, "when I worked with Paul [McCartney], I did say, 'Don't be the only one in the whole of modern music that doesn't refer to the harmonies the Beatles used.' There was a period where he seemed to go out of his way to avoid it... And the same goes for this song. Anything I suggested that happened to have the flavor of Burt Bacharach is made all the more real by the fact that he then went through it and improved upon it. Because I was only guessing."

The pairing of the two prolific entertainers, Bacharach says, is "like a little bit of an event. Or maybe a big event, I don't know, but it's certainly an event. The exciting thing about it is that you can actually write a song without ever being in a room together... It's not the most ideal way to do it. But I think if you're very detailed and meticulous about your work, as Elvis is — he's got a mutual partner at this end, because I'm just about as obsessive as he is."

"It's come around now," Costello says, "from doing an impromptu live cover of a Bacharach song, through using him as a kind of benchmark, to actually working with him. I suppose I might be getting somewhere finally."


Tags: Burt BacharachAllison AndersGrace Of My HeartAccidents Will HappenAnyone Who Had A HeartDionne WarwickI Just Don't Know What To Do With MyselfKojak VarietyPlease StayCarole KingBrill BuildingGerry GoffinLos LobosGod Give Me StrengthSpikeSatelliteChrissie HyndeWindows Of The WorldBob DylanPaul McCartneyThe BeatlesJames Sullivan

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CD Review, April 1996


James Sullivan talks to Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach about "God Give Me Strength."

Images

1996-04-00 CD Review pages 32-33.jpg
Page scans.

Cover.
1996-04-00 CD Review cover.jpg

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