Mojo, December 2007: Difference between revisions
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<center><h3> The Mojo Interview </h3></center> | <center><h3> The Mojo Interview </h3></center> | ||
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<center> Phil Sutcliffe </center> | <center> Phil Sutcliffe </center> | ||
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'''After a dark mid '90s on "four bottles of wine a night", came a new wife and a new career peak. So why quit recording and refuse to play in England again? "I know what I'm doing!" says Elvis Costello | |||
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"I pay taxes here and I can't vote so I'll say what I like," barks Elvis Costello, as he carefully examines the audience who've come to see him [[Concert 2007-09-25 Norfolk|play]] live in this basketball arena. It could easily turn nasty because we are in Norfolk, Virginia, home of the biggest navy base in the world, and he's a bolshie singer-songwriter with a war to protest. Old pro that he is he offers up the sweeteners: long-haul favourites like "(The Angels Want To Wear My) Red Shoes" and "Alison" and jokes about his new wife, Canadian jazzwoman Diana Krall, and twin babies — "We called them Frank and Dexter so they could go into vaudeville when they grow up." But between these easements, he eyeballs these 8,000 Southerners and gives them Dick Cheney gags and, "This is a song about a war widow who's come to question what she's been told," before launching into "The Scarlet Tide." This is the theatre of reality, the foreigner chancing his arm. The crowd teeters, the collective reaction a kind of silent "Huh?" Then, after each successive volley from the stage, the rumbles of approval grow louder, until finally, when he closes with Nick Lowe's What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love And Understanding, almost the whole crowd stands, cheering in approval; a small, momentary liberation and a salving of souls. An hour later — although departure feels like an offence against nature because the [[:Category:2007 Bob Dylan Tour|tour]] headliner is Bob Dylan — ''MOJO'' is hustled through the backstage labyrinth to Costello's big-beast tour bus. | |||
We sit either side of the breakfast table half a step from the loo — which is handy given the inundatory extent of the hydration regime he follows pre-show to soothe his vocal chords. He looks, as he puts it, "more Phil Silvers than Buddy Holly" these days — "less hair more face. It's real, I'm not trying to pretend I'm 22" — but as idiosyncratically dapper as ever in his ''Scully'' Western shirt (black with silver embroidery) and trilby — one of two he alternates on tour. Throughout the four-hour drive to Washington he delivers an adrenalised, motormouthed, motorminded monologue about music... and life, death, marriage, divorce, children, parents, Yeats, Whitman, George Bush, Abraham Lincoln. After all, everything has context, and he is the great connector, so if he refers to encounters with Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell, Peggy Lee and Dylan (who he's known since a chance 1978 encounter in Berlin) — let alone The Brodsky Quartet, Burt Bacharach, Anne Sofie von Otter and Allen Toussaint, who he's recorded albums with, and Italy's Atterbalieto, the Miami City Ballet and the Royal Danish Opera, who've all commissioned "classical" work from him — he's not dropping names, he's just tracing the natural course of a music life driven by unquenchable curiosity | |||
We sit either side of the breakfast table half a step from the loo — which is handy given the inundatory extent of the hydration regime he follows pre-show to soothe his vocal chords. He looks, as he puts it, "more Phil Silvers than Buddy Holly" these days — "less hair more face. It's real, I'm not trying to pretend I'm 22" — but as idiosyncratically dapper as ever in his ''Scully'' Western shirt (black with silver embroidery) and trilby — one of two he alternates on tour. Throughout the four-hour drive to Washington he delivers an adrenalised, motormouthed, motorminded monologue about music... and life, death, marriage, divorce, children, parents, Yeats, Whitman, George Bush, Abraham Lincoln. After all, everything has context, and he is the great connector, so if he refers to encounters with | |||
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''But do you know how an audience like that is going to react?'' | ''But do you know how an audience like that is going to react?'' | ||
No. And that's good. I sang "The Scarlet Tide" with that " | No. And that's good. I sang "The Scarlet Tide" with that "Bring the boys back home" verse a couple of years ago, duetting with Emmylou Harris, and as many people booed as cheered. But now they do want them home even if they supported the war. If there's dissent I'll say, "Thank you for listening even if you don't agree with me. You know what? That proves you're in a democracy." And there's no answer to that. | ||
''The last time I saw you was rather different: Glastonbury 2005.'' | ''The last time I saw you was rather different: Glastonbury 2005.'' | ||
Fucking dreadful! I don't care if I ever play England again. I'll say that right now. That [[Concert 2005-06-24 Pilton|gig]] made up my mind I wouldn't come back. I don't get along with it. We lost touch. It's 25 years since I lived there. I don't dig it, they don't dig me. A lot of good new bands still come out of England, but I just don't feel part of it. Music fans don't have the same attitude to age as they do in America where young people come to check out, say, | Fucking dreadful! I don't care if I ever play England again. I'll say that right now. That [[Concert 2005-06-24 Pilton|gig]] made up my mind I wouldn't come back. I don't get along with it. We lost touch. It's 25 years since I lived there. I don't dig it, they don't dig me. A lot of good new bands still come out of England, but I just don't feel part of it. Music fans don't have the same attitude to age as they do in America where young people come to check out, say, Willie Nelson; they feel some connection with him and find a role for that music in their lives. | ||
''But you did play Liverpool with Allen Toussaint during the summer.'' | ''But you did play Liverpool with Allen Toussaint during the summer.'' | ||
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'' ''North'' must be the most intimate set of songs you've ever recorded. What led to that leap into a whole new way of writing?'' | '' ''North'' must be the most intimate set of songs you've ever recorded. What led to that leap into a whole new way of writing?'' | ||
It's probably hard work for someone who likes rock 'n' roll (''laughs''). This is where I have to be... not evasive but.., respectful. As is well known, my relationship [with second wife, | It's probably hard work for someone who likes rock 'n' roll (''laughs''). This is where I have to be... not evasive but.., respectful. As is well known, my relationship [with second wife, Pogues bassist Cait O'Riordan] broke up and then I met my new wife and, in fairly short order, we were engaged and married. A break-up is a mortifying thing when you've spent a long time with the conviction that you know the way you're going in life. I had an absolute conviction about my first marriage as well, but then I had all the weaknesses of a young man — which I can say out loud now because I can say it to my first wife, the mother of my first son. | ||
''It must have been a big decision to write songs about what happened and then make them into a record.'' | ''It must have been a big decision to write songs about what happened and then make them into a record.'' | ||
I think '' | I think ''North'' was the most.., impelled work I ever made. I'd walk off-stage with my ears still ringing after playing ''When I Was Cruel'' and sit at any piano available writing those songs until three in the morning. It was a shock to me that I wanted to say these things. The stricken feeling... You don't know what's up. Then it gradually dawns on you there's a new light. | ||
''North brought something very different out of you.'' | ''North brought something very different out of you.'' | ||
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''Within a few months of North you were involved with Diana Krall in her first self written album, ''The Girl In The Other Room'', which is again very intimate, especially that track "Departure Bay." | ''Within a few months of North you were involved with Diana Krall in her first self written album, ''The Girl In The Other Room'', which is again very intimate, especially that track "Departure Bay." | ||
She lost her mother. She had a bone marrow disease. She died at 60. When some people didn't understand why she suddenly wrote a bunch of songs — and thought it was my bad influence — she said, "Deed I Do won't do it right now." " | She lost her mother. She had a bone marrow disease. She died at 60. When some people didn't understand why she suddenly wrote a bunch of songs — and thought it was my bad influence — she said, "Deed I Do won't do it right now." "Departure Bay" is a real place. Diana went there as a kid with her family and her mother's ashes are scattered there... It was the beginning of our life together and there were a number of things she needed to express. She had written pieces in her journals that were lyrical in nature, but she didn't have experience of shaping them into precise lyrical form. I added barely a word, but I edited them into singable form. | ||
''There seems to be a parallel between the two of you coming to express yourselves in a new, directly personal way during that period.'' | ''There seems to be a parallel between the two of you coming to express yourselves in a new, directly personal way during that period.'' | ||
People have said to me that to some degree they're bookends, those two records. It's a nice compliment, but I think Diana's is much braver, that kind of loss is the more profound experience. A while ago I took her to | People have said to me that to some degree they're bookends, those two records. It's a nice compliment, but I think Diana's is much braver, that kind of loss is the more profound experience. A while ago I took her to Ronnie Scott's with my mother and my elder son, Matt. It was great, three generations of us together in a jazz club... I think about my family a lot now. Both my parents are 80. | ||
''You grew up drenched in music because your father [Ross MacManus] was a singer and trumpeter and your mother [Lilian] worked in record shops, but what exactly were you reflecting on when you wrote the song "45" for ''When I Was Cruel''? What about this lyric, "Every scratch, every click, every heartbeat, every breath that I held for you, 45... bass and treble heal every hurt"?'' | ''You grew up drenched in music because your father [Ross MacManus] was a singer and trumpeter and your mother [Lilian] worked in record shops, but what exactly were you reflecting on when you wrote the song "45" for ''When I Was Cruel''? What about this lyric, "Every scratch, every click, every heartbeat, every breath that I held for you, 45... bass and treble heal every hurt"?'' | ||
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''You obviously stayed close to both parents.'' | ''You obviously stayed close to both parents.'' | ||
I count on them. I'm really glad I have their advice now because of this extraordinary thing that happened to me past 50 — becoming a father again. And it's very precious to me to talk to my other son about things, and to see him have a relationship with the twins. Having young sons doesn't replace the love you have for your older son, it just enriches it because it makes you realise that some sort of common sense and knowledge has been achieved — and also what was sacrificed back in the | I count on them. I'm really glad I have their advice now because of this extraordinary thing that happened to me past 50 — becoming a father again. And it's very precious to me to talk to my other son about things, and to see him have a relationship with the twins. Having young sons doesn't replace the love you have for your older son, it just enriches it because it makes you realise that some sort of common sense and knowledge has been achieved — and also what was sacrificed back in the '70s to just getting my job done. | ||
''Your father being in show business all his life, solo or singing with the Joe Loss dance band, did he give you any crucial advice?'' | ''Your father being in show business all his life, solo or singing with the Joe Loss dance band, did he give you any crucial advice?'' | ||
One occasion I remember is when he came to see me at the Pavilion Theatre, London, Christmas of | One occasion I remember is when he came to see me at the Pavilion Theatre, London, Christmas of '78 I guess. The epitome of my pop-star moment: a 20-foot likeness of me over the door and lasers playing on it. But when he came backstage afterwards he was concerned about the audience. He said, "This is not a nice relationship — there's a spitefulness out there." He saw straight through it. An unhealthy tension. I remember standing at the back of the house and watching Debbie Harry — and getting a deeply uncomfortable feeling about the tension, it wasn't a healthy tension, the projection onto her by girls and boys. I went on a [[:Category:1980 UK Tour|tour]] after that where we played [[Concert 1980-03-20 Sunderland|Sunderland]] rather than Newcastle, [[Concert 1980-03-18 Southport|Southport]] rather than Liverpool and [[Concert 1980-03-03 Folkestone|Folkestone]] rather than Brighton — you know what I'm saying? I was trying to fuck it up. I knew I couldn't work like that for long. | ||
''An interviewer once asked your dad for his favourite song of yours and he gave a surprising answer, "The Birds Will Still Be Singing", from ''The Juliet Letters'' — he said he wanted it for his epitaph.'' | ''An interviewer once asked your dad for his favourite song of yours and he gave a surprising answer, "The Birds Will Still Be Singing", from ''The Juliet Letters'' — he said he wanted it for his epitaph.'' | ||
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''You've recorded so much it's hard to see specific turning points in your career. But was there a particularly significant transition period for you in the mid-'90s, maybe around the time you gave up drinking at the end of the All This Useless Beauty sessions?'' | ''You've recorded so much it's hard to see specific turning points in your career. But was there a particularly significant transition period for you in the mid-'90s, maybe around the time you gave up drinking at the end of the All This Useless Beauty sessions?'' | ||
I don't think I see any separation from the early | I don't think I see any separation from the early '90s. I was writing a lot of good songs back then. Although when ''[[Mighty Like A Rose]]'' came out everybody said, "He's really gone mad." I was acting a little crazy. But I was moving towards being able to arrange with confidence, teaching myself to do the notation for string quartet, then for orchestras — and the band, in fact. But I did write a song for [[June Tabor]] which is very truthful called "[[I Want To Vanish]]" [1994, later recorded by Costello on ''[[All This Useless Beauty]]'']. That was my frame of mind. I wanted to withdraw. | ||
''It feels like a suicide song.'' | ''It feels like a suicide song.'' | ||
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<small>Photos by [[Shawn Brackbill]].</small><br> | |||
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Revision as of 09:52, 26 May 2019
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