Hot Press, April 6, 1994: Difference between revisions
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Why oops, there goes my intro. Only a minute into our interview and Elvis Costello has consigned one key line of questioning to the shredder. He's worked in Pathway Studios quite regularly in the seventeen years that separate his debut ''My Aim Is True'' from his latest album, ''Brutal Youth''. "It's not the romantic return to my youth thing you would like to think," he says. | Why oops, there goes my intro. Only a minute into our interview and Elvis Costello has consigned one key line of questioning to the shredder. He's worked in Pathway Studios quite regularly in the seventeen years that separate his debut ''My Aim Is True'' from his latest album, ''Brutal Youth''. "It's not the romantic return to my youth thing you would like to think," he says. | ||
So that's my ghosts of Pathway studio question blown out of the water. Likewise the return-to-the-original-unpolluted-source-to-recapture-<wbr>lost-<wbr>inspiration angle. Whilst I'll also need to be circumspect with any nostalgic punk-related queries. Elvis Costello, I am immediately advised, is not attempting to reinvent his own spirit of '76. It just sort of grew out of his inquiry-frustrating line on ''Brutal Youth'', his first album with the Attractions since 1986's ''Blood | So that's my ghosts of Pathway studio question blown out of the water. Likewise the return-to-the-original-unpolluted-source-to-recapture-<wbr>lost-<wbr>inspiration angle. Whilst I'll also need to be circumspect with any nostalgic punk-related queries. Elvis Costello, I am immediately advised, is not attempting to reinvent his own spirit of '76. It just sort of grew out of his inquiry-frustrating line on ''Brutal Youth'', his first album with the Attractions since 1986's ''Blood & Chocolate''. | ||
There was no elaborate plan for a reunion. After what he himself describes as his pair of "more orchestrated albums," ''Spike'' and ''Mighty Like A Rose'' and then ''The Juliet Letters'', his totally unforeseen digression into chamber music with The Brodsky Quartet, the pendulum was probably bound to swing back to a more Spartan approach. | There was no elaborate plan for a reunion. After what he himself describes as his pair of "more orchestrated albums," ''Spike'' and ''Mighty Like A Rose'' and then ''The Juliet Letters'', his totally unforeseen digression into chamber music with The Brodsky Quartet, the pendulum was probably bound to swing back to a more Spartan approach. | ||
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And yet — I know, I did my damnedest to avoid the dread phrase — it is and it isn't back to basics. There are uncanny prophetic echoes of the increasingly clownish sex scandals that are disabling and disfiguring John Major's regime. Early press on ''Brutal Youth'' has already linked "13 Steps Lead Down" to Stephen's Milligan's satsuma-spiked demise but you can just as handily link the Continental adventuress of "Sulky Girl" to the Spanish Lady Buck who throttled Sir Peter Harding's military career through the tabloids. | And yet — I know, I did my damnedest to avoid the dread phrase — it is and it isn't back to basics. There are uncanny prophetic echoes of the increasingly clownish sex scandals that are disabling and disfiguring John Major's regime. Early press on ''Brutal Youth'' has already linked "13 Steps Lead Down" to Stephen's Milligan's satsuma-spiked demise but you can just as handily link the Continental adventuress of "Sulky Girl" to the Spanish Lady Buck who throttled Sir Peter Harding's military career through the tabloids. | ||
But the music doesn't clone his early work with The Attractions. The sound may be slimline and the first three tracks, "Pony Street," "Kinder Murder, "13 Steps ..." and the later "20% Amnesia" do revert to the fast-punching combinations or olden times in the ring but elsewhere, the music's mood is more reflective. | But the music doesn't clone his early work with The Attractions. The sound may be slimline and the first three tracks, "Pony Street," "Kinder Murder, "13 Steps..." and the later "20% Amnesia" do revert to the fast-punching combinations or olden times in the ring but elsewhere, the music's mood is more reflective. | ||
Take "Clown Strike," with its acknowledged debts to Van Morrison courtesy of the album's other bassist, Nick Lowe. Once Costello and co. would have clattered along so boisterously there'd be no time to survey the scenery whereas now, there's restraining hands on the brakes. Costello now relates to social disease with unease rather than quaking, querulous aggression, asks a few more questions before he punishes the prisoners of his songs and doesn't so readily presume to be admonishing his victims from a superior, cutting sense of morality. | Take "Clown Strike," with its acknowledged debts to Van Morrison courtesy of the album's other bassist, Nick Lowe. Once Costello and co. would have clattered along so boisterously there'd be no time to survey the scenery whereas now, there's restraining hands on the brakes. Costello now relates to social disease with unease rather than quaking, querulous aggression, asks a few more questions before he punishes the prisoners of his songs and doesn't so readily presume to be admonishing his victims from a superior, cutting sense of morality. | ||
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"But then," he continues, "there were other songs like 'London's Brilliant Parade', 'This Is Hell' and 'You Tripped At Every Step' that have a bit more architecture and Nick said 'these aren't my speed'." | "But then," he continues, "there were other songs like 'London's Brilliant Parade', 'This Is Hell' and 'You Tripped At Every Step' that have a bit more architecture and Nick said 'these aren't my speed'." | ||
Producer, Mitchell Froom who'd worked with Bruce Thomas on Suzanne Vega's records then suggested the last missing Attraction. "We were edging towards it," Costello reflects. I had my doubts that we could pull it off. Not from the musical point of view but more from the personal point of view. Because though we've not exactly been at each other's throats | Producer, Mitchell Froom who'd worked with Bruce Thomas on Suzanne Vega's records then suggested the last missing Attraction. "We were edging towards it," Costello reflects. I had my doubts that we could pull it off. Not from the musical point of view but more from the personal point of view. Because though we've not exactly been at each other's throats, there's been plenty of screaming and shouting about each other over the last few years," | ||
Discuss the songs and you soon start roving down endless paths of digression. People might decide the relationship songs on ''Brutal Youth'' are full of wrath and weeping, I submit. Costello demurs. | Discuss the songs and you soon start roving down endless paths of digression. People might decide the relationship songs on ''Brutal Youth'' are full of wrath and weeping, I submit. Costello demurs. | ||
"Not entirely, though I think some of them do. Maybe when you first listen to them in an analytical frame of mind, which is your job, those things tad to dominate more. But later on, people get the sense of what the tune is expressing and maybe balancing it a little. There's certainly sad songs on the record but 'Clown | "Not entirely, though I think some of them do. Maybe when you first listen to them in an analytical frame of mind, which is your job, those things tad to dominate more. But later on, people get the sense of what the tune is expressing and maybe balancing it a little. There's certainly sad songs on the record but 'Clown Strike' is an example. Somebody described it as very cruel but I said no it's not. | ||
"I'd read this story somewhere about this strike of clowns at a circus. It really happened. And so that's how I was thinking that you don't have to tumble round the room and bounce off the walls to make me love you. So really, it's a very affectionate song. It's somebody frustrated by this person who hides behind this facade. | "I'd read this story somewhere about this strike of clowns at a circus. It really happened. And so that's how I was thinking that you don't have to tumble round the room and bounce off the walls to make me love you. So really, it's a very affectionate song. It's somebody frustrated by this person who hides behind this facade. | ||
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"It's not that he started that style of music because it obviously comes from jazz," he explains. But in terms of rock 'n' roll, he kind of defined it and Tim Buckley in a kind of way picked up on it. It's a kind of acoustic-based jazz, a sort of light R'n'B. Actually my favourite Van Morrison record is His Band And Street Choir, funnily enough, not one of the great mystical records. I just like it because it's so free." | "It's not that he started that style of music because it obviously comes from jazz," he explains. But in terms of rock 'n' roll, he kind of defined it and Tim Buckley in a kind of way picked up on it. It's a kind of acoustic-based jazz, a sort of light R'n'B. Actually my favourite Van Morrison record is His Band And Street Choir, funnily enough, not one of the great mystical records. I just like it because it's so free." | ||
"But I'm not saying I'd never like to hear Astral Weeks. It's like Mingus or something. It's one of the great pieces of music of the 20th Century, I really believe that. But I can't listen to it too often because when you put it on, it's so extraordinary. And all attempts to do anything like it have completely failed. Including Van who doesn't seem to be able to go back to such an extraordinary leap because he's such a great bandleader at doing the other thing. Maybe, you can only do that once in your whole life. | "But I'm not saying I'd never like to hear ''Astral Weeks''. It's like Mingus or something. It's one of the great pieces of music of the 20th Century, I really believe that. But I can't listen to it too often because when you put it on, it's so extraordinary. And all attempts to do anything like it have completely failed. Including Van who doesn't seem to be able to go back to such an extraordinary leap because he's such a great bandleader at doing the other thing. Maybe, you can only do that once in your whole life. | ||
"What's amazing is that he's made so many great records after that one. Because it would have stopped a lot of people dead in their tracks. Like 'I've made this I'd better stop'. That's what I admire about him, the way he keeps going on." | "What's amazing is that he's made so many great records after that one. Because it would have stopped a lot of people dead in their tracks. Like 'I've made this I'd better stop'. That's what I admire about him, the way he keeps going on." | ||
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"I can't speak for them because I don't know what the younger songwriters feel like. There's a lot of very timid music that I hear. It's as if they're making tentative steps towards an audience without being very sure that it's even there. Maybe the whole sense of the song has lost its bearings because there's so much other music constructed with so much less effort that is more successful." | "I can't speak for them because I don't know what the younger songwriters feel like. There's a lot of very timid music that I hear. It's as if they're making tentative steps towards an audience without being very sure that it's even there. Maybe the whole sense of the song has lost its bearings because there's so much other music constructed with so much less effort that is more successful." | ||
Americans have all their musical history to exploit but Brits have a Year Zero about 1955 that acts as a cut-off point. English folk music, music hall and pre-war dance music are alien resources, virtually | Americans have all their musical history to exploit but Brits have a Year Zero about 1955 that acts as a cut-off point. English folk music, music hall and pre-war dance music are alien resources, virtually unusable by the majority of British writers. But Elvis Costello is the exception, a songsmith who's comfortably worked with folk musicians, albeit Irish ones, and the son of a father who sang with the Joe Loss Orchestra. Not surprisingly, he's more adept at crossing these great British divides. | ||
"A lot of the songs that inspire me to write come from before 1955. Even English ones," he claims. citing The Very Thought of You' by bandleader. Ray Noble about 1929. | "A lot of the songs that inspire me to write come from before 1955. Even English ones," he claims. citing The Very Thought of You' by bandleader. Ray Noble about 1929. | ||
"Ray Noble was doing the same thing as Lennon and | "Ray Noble was doing the same thing as Lennon and McCartney" he continues, "in that he was copying the American songwriting tradition, the Jerome Kern/Irving Berlin tradition. But I think there is a problem in that only Richard Thompson has managed to make a happy marriage between rock 'n' roll and English folk music. It's much easier here. Now some of them are shotgun marriages of free-form jazz but the forms in Irish music are much more open to modern interpretation because though there's songs and ballads, the instrumental forms are much more open-ended. They lend themselves to collaboration — otherwise it's obvious the Chieftains wouldn't have a career." | ||
But, I argue, an American or an Irish writer can create a song about notionally, 1924, confident that he or she can find the musical language to naturally bridge the seventy years whereas with an English writer, the resulting song may sound jerrybuilt. | But, I argue, an American or an Irish writer can create a song about notionally, 1924, confident that he or she can find the musical language to naturally bridge the seventy years whereas with an English writer, the resulting song may sound jerrybuilt. |
Latest revision as of 06:02, 27 December 2021
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