ELVIS COSTELLO - DUTY AND CONSCIENCE
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The pop year has had a spectacular start because after Lou Reed in New York, Elvis Costello has now delivered a magnum opus. His new album Spike takes over an hour, in which a variety of more or less traditional styles in review passes ranging from pop and folk to rhythm 'n' blues and even jazz. So he strengthened his status as perhaps the most talented composer of the British new wave of the late seventies has produced. Declan Patrick MacManus addition (34), presents itself as it is officially called, is for the first time as an arranger, his lyrics as usual so full woordunstenarij sit it often guess at the meaning remains. And all this is subtitled attributed to The Beloved Entertainer, which is on the cover also leaves illustrated as a buffoon with two faces.
To promote Spike Costello pulled a small weeks through Europe, where he stood with iron discipline of the late morning to early evening, representatives of the press, radio and television to help. So we were just about half past ten already second received that morning. His reputation as a paranoid artist at the slightest shoot his temper, was nothing to notice, on the contrary, he talked incessantly and often did not even have to be made of it to come. One thing to another question On the bed lay 'darling monster' Cait O'Riordan, the former bassist of The Pogues and his current companion, quietly to listen.
The title Spike you associate immediately with Spike Jones, but unmistakable musical references are not to be found. Then go the title literally stand out, especially since the form of I is similar to that of a nail.
"The nail on the head! Initially the album is indeed called by Spike Jones. As is known, his music is characterized by, among other kinds of funny noises, and when I saw the shots of Spike once again listened to was on a night again I'll look at the percussion in some parts there. It later appeared in the details go to third parties rarely stand out, but if you're working in the studio you can hear everything so many times that you can not see the forest at one point through the trees. However, the cover design was already done and I liked the combination of the name of the image and the nickname really witty. Pats! Spike, The Beloved Entertainer ramming a nail in your head. It is a suggestive context, as in the case of Kellogg's Cornflakes, where the rooster on the box does not refer to the product itself, but refers to the fact that chickens rise early, the time of day when they deemed cornflakes are to eat. "
Spike is no longer your most ambitious album to date.
"Every last album is my most ambitious. But I have never been so much attention to instrumental detail, which means I took longer than usual to work I went. Every detail had to be assessed on its functionality, it had to be the song and not form the basis for my ingenuity. Proof employed Those complicated arrangements necessitated the necessary preparation, also because they are musicians who I first called often performed. I had them all I wanted to explain exactly, otherwise they just did not know what was expected of them. I could not fall back on The Attractions, who almost instinctively feel me and with whom I do not have to exclude. "Chance
Had they no qualms that they were put aside after King Of America for the second time in a row
"The bulk of the material simply lent itself is not to be performed by them. They would initially play four pieces, but Steve Nieve did not feel like to be turned on, as a session musician he wanted all or nothing. He still sees Elvis Costello & The Attractions as a cohesive group, which in my mind is made up of four individuals. "
When reading back old interviews I noticed that you repeatedly remarked on the albums from your middle period that you liked them so rushed happen.
"That was no more than a sober observation afterwards. We played at the time as soon as we have lived a hectic lifestyle. We worked continuously and thereby us went outside to drugs and drink, so we control ourselves little by little lost. And as for Get Happy!! shows that in retrospect still good to have unpacked too. The inspiration for this record because we draw from the Stax-soul and we did not feel so rushed felt, then the end result would undoubtedly have sounded like we Booker T. & The MG 's tried to imitate. Get Happy!! now includes not a pastiche but our version of that form of rhythm 'n' blues, though no one will stand without foreknowledge, because specific style elements as well as missing. Incidentally, I have except Goodbye Cruel World no trouble with my record. Each album is to duty and conscience come about, so I have nothing to regret, let alone that I can take myself. "Blaming
You've already worked with several producers. Do they understand your music all equally well?
"Ah, there is not particularly to my music to understand a lot of it is not so difficult to understand what I'm trying to do. T Bone Burnett is someone you like no one else can point out when you wander sense of your soul. In the studio you will soon tend to lose you in all sorts of irrelevant details. You will be overtaken by musical ideas, which you then want to carry out, as they benefit seldom or never the essence of the song. As in the case of King Of America filled T Bone Spike on the role of football coach, who calls out instructions from the sideline at the crucial moments. "
The most startling assistant to Spike without question is Paul McCartney. How did the contact between the two of you really come about?
"I got a call that I do not even want to come to talk about a possible collaboration by. We made an appointment to see if we would be able to find. It together On that occasion we decided to start together to complete what we were already doing. Few songs One gave the other technical assistance and doing we got to know each other's method, after which we were able to compose. Really something together On his new album comes some of our pieces to stand. I think it's good songs, not least because there is a certain tension in it, which was recalled by the friction between both our musical ideas. Curiously way, do the things that third party will be attributed to him from me, while the reverse is equally true. "
You're one else John Lennon a Paul McCartney.
"That kind of equation I think do not make sense, because for every contract you can set several differences. At the time of Imperial Bedroom I'm even mentioned in the same breath as George Gershwin, although I not like him, apart from the fact that I'm just like him sexually insatiable. "
But McCartney sees music primarily as entertainment while you like Lennon still wants to convey a message. Somewhere
"For me, the priority is you do something with heart and soul. But every pop musician in pamphlet-like terms, preaches a radical political or social point of view, it is invariably taken more seriously than someone who is playing a deeply sensitive love song. Music with a committed spirit remains often stabbing in dispassionate ideology. Some of my texts may be politicized, I always write about people, I tell you what was done to them by the government or what I feel about it. Hence, for example, that most soldiers figure in my war songs. In addition, I'm usually out of something I see on TV or read in the newspaper. With the exception of the insane and addicts who hallucinate in life, I should indeed like everyone do with the information provided to me by the media. A real artist does not have reliable sources, nor he knows mysterious incentives. Everyone has imagination, which is especially apparent in a museum where no two people see the same thing in be any painting. And if I detachable my glasses, it occasionally happen that I suddenly a very different art'm watching. So I sometimes read words incorrectly and also happens to me at every turn that I mean something other than what is said, so that creates beautiful poetic language that I instantly garnered in my memory. "
In their own words you have from the outset a center trying to walk between the shocking machismo of hard rocker and weakened sensitivity of the singer-songwriter. Away
"On heavy metal I want to make today a word dirty, but those Californian confession pop music of the early seventies, spoke to me as a teenager to do. In later life you look, I at least, through it, without doing immediately to haggle over the purely artistic qualities of some something. What stands against me in these texts is the obsession with private inner life, a typical adolescent property. All that introspection filled me as an adolescent already vicarious shame. And still it's strange phenomenon is that once again find their thirties than fifteen years after consolation with that pitiful singer-songwriters. There are radio stations that specialize in nostalgic programs, a musical soap operas for yuppies. In the United States It is especially tuned by careerists nilly, from which guests facing moral dilemmas because they earn too much money, moreover, do not give them to the Third World. Often they also suffer under their bad marriage, one more reason for self-pity. They wear expensive Italian suits dine preferably in Japanese restaurants. Once back in their luxurious apartment they eat their sorrows away with chocolate, listening Joni Mitchell or James Taylor. "
You're a long time haunted by the image of the angry young man who could muster compassion to nobody.
"This characterization hit really nowhere, but it took me years to disprove that. Misunderstanding Was heard almost nothing but almost aggressive force behind the music and only listened with half an ear to the lyrics. Though I will not deny that, driven by a certain pragmatism, with my alter ego Elvis Costello capitalized on the zeitgeist. I chose it to me in a way to suit, including all the world how not to put songs. Until further notice on the plate That hyperengieke nomination was anything but simulated, before I had to wait too long. My chance I was really on edge, as opposed to all those pseudo punks for whom music was still a free thing in essence. "
To me you always been a stranger in our midst. Until well into the seventies I was in fact an inveterate country rock fanatic, so it is not surprising that I liked punk aanvannkelijk unmusical sound. The first records of the new wave that I bought were the debuts of you and Graham Parker.
"That which is afterwards easily allows natural state. The Rumour Graham was made up of pubrockers their inspiration partly investigated in the country 'n' western, while I My Aim Is True was accompanied by Clover, a California country rock group. In spirit was Almost Blue with all the interpretations of country & western classics only a true punk record. An idealist who venture to the most conservative of all types of music and even recorded in the den of the lion, of course, that was out of the question. Not that I much thought at the time was, I was very myself in knots and songs vertolkten my state of mind better than I could at that moment. Besides, I wanted to take some distance from my work as a songwriter. I had lost my hit success and without it I was there right now sorry about, I could not bear to think that I could end up being a cult hero. Sometimes Hence, it seemed high time to find out. "My motives once
About country' n 'western spoken. Do you perhaps explain how music can be without them repugnant? Shamelessly sentimental
"Now I have never thought about, frankly. They wrap it all in a story, which they know the subject in one way or another to universalize. Irrespective of the genre practiced by the most amazing vocalists who with such persuasiveness about everyday matters sing them almost automatically, the voice of the people. In contrast, lacks the established artists and producers in that sector often the necessary courage to take an allowance whose musical's why they are at any given time fall into mannerism soporific. They try to put through his beck and call. Publicly their position safe Personally, I have to date again and again succeeded in every new album to be different from its predecessor. Both stylistically and lyrically strong After twelve years by now I can also afford me to even come up with a diptych so who knows. "
Finally, I'd like a quote to explain your first big interview: "Gram Parsons, the country-rock singer, got it worked out nicely, he did his best work and then went around the corner to yourself I will not witness.. of my artistic decline, I necessarily do not want it at any price.
"Those words, I do not currently take back because the first symptoms have not yet arisen. Admittedly, I know every now and then my ailing periods, but it shall invariably ailments transient. On Spik Ever Shows Elvis Costello still no trace of artistic dementia, on the contrary, it appears correctly in the power of his creative life. "
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