London Telegraph, May 11, 1996: Difference between revisions
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"There is a lot of mockery levelled at anyone who has supposedly had their moment and then gone beyond it," says Elvis Costello, fixing me with a gaze that has more than a hint of the accusatory about it. "The roundheads of music in the critical world want | "There is a lot of mockery levelled at anyone who has supposedly had their moment and then gone beyond it," says Elvis Costello, fixing me with a gaze that has more than a hint of the accusatory about it. "The roundheads of music in the critical world want everybody to die, after they make the perfect record. It's kind of an effete romantic fantasy. If you dare to live longer than you should — and heaven knows I have - somehow you're considered less believable. But why stop living?" | ||
Why indeed? You might think from Costello' | Why indeed? You might think from Costello's comments that I had suggested the world would be a better place if be tied the bulk of his recorded output around his neck and threw himself off the top floor of his record company. In fact, I had asked how he felt about the impending reunion of his punk-rock contemporaries the Sex Pistols, which had led, as things do with Costello, on to other, tangentially related matters. | ||
The Sex Pistols are indeed back. Costello | The Sex Pistols are indeed back. Costello, on the other hand, never went away. Once considered the angriest young man in rock, Costello has released some 19 album, (including two collections of cover versions and two featuring B-sides and out-takes) since the heady days of 1977, the summer of hate that now appears the subject of so much nostalgia. | ||
Widely considered pop's most accomplished | Widely considered pop's most accomplished songwriter, his career has twisted and turned with more convolutions than his own punning lyrics. | ||
He has embraced musical styles from country to clanical (and virtually all points in beteeest). performed with entities as diverse as the | He has embraced musical styles from country to clanical (and virtually all points in beteeest). performed with entities as diverse as the Chieftains and the Count Basic Orchestra, recorded a Shakespeare-influenced song cycle with the Brodsky string quartet, composed for the London Philharmonic Orchestra, duetted with the likes of Tony Bennett and George Jones, written film and television soundtracks. collaborated with (among others) Paul McCartney and avante-garde guitarist Bill Frisell, and had his material covered by an astonishing variety of artists (from Jazz legend Chet Baker to Transvision Vamp's Wendy James, a minor pop star for whom Costello tossed off an album's worth of material in a weekend). | ||
So, it is hardly surprising that the portly | So, it is hardly surprising that the portly, smiling. 41-year-old gentleman promoting his latest album. ''All This Useless Beauty'' (WEA), bear little resemblance to the skinny. knock-kneed geek who once famously sneered that the only emotions he understood were guilt and revenge. But scratch the apparently genial surface, and some of the old antagonism is quick to surface. | ||
"Can you name a driven songwriter?" | "Can you name a driven songwriter?" he demanded. when I asked if he still felt as driven by his work as he did in his early days. Giving me no chance to reply, be continued: "I'm very driven. I'm driven. You don't think I'm driven, clearly, so what we're doing wasting our time here. I don't know" My attempts to assure him I was not questioning his commitment to his art were countered by a peculiar accusation: "You think this record isn't fast, is what you're saying." There was little use protesting that I was saying no such thing, for by now he had sunk his teeth into something, and was not going to let it go. | ||
"Life | "Life has gone on. I've changed, it's a different kind of music. It wouldn't be appropriate to sing these lyrics like I'm trying to scare students But I have no problem with all the different musical things I do whether it's with a symphony orchestra or a classical singer. It's done in a spirit of adventure and fun; I listen to music all day long and I make music all day long. and I probably: work harder out of choice than anybody I know. So there is no way in which I am a dilettante. | ||
"But, of course. the more you record. the more variety of work there is | "But, of course. the more you record. the more variety of work there is, the less chance of its all being fantastic. If you don't like it. it doesn't really matter in the long run. It didn't kill anybody, did it? All that matters is what know to be the reality of the thing, what I believe. Anybody else is entitled to their opinion but it's not going to change mine: 'cause, you see, I'm driven. I'm a driven kind of guy." Costello smiled sarcastically as he returned to the phrase that had apparently so irritated him, before lightening the mood with a frankly awful pun. I'm driven round the bend. In a big car." | ||
Costello is not easy to interview. He talks too much. Words rattle out of his mouth like a teleprinter on overload Ideas collide: jostling for space within ever-expanding sentences. He is a vibrant, stimulating person to listen to. But, while he | Costello is not easy to interview. He talks too much. Words rattle out of his mouth like a teleprinter on overload Ideas collide: jostling for space within ever-expanding sentences. He is a vibrant, stimulating person to listen to. But, while he produces reams of quotable copy, the problem is getting a word is He is not so min fa a cons ersationaltst as a monologist. | ||
It is impossible to contain him. to keep the encounter in shape or pursue particular 11801 of inquiry. You get about | It is impossible to contain him. to keep the encounter in shape or pursue particular 11801 of inquiry. You get about halfway through a question edam he picks up on some key phrase and runs off with it. dribbles down an unexpected avenue. scores a couple of outrageous goals at both ends then boots the topic clear out of the stadium (and don't get him started on football!). By the time be reaches wherever it is he is going. you have strayed so far from your original point you can no longer see how to get back and are equally baffled about where to go next. But silence is not an option. If you don't say something he will. | ||
At one point, in the middle of a discourse on the relative merits of different art forms, Costello excused himself to go to the toilet. When he returned. a minute later, hr started talking as soon as be opened the door: "That's why I wrote All This Useless Beauty. Sometimes you look at every wonderful thing that's ever been made and you wonder. what's the point of it? Why did they make it?" His train of thought seemed to have tnoved on, as if he trail been continuing the conversation in his head while attending to his bodily functions. | |||
At one point, in the middle of a discourse on the relative merits of different art forms, Costello excused himself to go to the toilet. When he returned. a minute later, hr started talking as soon as be opened the door: "That's why I wrote ''All This Useless Beauty''. Sometimes you look at every wonderful thing that's ever been made and you wonder. what's the point of it? Why did they make it?" His train of thought seemed to have tnoved on, as if he trail been continuing the conversation in his head while attending to his bodily functions. | |||
But then. Costello is known as something of a wordsmith. On the title track of his new album. he describes someone as "part ugly beast and Hellenic deceased", not perhaps a metaphor you would expect to find in the aserage pop song. In [[Poor Fractured Atlas]], a ballad poking fun at masculinity, he juxtaposes quotes from soul legend James Brown and literary legend Oscar Wilde. The playful [[Little Atoms]] is constructed as a musical riddle around girls' names that arc either flowers or graces. But when I suggested to him that his snap were sometimes a little impenetrable, he appeared genuinely offended. | |||
'I think if the songs on this album share one thing. it is that they have a very dim' way of speaking and are quite easy to understand." Costello insisted. "I'm just musing on things. I try not to erect songs like big statues to how I feel. They are just a series of thoughts that occurred to me and I put them to music. Sometimes particular tines are just allusions They're not there to be admired. They arc there because they make sense to me as I'm trying to make my way through the thought." | 'I think if the songs on this album share one thing. it is that they have a very dim' way of speaking and are quite easy to understand." Costello insisted. "I'm just musing on things. I try not to erect songs like big statues to how I feel. They are just a series of thoughts that occurred to me and I put them to music. Sometimes particular tines are just allusions They're not there to be admired. They arc there because they make sense to me as I'm trying to make my way through the thought." | ||
Revision as of 21:39, 20 September 2015
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