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How do you read Elvis Costello? Since crawling out of that West London Vanity Factory, he's baited you, teased you, flirted with you like a cheap detective novel you'd rather not read, but find impossible to stop turning the mealy pages. Controversy rages from the text. Steamy sex scenes. Self strangulating plot lines. Enough word plays to tie a loose tongue or two. And yet, between the lines in a turn of a pirouetting phrase, in the lure of a multi-melodic reverb, something unseen, something yearning to be free of the prison bars of black type tugs at your sleeve and holds you transfixed.
Ah, the facts: born Declan McManus, 1954, London. Father Ross was a big band singer, mother worked in a record department. Studied English in school, eyes are astigmatic, first played in folk clubs at 16. Wife Mary, son Mathew. Signed to Stiff Records in 1976 by Jake Riviera. Produced by Nick Lowe until Almost Blue produced by country great Billy Sherrill. Imperial Bedroom produced by self and Geoff Emerick. Punch the Clock produced by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanely. Reads biographies. Swims, plays tennis. Released nine albums in six years. The greatest songwriter you can think of, off hand. If Imperial Bedroom is Elvis's masterpiece, Punch the Clock is the only and best possible follow-up. New tour bursting with the TKO horns the incredible, world renowned Attractions (Steve Nieve, Bruce Thomas, Steve Thomas) tight as... arrangements and ladies and gentlemen in the center ring, Mr. EL-vis cos-TELL-o!
There he is peering from out of those trademarked black-rimmed eyeglasses in the lobby of the Allentown, PA Hilton, only hours before the first Clocking In show of the USA tour. Elvis is omni-aware, slick, fast, neat, warm, humane, thoughtful, gracious, you think somewhat psychic, probably thinking of six things at once, like Caesar could He indicates a perfectionist streak when he often mentions wanting the best in the production of his albums. His suit is black. His shoes are checkered.
He talks well with wit and a piercing sense of the ironic, almost as crafty as in his songs. Like Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon, you like talking to a man who likes to talk but you feel he in control He seems most comfortable when an argument gathers in the wind. What a great bar-mate he probably his words digging canals through which logic flows. He talks with such energy that you can't let your mind stray from the stories he's telling. The suspense rises and lowers like heavy breathing. He taps his fingernails on the formica table top as he describes his first "bang bang bang bang" shows. You don't know how much more of this you can take. You sit there stricken, eyes firmly on the page as Elvis Costello writes the book.
The theme of striving for an unviolated love or trust comes up a lot in your songs.
I'd say that's true. Unviolated, generally. It could be unviolated love or it could be an unviolated condition. It's not necessarily towards relationships as I understand that word is understood here. Not just totally to do with a man or a woman, just about human matters generally, whether they deal with the government or your next door neighbor or your wife or your boyfriend or whatever. Human matters. People interest me more than anything else.
Even in the semi-political songs —
Well, I don't look at them as semi-political. I just look at them as songs. Here is a song. It happens to be about something I care enough about to want to write the song. I have to be motivated to want to write it. It's somebody else that comes along and says it's political.
The motivation is political. "Shipbuilding" is more about the betrayal of trust between rulers and ruled.
That's political! Songs just about political theory would be bloody boring. I always hated the idea of political songs because they always conjured up sloganeering songs to me. They could never seem to get past the level of "We Shall Overcome," which has done its job. "People Get Ready" is my favorite political song.
Is rock music important?
I don't see rock music as being that important, really. I think it's very over-rated. It's a self-perpetuating myth. People like to invent the idea of rock culture because it reinforces their own beliefs. There isn't' any real rock culture. It's a very limited thing. I don't see that the condition or the nature of their work or these people arc that exalted. I don't see that they're that influential, either. Don't tell me that Bruce Springsteen is influential.
Is Bowie?
I don't think so. Not really. There's a lot of people that admire him. He's influential to other musicians. There's a lot of people, heaven help us, that try and sound just like him. But, it's just not that important. The whole business takes itself far too seriously. The more important thing is to take your work seriously, else you do it badly. But, to take yourself seriously, you become an absolute buffoon.
But there is a rock culture driving to these shows in vans with two six packs and —
They're not that big a part of the world, are they? Are they any bigger than people who go to discos and listen to disco music? My experience is that there's a big class difference between people. Rock music is middle class music, particularly in America. That excludes a large portion of the population, surely. It doesn't really touch many working class people.
What do working class people listen to?
Country music, disco music.
ACDC?
Yeah. But they're not the kind of people you'd hold up in the pantheon of rock. Angus Young isn't among those people.
But he sells more records than you. Is the future going to be based on people who listen to heavy metal?
I think that's an amusing thing to say That's exactly what they said about people who grew up listening to the Grateful Dead.
And what happened to them?
They're still listening to the Grateful Dead. But, I think that's a very narrow observation. All of the people who were once held up as going to change the world are now the good old, beloved good old good ones, all of the hippie rebels. I dare say, that if they stay on the treadmill long enough, all of the people from 1978 are going to look just as tame. A Clash fan now looks at Crosby Stills and Nash and says well, that's really tame. In 1990, somebody is going to be looking at the Clash, if they still exist, and say exactly the same thing. It's inevitable. When rock 'n' roll replaced swing, they said this is the end of music. They burned records, broke records. Now, rock 'n' roll is a tame animal. There's no real dangerous rock 'n' roll.
What I think is a bit depressing is that rock music, as it's known now has no roots, it's not based on anything. Original rock 'n' roll was traditional in that it came directly from folk music. The folk music of today is goodness knows what, it's probably heavy metal. Or country music. Or disco. Because those records are bought unconsciously. They're just filler. They're air time. They're not the ones that the long boring essays are written about. These people arc not lionized. Or only occasionally.
I think that music was very important in 1955. That year, the original rock 'n' roll shook the attitude of young people. It was important in 1964. It was probably important in England in 1977. But other than that, no. And that's a limited thing as well. The '55 thing was very big and the '64 thing was extremely big. The 1977 thing was over in a couple of months. It was just a phenomenon. We have a lot of phenomenon in England, so we're pretty much used to it by now It didn't exactly bring down the government.
People had expectations —
I don't. I think only the most pompous people write songs thinking they're going to change something with them. I write songs from a personal point of expression. That's what I know. The music I value most is stuff that is personal. It might say something and I really agree with it and you'd might call it political. Or, it might describe or conjure up a feeling or an emotion, which you know they've got it down so right that you can't ignore it. I mean what kind of music are we talking about here, the more pompous Pete Townshend songs or what? The idea of epic rock is a contradiction. I think the worst song he ever recorded, which was held up as great, was "Won't Get Fooled Again." "The Kids Are Alright" is a much greater song. It's also shorter, and better for it.
I write songs. I hate the idea of rock music because it conjures up all the American bands I can't stand like your Foreignors, Journeys and Totos.
Is there an obsession with people to categorize other people?
Absolutely. It stops you from accidentally buying records that you don't like. That's the only possible use labels have got, so you don't go in and accidentally buy a Ray Coniff album.
There are too many records made. That's the trouble. If the record companies weren't so wasteful and didn't take so many drugs, and didn't sign so many bands that were useless, then the record stores wouldn't be filled with records that you didn't want in your house. That's not to say that you couldn't have a record store filled with good records, it's just that record companies invariably aren't signing those people because they're too greedy and they want to sign somebody that's a bit like the last act that were successful. They would rather go with a safe formula than anybody who's got a little imagination or real new idea.
It's like all this nonsense about new music that you seem to be having over here now, This New Music Seminar. I could not believe it. I laughed myself sick. It's absolutely ludicrous because none of the music is related, so to be bracketed together is insulting to those individuals in there that have got any talent, which, god knows, are precious few. On top of which, most of it is so conservative and being held up as new. By English standards, most of it is the boring end of pop, not the new fresh, unusual. Some of it is good, but still very staid. The only group of any substance that I understand is being held up as new music is Culture Club. They're the only ones of any worth that I could have any interest in having their records or wanting to hear their records next week or in ten years time.
What do you listen to?
I buy a lot of records when I'm in England. I try to seek out new things that must be here, because I'm not writing off the possibility that, against all the odds there might be a group working against the grain here, in America. I'd like to find a great group here. The two best groups in America, as I understand it, are both very traditionally based, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Blasters. I think they do what they do excellently, though they don't have tremendous range. l liked one track of Rank and File. I quite like a track by REM, but I don't know much more about them. There's a lot of English groups that I think arc really interesting. I love Aztec Camera. Their record is my favorite album that's come out in the last year. I'm really glad they're on the tour.
I can see why you like them. Like you, they're song-oriented.
Too many other bands I see seem to spend their time concentrating on the trappings of it, not really paying enough attention to the mechanics of it. Getting the good songs there and then learning to play well enough. There's no good way. There can be no best singer. There can he no best guitarist. That's why polls are so ludicrous, because it's an attitude to playing, isn't it? It's the style....
When you hear a song that just doesn't happen, it doesn't do anything, it simply isn't well constructed enough to have any effect on you. There's no melody that you can hear. If the song has very little melody, but it has a mood, then it may get you.
Your songwriting has progressed since the beginning.
I've learnt as we've gone along. My knowledge of music has been broadened by experience and traveling and hearing other kinds of music and just having more money to buy more records.
Your shows have changed a lot over the years, too.
Well, if people don't know by now that they should come to expect something different than what they saw last time and different than the last group they saw, then really they've come to the wrong show. I like to change things and it's more interesting to the bulk of the people that like us....
It's very easy to get sentimental about the good old days when they played really fast, but a lot of the time what people took for being a real aggressive, edgy show was nerves and overanxiousness. Sometimes the bang bang bang bang tempos would de-
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