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The world and the flow of time may be unpredictable, but despite all the unknowns that life throws at us, Elvis Costello remains as dedicated to his craft as ever — and today, the iconic singer/songwriter releases Hey Clockface, his 31st studio album to date and the follow-up to 2018’s Look Now.
Costello has previewed the album in recent weeks with a few tracks, each of them as charged and relevant as you’d expect, given his proclivity for being outspoken with his music.
Here’s “We Are All Cowards Now,” which is described like this in its official description:
The motion picture of the song by Eamon Singer & Arlo McFurlow features images of flowers & pistols, smoke & mirrors, tombstones & monuments, courage & cowardice, peace, love & misunderstanding.
Another notable pre-release track was “No Flag,” which features these lyrics:
No time for this kind of love
No flag waving high above
No sign for the dark place that I live
No god for the damn that I don’t give
Costello tells us, “I sang live on the studio floor, directing from the vocal booth. We cut nine songs in two days. We spoke very little. Almost everything the musicians played was a spontaneous response to the song I was singing. I’d had a dream of recording in Paris like this, one day.”
The ensemble, dubbed, “Le Quintette Saint Germain” by Costello, was recruited for these dates by Steve Nieve (who plays grand piano, upright piano, organ, mellotron & melodica) features Mickaél Gasche on trumpet, flugel horn and serpent, Pierre-François ‘Titi’ Dufour on cello and the drums, percussion and high harmonies of Ajuq.
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