Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, July 21, 1991

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Elvis' last interview?


Greg Kot / Chicago Tribune

Elvis Costello may be a little difficult to recognize these days with his shoulder-length hair and beard.

But his contentious personality hasn't undergone a similar transformation, as evidenced a few months ago during a break in rehearsals for his just-completed U.S. tour. Costello was fine-tuning arrangements in Los Angeles with his band of session pros, the Rude 5: drummer Pete Thomas, bassist Jerry Scheff, guitarist Marc Ribot and keyboardist Larry Knechtel.

"I imagine, as we talk now, this may well be the last interview that I'll ever do," he says. "I'm not at school anymore; I know what I'm doing, which is more than I can say for a lot of people in this business and the music press. I ask myself, 'Is this really part of the job description?' Because it doesn't seem that way to me."

Costello answers questions with a mixture of garrulous combativeness and congeniality. He has been the proverbial great interview since his first American tour in 1977, even though he has been known to shut out the press for years at a time.

Several of his records have sold as many as a half-million copies each, but those figures hardly reflect his artistic impact. He's perhaps the greatest pop songwriter in the post-Dylan era, and also one of the wariest. When he sang "I wanna bite the hand that feeds me" on one of the best of his early songs, "Radio, Radio," he wasn't kidding.

"I've always been fed up with the music business. It's crass, ugly and demeaning," he says, after briskly taking care of business recently on Saturday Night Live to promote his new album, Mighty Like a Rose (Warner Bros.), his 16th domestic release.

"There's a tremendous amount of aggrandizing of very small ideas from the executive level, from the artists themselves and particularly from the journalists.

"But unfortunately, what I do for a living is write songs and the way I avoid becoming a martyred poet who lives like a beachcomber is to make records, and therefore I have to subject myself to some of these indignities, like appearing on television and doing things that have nothing to do with what I do."

Costello still was chafing from a couple of negative reviews of his latest album in major publications: "The same off-the-peg biography-cum-capsule review is churned out every time I put out a record."

He has a point, because many of these critiques can be boiled down to some variation of the following: Costello's latest album isn't bad, but it seems cute/fussy/overproduced compared to his intense/passionate/stripped-down earlier work.

Indeed, it seems Costello can't live down the fact that he was once the angriest of the angry young men who came storming out of Britain in the late '70s, when his contempt was as obvious as the horn-rimmed glasses on his nose and his music a slightly more sophisticated version of punk rock.

Compared to the almost unanimous praise that greeted that early phase of his career, critical reaction to Costello's recent work, particularly Mighty Like a Rose and its 1989 predecessor, Spike, has been mixed. And no wonder: They're easily the two most varied, most difficult-to-categorize albums of his career.

With the exception of Pete Thomas, session pros have replaced the members of his longtime backing band, the Attractions, on these two albums. The songs on Spike, recorded at four studios, were elaborate production pieces, the album a kaleidoscope of clashing styles.

Mighty Like a Rose is a somewhat more organic, less jarring collection that was recorded entirely in Los Angeles, but it again spreads a variety of players and production effects over 14 songs. They range from a waltz ("All Grown Up") to a march ("Invasion Hit Parade"), a rueful whisper ("After the Fall"), a mocking wail ("How to Be Dumb"), herky-jerk novelty ("Hurry Down Doomsday") to stark confessional ("Broken"), anguished ballad ("So Like Candy") to, as Costello describes it, "a lot of shouting and screaming and running around in your underpants" ("Playboy to a Man").

The lead track and first single, "The Other Side of Summer," overdubs no fewer than 14 keyboard parts, a galaxy apart from the live-and-kicking approach of the early Costello records with the Attractions.

"I try to incorporate a lot of different musical sounds in what are basically pop songs, but I do perform in the manner of a rock 'n' roll singer, which is to say with an un-self-conscious abandon," Costello says. "The fact that I can analyze to that extent obviously means that I'm not a primal rock 'n' roll singer like Jerry Lee Lewis, but I am capable of letting go."

Costello was more obviously "letting go" on his early records, but even that was part of the plan, he says.

"Some of the most calculated, affected music I made was on those early records, but there was less variation there, so it reinforces the feeling that it was somehow spontaneous," he says. "But I don't think it would be as good if it were totally spontaneous. The more you diversify, the more people assume you've become very calculated."

In the same sense, many of Costello's early lyrics — mostly tirades against conniving women and manipulative media and government — are often perceived as less contrived than his more recent work, which encompasses a wider range of emotions. But Costello's level of involvement has remained constant.

"Every song I've written is taken at least somewhat from personal experience," he says. "I think the mistake is to imagine that you're somehow a prisoner of these uncontrollable lusts and desires which torment you through the songs. It's nonsense. There's a theatrical element in there, some distance.

"It doesn't mean I don't feel any less, but a little more ability is involved than just a knee-jerk response to personal experience. There have been times when I've done that, but more often the deepest personal lines have been put in a coded form because that's how I first awakened to them. If you sing everything you feel, it's like you're asking for sympathy. Instead, I try to portray certain things, hopefully in a sympathetic way."

If anything, Costello's portrayals have been more sharply etched in recent years. Always a master of the pun and the ironic phrase, Costello's more ambiguous songs sometimes strayed off into obscurity, especially on such middle-period albums as Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World.

But beginning with King of America in 1986, his lyrics became more direct, the wordplay less convoluted.

"I did become aware of certain mannerisms starting to creep in — 'Oh, there's a good turn of phrase;' 'Oh, there's one of my things,"' he says. "I reached a point where I just got tired of it, just left it behind."

Lately, he has taken to poking fun at his image: an artist hopelessly out of sync with an era that celebrates artifice and sensationalism. Spike was ironically subtitled "The Beloved Entertainer," and in the liner notes for Girls Girls Girls, a recent career retrospective, Costello commented on the track Brilliant Mistake: "At best this might be called the title track of the collection."

"Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing this for," he says. "But I know there are people out there who really take things I sing to heart. I've had some really touching letters from people, or they'll approach me and say that some song of mine helped get them through a couple of weeks in their life, or through some serious, even tragic, circumstance.

"People get a lot of stimulus from all different directions. They're bombarded with all sorts of information about what rock 'n' roll is and what this record means and what that artist stands for. But when it gets down to just the record and the headphones, just you and the listener, something real happens that can't be quantified.

"Those things make it worthwhile — not whether you got more stars in a review than some other artist."

In the same way, he has stripped his shows to their essence. Costello performs the songs that he likes to play ("I'm not swayed by the celebrity of songs or sentiment about them") without theatrics, fancy staging or special guests.

"I'm 37 and I feel like I haven't even begun, because I'm finally headed toward what I do best, which is to write songs and perform, and away from all the other stuff. Which is why I said this very well could be my very last interview.

"Anything I've got to say will be in the music. And if it isn't there, it's because I didn't say it."


Costello on disc


Greg Kot

My Aim Is True (1977): Pithy shots of pop, recorded with San Francisco bar band Clover.

This Year's Model (1978): The hovering keyboards of the Attractions' Steve Nieve give this tour de force of frustration and betrayal a claustrophobic tension.

Armed Forces (1979): Perhaps Costello's most overtly "political" record, and also one of his most irresistibly melodic.

Get Happy!! (1980): The Attractions do an impressive Booker T & the MG's imitation on these 20 tunes.

Taking Liberties (1980): B-sides and outtakes galore, including the essential "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea."

Trust (1981): A shift to a less obviously subjective, more measured writing and performing style.

Almost Blue (1981): Costello sings country classics.

Imperial Bedroom (1982): An elaborately produced meditation on sexual politics.

Punch the Clock (1983): A partially successful stab at mainstream success.

Goodbye Cruel World (1984): Some fine ideas scuttled by glossy production.

The Best of Elvis Costello and The Attractions (1985): 19 would-be hits, later eclipsed by Girls Girls Girls.

King of America (1986): Raw performances and spare production illuminate emotionally direct, melodically seductive tunes.

Blood & Chocolate (1986): The Attractions' swan song contains some of Costello's most impassioned singing, especially the riveting "I Want You."

Spike (1989): Jarring juxtapositions, showy production and a handful of magnificent tunes ("This Town...," "Let Him Dangle," "Tramp the Dirt Down").

Girls Girls Girls (1990): A retrospective that's perfect for beginners (47 songs on CD, 51 on cassette).

Mighty Like a Rose (1991): At 14 songs instead of 10, this contains too much chaff to be ranked with his best.



Tags: Mighty Like A RoseThe Rude 5Pete ThomasMarc RibotJerry ScheffLarry Knechtel1st US TourBob DylanSpikeWarner Bros.Radio, RadioThe AttractionsAll Grown UpInvasion Hit ParadeAfter The FallHow To Be DumbHurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)BrokenSo Like CandyPlayboy To A ManThe Other Side Of SummerJerry Lee LewisKing Of AmericaPunch The ClockGoodbye Cruel WorldThe Beloved EntertainerGirls Girls GirlsBrilliant MistakeSaturday Night LiveCome Back In A Million Years Tour

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The Sun-Sentinel, July 21, 1991


Greg Kot interviews Elvis Costello.


John Dolen and Greg Carannante compile a sampling of Elvis Costello lyrics.

Images

page 1Fpage 2F
Clippings.


The lyrical Elvis


John Dolen and Greg Carannante

Elvis is probably being sighted somewhere between Hamburg and Rotterdam today on his tour that bypassed South Florida after hitting Berkeley, LA, Chicago, New York, dozens of other U.S. cities, six dates at London's Hammersmith Odeon, and is still destined for Paris, Rome, Madrid and Vienna.

Since there will be no Costello sightings or soundings here this year, resident authorities Entertainment Editor John Dolen and copy editor Greg Carannante have put together the following sampling of his lyrics as a balm for his disheartened fans.

Hopefully, they also serve to explain in part why Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot calls Costello, in the accompanying article, "perhaps the greatest pop songwriter in the post-Dylan era."


She said she was working for the ABC News
It was as much of the alphabet
as she knew how to use
 — From Brilliant Mistake

Almost blue
Almost doing things we used to do
There's a girl here and she's almost you
Almost
 — Almost Blue

You say the teacher never told you anything but
White lies
But you never see the lies you believe
 — New Lace Sleeves

This is my conviction
That I am an innocent man...
I struck it lucky with Motel Matches
Falling for you without a second look
Falling out of your open pocketbook
Giving you away like Motel Matches
 — Motel Matches

There's newsprint all over your face
Maybe that's why I can read you like a book...
Look at the man you call uncle
Having a heart attack around your ankles
 — Man Called Uncle

Till I have possession of everything she touches
Till I step on the brake to get out of her clutches
Till I speak double dutch to a real double dutchess
 — New Amsterdam

She's last year's model
They call her Natasha
When she looks like Elsie
 — (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea

He wants to be a fancy man
But he's nothing but a nancy boy
He's all pride and no joy
 — Shabby Doll

I don't know how much more of this I can take
She's filing her nails while they're draggin the lake
She is watching the detectives
 — Watching the Detectives

Well I've been talking to the walls
and they've been answering me...
I'm just a mere shadow of my former selfishness
I crave the silhouette of your kiss
 — Human Hands

Say you wouldn't kid me about it...
So what if this is a man's world?
I want to be a kid again about it
Give me back in my sadness
I couldn't hide it even if I tried, girl
 — Kid About It

You do something very special to Mister Average
Now the lamb lies with the lion
He's just a little savage...
 — Little Savage

But you blew hot and cold
Turned my heart to a cinder
And with each passing day
You're less tender and more tinder
Now you're not the only flame in town
 — The Only Flame in Town

So you bay for the boy in the tigerskin trunks
They set him up, set him up on a stool
He falls down, he falls like a drunk
And you drink till you drool...
 — Deep Dark Truthful Mirror

Was it a millionaire who said "imagine no possessions"...
 — The Other Side of Summer

Now you know how to be dumb
Are you ready to take your place in
the modern museum of mistakes?
 — How to Be Dumb

Don't tell me you don't know the difference
between a lover and a fighter
With my pen and electric typewriter
Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights
And be working on the sequel
 — Everyday I Write the Book

One day you're gonna have to face
The deep, dark truthful mirror
And its gonna tell you things
That I still love you too much to say
 — Deep Dark Truthful Mirror

So there He was on a water bed
Drinking a cola of a mystery brand
Reading an airport novelette
Listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem.
He said before it had really begun
I prefer the one about My Son....
Sometimes you confuse Me with Santa Claus
It's the big white beard I suppose...
 — God's Comic

Sparks are flying from electrical pylons
Snakes and ladders run up and down her nylons
Ready to experiment, you're ready to be burned
If it wasn't for some accidents
Some would never learn
You got a chemistry class
I want a piece of your mind
You don't know what you started
When you mixed it up with mine
Are you ready for the final solution?
 — Chemistry Class

Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?
 — Green Shirt

I wouldn't cry for lost souls, you might drown
Dirty words for dirty minds written in a toilet town
Got me a valentine, she's a smooth operator
It's all so calculated, she's got a calculator
She's my soft-touch typewriter
And I'm the great dictator
Two little Hitlers will fight it out until
one little Hitler does the other ones's will
 — Two Little Hitlers

And it's the damage that we do and never know
It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.
There's so many people to see
So many people you can check upon
and add to your collection
But they keep you hangin' on until you're well-hung
Your mouth is made up but your mind is undone
Accidents will happen; it's only hit and run
You used to be a victimn
Now you're not the only one
 — Accidents Will Happen

Oh you got me in a grip-like vice
 — Party Girl

It's the thought of him undressing you
Or you undressin' ...
I want you
I want to hear he pleases you more than I do
I want you
Did you call his name out as he held you down
I want you
Oh no, my darling, not with that clown
 — I Want You

So why don't you be a man about it?
Like they do in the grownup movies
When it comes to the other way around, you say
You just wanna use me.
You sit and you wonder whether
It's gonna be syndicated
You sit with your knees together
All the time your breath is bated...
No don't ask me to apologize, I won't ask you to forgive me
If I'm gonna go down, you're gonna come with me.
Hand in hand, hand in hand, hand in hand...
 — Hand in Hand



Page scans.
1991-07-21 Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel page 1F.jpg 1991-07-21 Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel page 2F.jpg

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