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He was a computer operator and not a happy one. It was 1976 and he had a wife and young child to support and he wrote songs and played guitar and his given name was Declan MacManus. In less than three years his name would be Elvis and when it was read or spoken there would be no confusion as to who was being referred to.
He was small and his face was not particularly striking and the previous couple of years had seen him leaving the A&R departments of every major record company with his unsold demo tapes.
The little advert in the classified columns of the music paper was like hundreds of others. A new company was being formed and they were looking for talent. He had nothing to lose. He applied, they listened, picked a song and agreed to put out a single.
Stiff Records was the collaborative brain-child of Jake Riviera (nee Andrew Jakeman) and Dave Robinson. It was small, independent, and lived in a converted shop in a West London backstreet.
Between them the two men had more than a decade of solid if chequered experience in the music business. Both had been heavily involved in the pub-rock phenomenon of the previous few years: Riviera had managed country-rockers Chilli Willi and The Red Hot Peppers and worked as road manager for Dr. Feelgood; Robinson had been co-manager of key venue The Hope & Anchor and was now looking after the blooming career of Graham Parker and The Rumour.
The independent record label was nothing new. Labels like Sun in Memphis that had given rock 'n' roll its first breaks, after all. The idea had recurred in the late Sixties, both to established artists like The Beatles as well as less moneyed idealists like disc jockey John Peel. Riviera himself had issued the first Chilli Willi LP this way and more recently still there'd been Greg Shaw's Bomp! in the States and the Franco-Dutch Skydog enterprise.
Changing Declan MacManus' name to Elvis Costello was typical of the wry blend of humour and sharp commercial sense that characterised the early days of Stiff, a sure-fire guaranteed attention-grabber. All that was needed after that was a product strong enough to justify such an audacious spiel. Costello went along with it; he still had nothing to lose and, as he would state with increasing confidence over the next year or so, he knew he was good.
Stiff's eleventh release was Elvis Costello's "Less Than Zero" c/w "Radio Sweetheart," produced by Nick Lowe, a highly respected singer and writer whose major commercial success to date had been with a Japanese chart-buster capitalising on the success of the Bay City Rollers. Costello still had no band, so the sessions for "Zero" and what would become his first LP featured the instrumental skills of Clover, a West Coast import who had so far only enjoyed a cult following of the kind represented by enthusiastic coverage in pre-punk ZigZag magazine.
With no live act to back them up, neither "Less Than Zero" nor its successor, a typically double-edged "love" song named "Alison" enjoyed more than modest success. The picture sleeve on "Alison" gave the name a face: Costello was shown crouched in a corner, hands extended outwards, ambiguously poised somewhere between aggression and defence, eyes hidden behind dark glasses of peculiar shape but still normal dimensions. Reviews were keen and curious. On the back of the "Alison" sleeve was the reconstituted face of a girl with mid-Sixties hair, all flick-ups and fringe; a picture that had been re-assembled after being torn into four ragged pieces.
My Aim Is True was the clincher — a sharp, immaculately programmed agglomeration of styles with the bulk of its generous complement (fifteen songs) more than living up to the "Alison"-derived title. Costello stares out from the cover shot (and from his huge-framed glasses) with determined, tight-lipped menace. His legs are in tight, roll-cuffed denims, knees pointed inward in classic Fifties pose; he holds his guitar tight to his stomach as if nothing else in the world mattered. All around the central snapshot a black and white mosaic repeats the legend first stolen for the run-out band of his first single: ELVIS IS KING.
"Why d'you have to say that there's always someone
Who can do it better than I can?
Don't you think that I know that walking on the water
won't make me a miracle man?"
— Miracle Man
My Aim Is True arrived at the height of the punk boom, a 'movement' whose biggest oversight had been the early dismissal of "love" from its list of preoccupations. And while the rejection of emotional involvements ("It's something I feel for a dog or a cat," The Pistols' Johnny Rotten had told Caroline Coon) can be seen as little more than yet another way of being obviously provocative, it also separated the movement from the traditional stamping grounds of popular music. The punks would have doubtless replied that there were more urgent matters on hand; being on the dole, loathsome housing conditions, the deteriorating relationship between the races. Costello as portrayed on My Aim Is True, however, is almost exclusively concerned with sex.
Or the lack of it: "Well, I remember when the lights went out / And I was trying to make it look like it was never in doubt / And she thought that I knew / And I thought that she knew / So both of us were willin' but we didn't know how to do it." In "Mystery Dance" there's at least the promise of something happening; most frequently Costello's characters are left on the outside looking hopelessly in: the voyeur of the ironically-titled "I'm Not Angry," the couples who don't couple any more in "Welcome To The Working Week," "No Dancing" and "Miracle Man."
By the time the newlyweds join the spooky train journey of the final "Waiting For The End Of The World," we suspect what's in store for them. "Hiding from a scandal in the national press / They've been waiting to get married since they stole the wedding dress" says the narrator: "You may see them drowning as you're strolling on the beach / Don't throw them a lifeline 'til they're... clean out of reach."
While its verbal preoccupations can be said to be over-balanced heavily in the direction of concerns of a venereal kind (with, it should be noted, the exceptions of the anti-Fascist "Less Than Zero" and the everyday unease brilliantly evoked on "Waiting For The End Of The World"), Aim's primary appeal was on musical terms. Compared to the closeted thrashings of the punks, the album was a musical encyclopaedia, taking in everything from Shadow Morton, to country, blues, Merseybeat — you name it, it's in there somewhere. Costello's vocal style took no heed of the recent return to Anglo dialects, remaining convincingly in the accepted mid-Atlantic idiom. Rave reviews preceded chart entries for both album and the delicious "Red Shoes" single. It appealed to people who were ready for a change but unable to accept The Ramones and their UK brothers, as well as to those who did but could see the genre's limitations. America listened in and liked what it heard. My Aim Is True quickly became a top seller on import in the States.
"I'm an extraordinarily bitter person," confessed Costello in an interview with New York's Trouser Press magazine shortly after the LP was released. "I don't like to sound as if I'm too obsessed and can't feel any other way. But it just happens that those songs evince that kind of feeling and, therefore, the album is like that. The next one could be very, very different, although I don't think it's necessarily going to be any kinder. In fact, if anything, the way I feel at the moment, it's going to be a lot crueller."
He was understandably sick of being compared with Graham Parker, more than eager to dispel any notions that he was just a pseudonym for Nick Lowe. His musical tastes were broad and constantly on the change. Through various interviews he admitted to liking a variety of artists from The Clash and Richard Hell through to Dusty Springfield and country singer George Jones.
His past, so far as he was concerned, was a thing of the past. His intention was to work, work, work. A lot of his bitterness arose from the way his work had been dismissed — often on half a hearing — by the A&R men at the big record companies. He kept a little black book listing his 'enemies' and censored his guest lists accordingly.
The next step was a band of his own. Pete Thomas had drummed for Chilli Willi and, from there, had accepted an offer of work from US Country artist John Stewart. Bass-player Bruce Thomas was another vet, out of Sutherland Brothers and Quiver and the short-lived Moonrider. When Wilko Johnson left Dr. Feelgood, he'd sent Thomas his air fare. Bruce spent a week with the first Solid Senders and walked out on them. The obvious connection was made, thanks to Jake.
A press ad located keyboard player Steve Naive (formerly Young), who came direct from music school. He had, or so the legend goes, only ever been to one rock concert in his life, an Alice Cooper show. Elvis made a single-handed appearance at London's Nashville Rooms, broke the hearts of several prominent journalists, and disappeared to a West Country cottage to rehearse with his new band.
Costello and his band's dedication to the work ethic paid off hundredfold. Late in August they made their public debut with a 22-song set; soon afterwards they shared the major kudos on the first Stiff package tour with Ian Dury. They recorded their first album and Elvis just had time to be arrested, for playing in the street outside the hotel that housed the annual UK convention of CBS Records, before going on his first American tour.
Shortly afterwards he was signed to CBS in the States. Meanwhile Jake Riviera had left Stiff. Nick Lowe and E.C. and the Attractions joined him at Radar Records, the new company formed by highly respected former United Artists A&R head Andrew Lauder.
While all this was happening Costello had his first taste of real chart success with "Watching The Detectives," his final Stiff 45.
The song is a brilliant exercise in tension: spiky organ and spooky guitar travelling over a stomach-pummelling reggae bassline. Lyrically it's a masterful piece of double-take. The narrator, Elvis, is the observer once more, but things are given an extra twist by the fact that the girl in the song is an observer too, watching the TV private eyes. Like much of EC's later work, its lyrical impact relies on a series of potent fragments: the girl's "illegal legs," the repeated "They beat him up until the teardrops start / But he can't be wounded when he's got no heart," the brilliant couplet, "I don't know how much of this I can take / She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake," through to the crunch closer: "It nearly took a miracle to get you to stay / But it'll only take my little finger to blow you away." Throughout it's never quite clear how much of the "action" takes place on TV and how much in the viewer's room. Like the title implies, it's very much a mystery, and quite brilliant for it. Its follow-up was "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea," with the reggae influence taken a step further, and a lyric that was miles away from "Detectives" territory. It was a trailer for Elvis Costello & The Attractions' first album together, and — deservedly — another hit.
Don't say you love me when it's just a rumour.
Don't say a word if there's any doubt.
Sometimes I think that love is just a tumour.
You've got to cut it out...
— Lipstick Vogue
Brilliantly played, programmed and produced, This Year's Model easily puts its far-from-inconsiderable predecessor into second place. Honed to perfection on the band's first UK tour, the album's dozen songs flow into a dazzling whole that not only makes My Aim Is True sound like a demo, but thrust the new album high among the decade's classic longplayers.
The second LP saw Costello spread his net a little, but, as the soaring opening cut revealed, he was far from finished with the heart: "I don't wanna kiss you / I don't wanna touch / I don't wanna see you 'cause I don't miss you that much."
The repressed, rejected or just plain perverse sexualities of the first album were in abundant evidence once more. "The Beat" is almost indecipherable but one of the album's finest lines emerges easily from the murk: "I Don't wanna be your lover / I just wanna be your victim," whereas "You Belong To Me" takes the completely opposite stance: "Don't wanna be a goody-goody / I don't want just anybody / No I don't want anybody / Saying 'You belong to me. You belong to me'."
Elsewhere we see fractured relationships in broader contexts. The jealous voyeur of "Living In Paradise," for example, is a victim of his own success. The song, Costello explained to journalist Nick Kent, was a projection of what he could envisage being an eventual possible outcome of his entry into the music business. The "paradise" of the title is truly ironic: how can it be heaven when, we're told, everyone carries a gun?
De-humanisation of various kinds is the key to This Year's Model. In "This Year's Girl" and "Chelsea" it's the robotics of fashion that are held at arm's length, in the first in the form of the mannequin herself, in "Chelsea" the entire hollow, glamorous scene. "But oh, no, it does not move me," Costello concludes, "Even though I've seen the movie."
Conclusion-jumpers have assumed "Lipstick Vogue" to belong to the same category as "This Year's Girl," some gone so far as to label it misogynist. In fact, as with "Watching The Detectives" it's another example of a dialogue that leaves us unsure as to who's talking when. It could just as easily be the woman or the man who's reduced to the status of an unfeeling slot machine.
"Pump It Up" was apparently written in reaction to some extremist behaviour on the part of some of Costello's fellow travellers on the Stiff tour. Self-abuse as another way to facelessness: "Pump it up — until you can feel it."
The real key is left for last. "Night Rally" is the only blatantly "political" song on the album. But it's a small step from being told what to wear by fashion designers to being told what to think: "Everyone gets armbands and 3-D glasses / Some are in the back row / And they're taking those... night classes."
It's a cruel place to put a joke, but it works. Costello's said repeatedly that he doesn't see any point in sloganeering. When he does write a "political" piece, however, he's dead on target. "You think they're so dumb / You think they're so funny / Wait until they got you running to their night rally." In this context the mention of souvenirs is positively horrifying.
1978 was a year of consolidation and expansion. Meaning more gigs in America, for a start. "You can make the mistake of thinking you've got it made," he told London's Evening News. "Like we sell out New York and we can sell out Los Angeles in three hours. But we had tickets on sale in Mobile, Alabama, for a week and didn't sell one."
Despite the chart success of This Year's Model Costello continued to play small venues, both here and in the States and, a further expansion toward the end of the year, in Japan. He also found time to make his film debut alongside Carlene Carter and Meatloaf in the as yet unseen Americathon, during which he performs "Crawling To The USA," as well as recording a third album.
Before that there was "Radio, Radio," an unavoidably catchy little chunk of pop subversion that pointed out that "radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools" and allowed Costello the delicious joy of being introduced on Top Of The Pops by Tony Blackburn.
Busy bodies
Really busy
Getting nowhere...
— Busy Bodies
For someone who projects such a tough, disdainful exterior both on and off-stage, Elvis Costello would appear to be quite extraordinarily sensitive to the way his work's interpreted.
Taking the "development" of his songwriting in strictly chronological line (a dangerous sport at the best of times), his reaction to the general definitions of him arrived at as a result of My Aim Is True was to attempt to expand his vocabulary on the second LP. He did this both in terms of reaching outwards for new subjects and, when remaining in the sexual jungle mapped out over most of the first LP, to expand the contexts of his observations, shifting relations from direct subject/object songs ("Alison" etc.) to the more ambitious word-scapes generated from "Watching The Detectives" onward, perhaps peaking with the several, inseparable viewpoints offered on "Lipstick Vogue."
On Armed Forces there's a sometimes irritating tendency to disguise what's really being said in a welter of puns and only temporarily arresting plays on language. Coupled with this, however, there's an even stronger band identity than on the previous LP, something emphasised by a production mix that frequently obscures entire passages of singing. This is an old trick, of course, and can be both tantalising and repellent.
Happily, there are so many strong tunes and individual playing contributions — Steve Naive's particularly worthy of praise here — to make the shift of emphasis by no means an unpleasant one. For those of us who like our Costello concise and to the point, the trio of songs at the start of the album's second side probably work best. "Goon Squad" is another sharp indictment of Fascism, this time from the inside out, "Busy Bodies" deftly dissects the permissiveness-for-points crowd. "Sunday's Best" is a more oblique number altogether, its simple structure and "jolly" tune allowing for a dry look at a whole series of typically British occupations, and leading to an unsettling conclusion: "Put them all in boots and Khaki / Blame it all upon the darkies."
Elsewhere it's individual lines or sections that work best: the picture of the newscaster at the start of "Green Shirt," the soaring line in "Oliver's Army" that puts the listener at battle stations alongside "the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne," and "Two Little Hitlers" with its "You flick a switch and the world goes out / I would've thought you'd had enough by now."
It's a very playable, fluent, highly enjoyable, clever record. Sometimes, though, one can't help avoiding the feeling that Costello's overdone the camouflage somewhat. And that the results of this, as they would be on a real little soldier, are somewhat distractingly absurd.
Elvis Costello had a busy year between the release of Armed Forces and Get Happy!!, his entry into the new decade. Some of it didn't exactly do the legend much good, i.e. the widely reported "racist" comments he made in a U.S. bar brawl, the protracted legal wranglings following the demise of Radar Records, with Costello and co's abortive attempts at escaping the clutches of the WEA organisation.
On the positive side, Dave Edmunds had a big hit with Costello's "Girls Talk," and Elvis bowed in as a producer with the Specials' chart-thrashing album debut.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions' star status was underlined by frequent appearances in the bootlegger's catalogues. Live At El Mocambo, an 'official' bootleg issued by Columbia in Canada went into unofficial pressings just like predecessors by Nils Lofgren and Tom Petty before it; 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong was a double-album set including a handful of demos alongside U.S. live recordings.
Both are excellent of their kind (and far superior to a badly-recorded UK tour bootleg issued early in '79), and prove, in addition to the fact that Costello's entered the bootleggable elite, that Elvis Costello & The Attractions could produce a killer "live" LP, should the desire ever arise.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions Get Happy!!, to give the new album its full title, is just what its name suggests — Elvis' party album. Despite sometime rumours to the contrary, Nick Lowe returned to the production chair — in Amsterdam and not Australia as originally announced — and did his usual excellent job.
The story goes that the prolific Costello had so many new songs that the Get Happy!! sessions could easily have produced twice their volume of material. Instead, the band would run through each new song a couple of times and if they didn't get it right straight away they'd simply do another.
The result is very immediate, mostly extremely 'live' sound, one that's far removed from the high-gloss finish on Armed Forces. Where the earlier LP had suggested 1968 as a main point of inspiration, Get Happy!!, from its pre-worn cover art inwards, takes its cues from earlier on in the decade. At a time when Soul and Ska are enjoying huge revivals, Costello's stayed topical by looking backwards; hence a revamped Sam & Dave flipside for his new single, Motown lifts for the musics of "Secondary Modern," "Love For Tender" and others, a second cover with "I Stand Accused" (Jerry Butler, Vee-Jay, 1964), and the convincing Bluebeat of "Human Touch": "I don't wanna know much about much / I need... I need... I need / The human touch."
Verbally, Costello's still fragmenting like crazy, and a lot of the songs are all but indecipherable in terms of straight ahead logic. Alternatively, there's a continuation of the free for all punning of Armed Forces; "Beaten To The Punch" manages to include every boxing cliche imaginable, the narrator of "New Amsterdam" wonders "Do I step on the brake to get out of her clutches?" and so on.
There are a few familiar non-going sexual situations, of course, ("I see you lying there still wide awake / After I've given all you can take / So, for heaven's sake, give me temptation"; "Meanwhile back in some secluded spot / He says 'Will you please...' / And she says 'Stop!'") but the album's overall tone is one of innocent exuberance, portrayed via endless powerful hooks and matching performances for all concerned.
Costello's words and music continue to be the product of an unimaginable frustration, even if this time around he's not been so obvious about it. He's chosen not to wear his heart on his sleeve and the energy's gone principally into his music where it might earlier have surfaced in the content of his songs. The last time he was asked about the spoiling effects of success, Costello replied, "It may be detrimental to my abilities, and also my ability to see what to do, rather than just living up to people's expectations." With Get Happy!!, he's continued to make great British pop that's anything but obvious, anything but soft:
The chairman of this boredom is a compliment collector
I'd like to be his funeral director
— Opportunity
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