Creem, February 1985

Bibliography   72 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UK & Ireland weeklies UK & Ireland magazines UK & Ireland newspapers US newspapers US rock magazines US music magazines US magazines US alternative weeklies European magazines European newspapers Canada  •  Mexico  •  Asia Australia  •  New Zealand South America  •  Africa Blogs  •  Fanzines  •  Books Online publications — Elvis Costello's Cruel World Blues Lisa Traxler Bad news was waiting for me backstage after Elvis Costello's show in Dallas in early September. There are times when even the best laid plans run amuck, and his management knew nothing of the interview I thought I'd confirmed. For the past couple of years, however, the Costello camp has been quite hospitable. and Elvis himself accessible if not downright gregarious. I pulled him aside to ask if we might have a few minutes to chat, and to my surprise he suggested we meet for lunch the next day before they left for Austin. Aided and abetted by Road Manager Colin Waters, I found myself seated in the lobby of a posh "European-style" hotel, waiting rather apprehensively for the elevator doors to open. I'd interviewed Costello twice before, and it had been no easy task. When he finally appeared, Elvis seemed somewhat tired, guarded, and rumpled — but his mood lightened to amiable, and eventually jovial, as our 15-minute interview stretched into a two-hour visit. After rejecting the seafood buffet and inquiring about bacon in the Caesar's salad (one of his crew describes him as "a fussy vegetarian with expensive tastes"), E.C. talked openly and intensely. The tape stopped for the main course: what's missing here is discussion of video, family history, the Monkees, fast food, and religion. You've been compared to numerous songwriters, like Cole Porter, probably a lot more than you'd like... One reason why your songs are so extraordinary is the way they are performed, with the horn arrangements, the blue notes, and the way the voice is used as an instrument. What is your inspiration for this type of technique? I think that comes from the fact that I got a little disillusioned with rock 'n' roll as such a few years ago, and just decided to build myself a couple of bridges back to kinds of music — well, not necessarily back, sideways if necessary — to kinds of music other than rock 'n' roll, still employing them with the rock 'n' roll instrumentation. Whenever people try to incorporate other styles of music in pop music, it's often pomposity, self-importance — "Look at us, we're classical rock — why isn't everybody impressed?" Without making too much of a fuss of it, I was just trying to find some new musical ideas. So I did start listening to a lot of pre-rock 'n' roll music — a lot of jazz ballads and the sort of songs of that era — and I even wrote a couple of songs which were after the fashion. The song structure of "Almost Blue" from Imperial Bedroom, for example. But obviously I'm not from that era. I can't really just make myself turn into that kind of thing. And also the world has changed as well, so it would be inappropriate and a bit of a sham, really. You end up being some show-business recreation of it, like Manhattan Transfer: technically correct, but they always seemed to be devoid of any feeling. So this was the challenge in doing that — trying to employ some musical ideas which were exciting and fresh to me, ones I hadn't used before — incorporate them into my own sound and try to mold them into something new. How about the country material? The country album, Almost Blue, came out of a rock background. Do you think there's any more country in the future for you? I don't know. I think that was a very punk thing to do, to go to Nashville and make a record with Billy Sherrill. I've had a liking of country music. It's a style, obviously, which is not natural to me. It's something I've learned, but something I really fell in love with quite a few years back. I've ended up incorporating it in different degrees. There was a country song cut at the very first session I ever did — "Stranger In The House" — although it didn't come out for a few years. There was a country song on Trust, a quite pronounced one. There's country influence on quite a few of the guitar sounds on other songs. So I think there's always a possibility we may cut another song. I don't know whether we'd go and do another album. If we did go to Nashville, it would be to record our own material, or if we were to record another country record, it would be songs that I wrote. There would be little point in doing another covers album. At the same time, I sometimes play "I've Forgotten More Than You'll Ever Know About Her" — the Davis Sisters song — as a solo number at the end of the show. So it's not like I've run away from country music because it wasn't commercially successful over here — it was quite commercially successful in England. That should never be the consideration of why you do anything, anyway. I did it because I simply wanted to make that record, and if the mood took me again I would, you know. It would be less of a surprise now, 'cause people kinda know that we have an interest in it. What about people covering your songs? How do you feel about it, and which one is your favorite? Uh... I've been very... ungracious in the past about the covers. I suppose I could've been more generous. I don't actually like hardly any of the covers, technically speaking. Edmunds's cover is good. I'm proud of the George Jones record that I did with him, but I think he would be the first to say it's not his greatest performance and it's certainly not mine. But the thrill of doing it with him kind of precluded me...uh, the nervousness... Well, the appearance on George Jones TV special was wonderful, but you had the mumps, right? I've never seen that, 'cause I felt so awful and looked so dreadful. I probably sang better on that program than I did on the recorded session. I was more confident about singing that kind of material by then, and he put me at ease, because he'd been very generous over the making of that program. Everybody was standing miles away from me. I occasionally hear interesting versions of my songs. I only have knowledge of one mercenary cover — where I know for a fact that the producer of the record strong-armed the group into recording one of my songs. That was the Outlaws. I believe they've no interest at all in that ... Creem, February 1985 Lisa Traxler interviews Elvis Costello. Images Cover and page scans. Photo by Ross Marino. Photo by Ron Wolfson/LGI. Photo by Ron Wolfson/LGI. Page scans.

External links

• Wikipedia: Creem