London Times, October 31, 2020: Difference between revisions
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"It's always been like that," he says. "Before I made [his 1977 debut album] ''My Aim Is True'' there was a tape I'd made in my bedroom that got played on the radio, and it certainly didn't sound anything like new wave or punk. I had been taking my cues from Randy Newman and John Prine. I can write a country ballad without coming from the world of country because I'll borrow the clothes to tell the story. ''Hey Clockface'' is a whimsical idea — when you're waiting for your girl to arrive the clock slows down, when it is time to go it speeds up and the clock becomes your romantic rival — so a Fats Waller-style ragtime suited the words. That's the way I've always worked." | "It's always been like that," he says. "Before I made [his 1977 debut album] ''My Aim Is True'' there was a tape I'd made in my bedroom that got played on the radio, and it certainly didn't sound anything like new wave or punk. I had been taking my cues from Randy Newman and John Prine. I can write a country ballad without coming from the world of country because I'll borrow the clothes to tell the story. ''Hey Clockface'' is a whimsical idea — when you're waiting for your girl to arrive the clock slows down, when it is time to go it speeds up and the clock becomes your romantic rival — so a Fats Waller-style ragtime suited the words. That's the way I've always worked." | ||
In other ways, though, Costello has changed. Making his name in the late 1970s by fuelling classic songwriting with punk's energy and aggression, Costello also built up a reputation for spikiness. There was a notorious incident at the Holiday Inn at Columbus, Ohio, in 1979, when he got into a drunken argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett and ended up using racial slurs against James Brown and Ray Charles (he held a press conference afterwards to apologise). At 66, however, after a cancer scare in 2018, accepting an OBE in 2019 ("my mum wanted me to do it"), two decades of working with songwriting legends including Burt Bacharach, Paul McCartney and Carole King and a seemingly happy third marriage to Krall, he has mellowed considerably. | |||
"For every person that thinks you are great, someone else will say, 'I never liked him, he has a horrible voice, I hope he dies,'" Costello says of his reputation. "That's what it means to do this. You could be going down really well at a concert, and someone at the back is thinking that it is a total waste of money. When the numbers of the latter constituency become greater than the former, it is time to leave. Right now, though, it doesn't feel that way." | |||
''Hey Clockface'' does sound surprisingly joyous. "A lot of the music I've heard coming out recently sounds defeated, a bit 'woe is me, I'm in isolation'," Costello says. "That doesn't seem like the flag you should be waving right now." | |||
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You wonder if Costello's musical approach, of having one foot in the past while at the same time pushing his own legacy aside in favour of the new, has something to do with growing up under the shadow of his father. Ross MacManus sang with 1960s big band the Joe Loss Orchestra and he wrote the 1970s advertisement for R Whites lemonade, which an entire generation remembers for its depiction of a man being caught by his wife in the dead of night as he sneaks into the kitchen to indulge his vice as a secret lemonade drinker. In Costello's memoir, ''Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink'', MacManus comes across as a charming if feckless figure; easy to romanticise, not so easy to rely on. | |||
"I was incredibly melancholy when I had to hand in that manuscript," Costello says. "My father had passed while I was writing the book and in some ways I kept him alive by working on it, but the truth is my parents separated in the early Sixties. My dad only ever came in and out of my life, and he was a great guy, but a terrible example as a husband and a father. My mother was the one who brought me up and now it seems unfair that he features in the memoir so much more than she does. He broke my mother's heart, but at the same time he was never cruel, and I made exactly the same mistakes as he did. "Toledo," the song I wrote with Burt Bacharach, is about infidelity. Take out of that what you will." | |||
Six months on from that final concert at the Apollo, you have to wonder how Costello is feeling about the prospect of going back out on the road again. Baby boomer legends Van Morrison and Eric Clapton are calling for a return to live music, just as the Musicians' Union has reported that a third of British musicians are on the verge of quitting. | |||
"It's a swirling mass," Costello concludes. "Someone says it's all made up, someone says it will change the way we live for ever, and someone else tells us to keep calm and do what you're told and it will all be OK. Who can say? But I do think that this is a great time to try new things. You can do the maddest thing possible on a record at the moment because you don't have the usual connection to a live audience to worry about, so there's nothing to fear. Normally I'll be thinking, 'I need to make more sense.' Now I'm thinking, 'I need to make less sense.'" | |||
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'''''Hey Clockface'' by Elvis Costello (Concord) is out on October 30. | |||
{{tags}}[[Hey Clockface]] {{-}} [[The Imposters]] {{-}} [[Hammersmith Apollo]] {{-}} [[London]] {{-}} [[Watching The Detectives]] {{-}} [[George Jones]] {{-}} [[Good Year For The Roses]] {{-}} [[Oliver's Army]] {{-}} [[Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)]] {{-}} [[Vancouver]] {{-}} [[Declan MacManus]] {{-}} [[Diana Krall]] {{-}} [[Hetty O'Hara Confidential]] {{-}} [[Bob Dylan]] {{-}} [[Newspaper Pane]] {{-}} [[My Aim Is True]] {{-}} [[Randy Newman]] {{-}} [[John Prine]] {{-}} [[Fats Waller]] {{-}} [[Stephen Stills]] {{-}} [[Bonnie Bramlett]] {{-}} [[James Brown]] {{-}} [[Ray Charles]] {{-}} [[OBE]] {{-}} [[Burt Bacharach]] {{-}} [[Paul McCartney]] {{-}} [[Carole King]] {{-}} [[Ross MacManus]] {{-}} [[Joe Loss Orchestra]] {{-}} [[Secret Lemonade Drinker]] {{-}} [[Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink]] {{-}} [[Toledo]] {{-}} [[Burt Bacharach]] {{-}} [[Van Morrison]] {{-}} [[Eric Clapton]] | |||
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[[image:2020-10-29 London Times photo 01 ml.jpg|380px|border]] | [[image:2020-10-29 London Times photo 01 ml.jpg|380px|border]] | ||
<br><small>Photo by [[Matt Licari]] / Associated Press.</small> | <br><small>Photo by [[Matt Licari]] / Associated Press.</small> | ||
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{{Bibliography box}} | |||
<center><h3> Elvis Costello's greatest lyrics </h3></center> | |||
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<center> Will Hodgkinson </center> | |||
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{{Bibliography text}} | |||
"Straighten up, look proud and pleased / Because you've only got the symptoms / You haven't got the whole disease / Just like a schoolboy whose head's like a tin-can / Filled up with dreams then poured down the drain" <br> | |||
— Tramp the Dirt Down | |||
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''Remaining text to come... | |||
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{{Bibliography notes footer}} | {{Bibliography notes footer}} |
Revision as of 07:34, 31 October 2020
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