ElvisCostello.com, May 31, 2019: Difference between revisions
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{{:ElvisCostello.com index}} | {{:ElvisCostello.com index}} | ||
{{:Elvis on index}} | {{:Elvis on index}} | ||
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<center><h3> Where the secrets are kept </h3></center> | <center><h3> Where the secrets are kept </h3></center> | ||
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The ''Regarde Maintenant'' E.P. was added to this collection, completing a four-sided double-vinyl edition for people who wanted to hear a little more of the music from these sessions. | The ''Regarde Maintenant'' E.P. was added to this collection, completing a four-sided double-vinyl edition for people who wanted to hear a little more of the music from these sessions. | ||
''Purse'' is a collection of song-writing collaborations; a song composed with | ''Purse'' is a collection of song-writing collaborations; a song composed with Burt Bacharach, another co-written with Paul McCartney and musical settings of words by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. | ||
For those of you who are curious to know more about these songs and their relationship to the music of ''Look Now'', you should look no further than the first song, " | For those of you who are curious to know more about these songs and their relationship to the music of ''Look Now'', you should look no further than the first song, "Everyone's Playing House." | ||
Astute listeners may detect a thematic musical link to the ''Look Now'' song, " | Astute listeners may detect a thematic musical link to the ''Look Now'' song, "Don't Look Now," this is because they were originally written to be successive numbers, in a stage adaptation of ''Painted From Memory''. To carry the story forward I wrote a variation based on Burt Bacharach's open melody leading to a refrain of my own invention that had something of the schoolyard taunt about it. | ||
I imagine that the hardest aspect of writing the script for this show was to find an agreement between a new dramatic narrative — by Chuck Lorre and Steven Sater — with the existing stories contained or implied by the songs from the original record album. | I imagine that the hardest aspect of writing the script for this show was to find an agreement between a new dramatic narrative — by Chuck Lorre and Steven Sater — with the existing stories contained or implied by the songs from the original record album. | ||
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As their storyline developed, Burt Bacharach and I were called upon to turn the corners by writing new songs for specific characters rather than people I had imagined or the parts of my own experience found in the first folio of songs. | As their storyline developed, Burt Bacharach and I were called upon to turn the corners by writing new songs for specific characters rather than people I had imagined or the parts of my own experience found in the first folio of songs. | ||
Burt and I worked together and independently to create this expanded score and the ''Look Now'' sessions saw the first recording of full-band arrangements for " | Burt and I worked together and independently to create this expanded score and the ''Look Now'' sessions saw the first recording of full-band arrangements for "Stripping Paper" — which I wrote alone and "Don't Look Now" and "Photographs Can Lie," for which I wrote lyrics to Burt's music. | ||
Two more songs, which I instigated, were attempts to drive a developing plot in a new direction. A song of doubt and betrayal, " | Two more songs, which I instigated, were attempts to drive a developing plot in a new direction. A song of doubt and betrayal, "Why Won't Heaven Help Me?" and "He's Given Me Things," a song describing a drastic reversal of the initial fortunes in the story, in which the penniless model has become a woman of substantial means, whose tycoon husband hires the now disgraced artist to paint her portrait in humiliating circumstances. | ||
Actually, none of this was to be found in Chuck and Steven's script (or "book" as it is called in the musical theatre) but I wrote the song anyway in an attempt to divert the tale in that direction and Burt helped me make sense of the music in the bridge, while he only changed one note of the vocal melody of "Why Won't Heaven Help Me?" and didn't regard this as a sufficient contribution to call it a co-write but this still left us ten new songs to augment the titles selected from the original album. | Actually, none of this was to be found in Chuck and Steven's script (or "book" as it is called in the musical theatre) but I wrote the song anyway in an attempt to divert the tale in that direction and Burt helped me make sense of the music in the bridge, while he only changed one note of the vocal melody of "Why Won't Heaven Help Me?" and didn't regard this as a sufficient contribution to call it a co-write but this still left us ten new songs to augment the titles selected from the original album. | ||
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The other songs on ''Purse'' have less complex origins. | The other songs on ''Purse'' have less complex origins. | ||
I've wanted to record " | I've wanted to record "The Lovers That Never Were" for thirty years and have performed the song on occasions but found it hard to get out of the shadow of the demo Paul McCartney and I made shortly after writing the song at one of our first writing sessions in 1988. | ||
I played piano on that cut, so when it came to working out this arrangement, I felt most at home on the Wurlitzer electric piano while leaving the more expansive, orchestral flourishes of grand piano in the more capable hands of Steve Nieve. | I played piano on that cut, so when it came to working out this arrangement, I felt most at home on the Wurlitzer electric piano while leaving the more expansive, orchestral flourishes of grand piano in the more capable hands of Steve Nieve. | ||
Sebastian Krys recorded and mixed this cut in "hard stereo," that is more radically panned than most other ''Look Now'' recordings, leaving space for the vocal parts and guitar figures that give our version a character and dream-like mood distinct from Paul's unbeatable one-man and his guitar, (with his mate playing piano) version or his later more elaborate rendition on the album ''Off The Ground''. | |||
"If You Love Me" was the second of two texts from the ''Forever Words'' collection of Johnny Cash poems and lyrics that I set to music. Knowing the range of musical styles of the artists who were to contribute to the Columbia Records collection of those Cash words, I elected to record a ballad unlike any other contribution, as the text put me in mind of the philosophical verses of Willard Robison — writer of "Guess I'll Go Back Home (This Summer)" and "A Cottage For Sale." Consequently, I put aside my guitar to arrange a small chamber orchestra around my own piano, mandolin and Pete Thomas' drums for the poem, "I'll Still Love You." | "If You Love Me" was the second of two texts from the ''Forever Words'' collection of Johnny Cash poems and lyrics that I set to music. Knowing the range of musical styles of the artists who were to contribute to the Columbia Records collection of those Cash words, I elected to record a ballad unlike any other contribution, as the text put me in mind of the philosophical verses of Willard Robison — writer of "Guess I'll Go Back Home (This Summer)" and "A Cottage For Sale." Consequently, I put aside my guitar to arrange a small chamber orchestra around my own piano, mandolin and Pete Thomas' drums for the poem, "I'll Still Love You." | ||
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I remembered my other Johnny Cash setting, "If You Love Me" and we cut the song in a single take, adding only Steve Nieve's Hammond organ and the electric guitar and background vocal parts which I dubbed in a small studio on Sullivan Street, NYC. | I remembered my other Johnny Cash setting, "If You Love Me" and we cut the song in a single take, adding only Steve Nieve's Hammond organ and the electric guitar and background vocal parts which I dubbed in a small studio on Sullivan Street, NYC. | ||
" | "Down On The Bottom" was one of a dozen Bob Dylan lyrics which I set to music for possible inclusion on the New Basement Tapes album, ''Lost On The River''. If you've heard that album then you'll know that it leads off with a superb mid-tempo setting of this text by Jim James but then the impromptu band of songwriters and accompanists recorded some 42 pieces of music over the next twelve days, including multiple, contrasting settings of the same Dylan lyric by different participants. | ||
Producer T Bone Burnett had the task of making an attractive, balanced programme of all these songwriting contributions and performances. On one session Rhiannon Giddens and I harmonized on my ballad setting of "Down On The Bottom" but we both had to be content with our very different approaches to the title text, "Lost On The River": being included while all of us saw some fine songs left in the can and a few titles such as "Virginia Gray" that couldn't be recorded, even at the extraordinary pace that we sustained. | Producer T Bone Burnett had the task of making an attractive, balanced programme of all these songwriting contributions and performances. On one session Rhiannon Giddens and I harmonized on my ballad setting of "Down On The Bottom" but we both had to be content with our very different approaches to the title text, "Lost On The River": being included while all of us saw some fine songs left in the can and a few titles such as "Virginia Gray" that couldn't be recorded, even at the extraordinary pace that we sustained. | ||
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Then there was the matter of the Special 10-disc ''Complete Works'' edition and it was at this point that Concord Records and I reached a fork in the road. | Then there was the matter of the Special 10-disc ''Complete Works'' edition and it was at this point that Concord Records and I reached a fork in the road. | ||
I could see no reason why we should not inform purchasers that the Disc Nine and Ten of the box-set contained the same songs to be found on the ''Purse'' E.P., after all some people simply like 7 inches, while others prefer 12 but my objection was overruled. This is certainly not the way we conduct business at | I could see no reason why we should not inform purchasers that the Disc Nine and Ten of the box-set contained the same songs to be found on the ''Purse'' E.P., after all some people simply like 7 inches, while others prefer 12 but my objection was overruled. This is certainly not the way we conduct business at Lupe-O-Tone. | ||
To me, it seems a shame to have done this silly ducking and diving in hope of squeezing a pitiful rooker full of money out of what began with the intention of creating a beautiful object that one might give to the one you love. Oh well. Don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to, as someone once said. | To me, it seems a shame to have done this silly ducking and diving in hope of squeezing a pitiful rooker full of money out of what began with the intention of creating a beautiful object that one might give to the one you love. Oh well. Don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to, as someone once said. | ||
Yours through music and daubs. <br> | |||
Elvis Costello and Eamon Singer | |||
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{{tags}}[[Look Now]] {{-}} [[Purse]] {{-}} [[Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes]] | |||
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{{Bibliography notes}} | {{Bibliography notes}} | ||
{{Bibliography next | |||
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|next = ElvisCostello.com, June 7, 2019 | |||
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'''ElvisCostello.com, May 31, 2019 | '''ElvisCostello.com, May 31, 2019 | ||
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==External links== | ==External links== |
Latest revision as of 02:08, 4 January 2022
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