Hot Press, April 6, 1994: Difference between revisions
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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. | ||
He did want to record a simpler | He did want to record a simpler, 6 more urgent record that concentrated on the raw materials not the sauces or the garnish. Then as the project progressed from the early demos, he gradually realised that Steve Naive, Pete and Bruce Thomas, his three former allies in The Attractions, were his most natural partners. | ||
Nor should commentators view ''Brutal Youth'' as a commercial ploy to rescue a faltering career. That's to misread his progress through the faulty lenses of the British music press and Elvis Costello is not one to promote his latest album by denigrating and apologising for his earlier work. | Nor should commentators view ''Brutal Youth'' as a commercial ploy to rescue a faltering career. That's to misread his progress through the faulty lenses of the British music press and Elvis Costello is not one to promote his latest album by denigrating and apologising for his earlier work. | ||
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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's Strike' is an example. Somebody described it as very cruel but | "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's Strike' is an example. Somebody described it as very cruel but I said no it's not. | ||
"I'd | "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. | ||
"Then in a darker way, 'You Tripped At Every Step' is the same, about dealing with people who aren't in control of themselves. There's fighting and there's drink involved but I think the tune tells you there's a lot of love in it. It's not a dark tune, it's quite a bright time — I think it's an exasperated love song." | "Then in a darker way, 'You Tripped At Every Step' is the same, about dealing with people who aren't in control of themselves. There's fighting and there's drink involved but I think the tune tells you there's a lot of love in it. It's not a dark tune, it's quite a bright time — I think it's an exasperated love song." | ||
Citing "13 Steps Down" he also suspects people may miss his black humour. The image of "instruments of torture" is, he says. "about high heels. Men love to torture and women love to torture themselves with high heels. It's a funny line. I can understand that by the tone of the voice and the way the music is rushing past you, humour may not be the first thing that you think of But it's sort of about this exasperation at the things we put ourselves through, the inevitability of going back to that place that you know is going to do you harm whether it's drink, sex, drugs or emotional blackmail" | Citing "13 Steps Down" he also suspects people may miss his black humour. The image of "instruments of torture" is, he says. "about high heels. Men love to torture and women love to torture themselves with high heels. It's a funny line. I can understand that by the tone of the voice and the way the music is rushing past you, humour may not be the first thing that you think of. But it's sort of about this exasperation at the things we put ourselves through, the inevitability of going back to that place that you know is going to do you harm whether it's drink, sex, drugs or emotional blackmail" | ||
"This Is Hell" is far more obviously comic, a life sentence in the basement of the waxworks of the mind. He laughs: "All this ugly drug music starts happening and I start playing guitar like Steppenwolf. You can either dig it as it is or think it funny, I don't care as long as it has an affect. But I think you have to acknowledge that some people would really love hell because it's full of drama and pain | "This Is Hell" is far more obviously comic, a life sentence in the basement of the waxworks of the mind. He laughs: "All this ugly drug music starts happening and I start playing guitar like Steppenwolf. You can either dig it as it is or think it funny, I don't care as long as it has an affect. But I think you have to acknowledge that some people would really love hell because it's full of drama and pain, the hell of pictures, the hell that some of us were taught. And in fact the mundane hell of the bad nightclub when the lights come up and you realise that you've spilled ketchup on your lapel and you're trying to be so suave is far worse." | ||
Elvis was ranked among those who paid tribute to Van Morrison at the recent Brits awards and he accepts "Clown Strike" borrows from the Belfastman: "It was more of a shuffle thing when I wrote it on acoustic guitar. And then Nick came up with the bass line which I liked because it was more funny then. And I suppose it does owe a little debt to Van in the harmonies. | Elvis was ranked among those who paid tribute to Van Morrison at the recent Brits awards and he accepts "Clown Strike" borrows from the Belfastman: "It was more of a shuffle thing when I wrote it on acoustic guitar. And then Nick came up with the bass line which I liked because it was more funny then. And I suppose it does owe a little debt to Van in the harmonies. I put that little doo-wop-thing in the background. I thought he might get a kick out of that. | ||
"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." | ||
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"But," he cautions, "it isn't the then of when I started. It's the then of the Sixties, that illusionary London. My dad was a hippie for a while. Not a hippie exactly but he grew his hair long at the end of the Sixties. So I used to go out with him down the Kings Road and I saw the tail-end of that. And of course, it was all contained in just one street. And because of the newsreels and the films, it gave the illusion that everybody in the country was in uproar. | "But," he cautions, "it isn't the then of when I started. It's the then of the Sixties, that illusionary London. My dad was a hippie for a while. Not a hippie exactly but he grew his hair long at the end of the Sixties. So I used to go out with him down the Kings Road and I saw the tail-end of that. And of course, it was all contained in just one street. And because of the newsreels and the films, it gave the illusion that everybody in the country was in uproar. | ||
"And the same happened with punk. The music papers, and of course the straight press who reacted like it was the fall of civilisation, like to give the impression that punk was a nationwide revolution. And yet, I was on the road in '77, sometimes arriving in places like Scarborough the night after the Sex Pistols had played there. And we'd have to deal with the aftermath because we were regarded as similar. And we'd get there to find three rather timid-looking young boys with three safety pins in their lapels | "And the same happened with punk. The music papers, and of course the straight press who reacted like it was the fall of civilisation, like to give the impression that punk was a nationwide revolution. And yet, I was on the road in '77, sometimes arriving in places like Scarborough the night after the Sex Pistols had played there. And we'd have to deal with the aftermath because we were regarded as similar. And we'd get there to find three rather timid-looking young boys with three safety pins in their lapels, that was the extent of the rebellion." | ||
He wrote the song in Dublin. "Maybe it's the old thing of leaving the town to see it," he muses. "When I was there constantly, perhaps it was all too on top of me to see the difference. When I sat at the piano to write it, it all became clear, like a story I'd seen go past myself without really recognising it" | He wrote the song in Dublin. "Maybe it's the old thing of leaving the town to see it," he muses. "When I was there constantly, perhaps it was all too on top of me to see the difference. When I sat at the piano to write it, it all became clear, like a story I'd seen go past myself without really recognising it" | ||
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But why is Elvis Costello such a solitary creature | But why is Elvis Costello such a solitary creature, a social carnivore situated on the food chain above all the other ambient New Age grazers. Take away Morrissey, another vegetarian with carnivorous songs, who is already a decade into his career and where are the younger songwriters with both the ability and desire to speak for England. It may be an exaggeration to claim something's rotten in the state of English songwriting but it's definitely a hatfull of hollow. | ||
One neither needs to be snooty about all dance music or appeal for a politically correct sloganeering agenda for songwriters to fear that with the passing of each year the themes and territory investigated gets more confined. See a movie, watch a documentary or hear a comic; generally | One neither needs to be snooty about all dance music or appeal for a politically correct sloganeering agenda for songwriters to fear that with the passing of each year the themes and territory investigated gets more confined. See a movie, watch a documentary or hear a comic; generally, they're more stimulating and reliable carriers of the message than rock which seems to have degenerated into an adjunct of tabloid sex. | ||
So I'm being the ''Guardian'' reader as Mr. Grumpy. And yet there is a crisis in contemporary British popular culture that seems to have affected rock. It really does have a most peculiar relationship with the past | So I'm being the ''Guardian'' reader as Mr. Grumpy. And yet there is a crisis in contemporary British popular culture that seems to have affected rock. It really does have a most peculiar relationship with the past, recycling the Seventies but totally amputated from earlier eras. So how does Elvis Costello see new songwriters dealing with their own generation? | ||
"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." |
Revision as of 22:59, 28 May 2015
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