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I hadn't realised what a strange cluster of accents there is in Elvis Costello's voice.
Sentences end with the soft fluted lilt of Ireland. A Liverpudlian rhythm breaks up his words. Most of the delivery is loud, assertive southerner, sometimes nearly a bark. An occasional Atlanticism peeks through.
I've not heard a voice so curious since I heard Grace Jones speak.
"Erm… you have different reasons for liking things I suppose. 'I'll Wear It Proudly' is my favourite song on the record and maybe 'American Without Tears'. But I like things that are on there just for the feeling — like 'Eisenhower Blues' and some of the fast things. I like little bits of musical things, details. But there's a lot of songs. I sort of forget them."
King Of America is not a record that makes you want to forget.
Almost an hour long, chiselled and grappled into a sparse, hurtful, glittery sequence, the LP isn't a difficult set to digest; but it's absolutely clear about offering no crumbs of concession. It's Costello standing up for his songwriter's art, insisting on all the virtues in an intellectual twist of the heart.
Almost two years after the hasty and embattled Goodbye Cruel World, Costello's return to such complete strength is almost alarming. The songs on King Of America recorded in comparatively primitive conditions in Los Angeles but performed with an astounding sense of personality, are a thinker's archive of rare words, flashbulb pictures long sweet melodies… the accustomed Costello show, but sewn together with a new, finer touch.
His ear and eye have never needled away as sharply.
Was this collection — so long in arriving — written and polished over a long period?
"No, I thought about it over a long period. I didn't stop writing…"
Contrary to popular rumour.
"Yeah, absolutely contrary. The first song I wrote was "Indoor Fireworks" at the beginning of last year, and the last was 'Suit Of Lights' which I did just before the last period of recording. We did three bouts of recording spread over three months. I didn't want to be in California for any length of time, so we did it two weeks at a time.
"I went to California to produce the Coward Brothers record, about last February and I had about four of the songs on the album then. In the interim I wrote a lot more."
Can't stop writing songs, eh?
"I can do if I want to. Artificially. I didn't let myself write any songs before Goodbye Cruel World and then I did them really quickly, which I don't think was a very good idea. Maybe I should have worked on them longer.
"It's something that goes on. Like, can you stop thinking?"
Yes, but I have to think about doing it first.
Costello is in an electrical mood. At the back of his conversations one can make out the hackles of a man still wound up by press and media; don't let me be misunderstood suckers. His energy in conversation is quilted with habitual distrust. You talkin' to me?
My usual deadpan bewilderment in these situations amuses him. His spectacles are opal tinted. The eyes aren't on show. But his madly tousled hair and snaggle of teeth give him a slightly lunatic smile.
King Of America is, as Costello insists, a record outside its bare acoustic wires and trickle of amplification makes it remote from any radio sound of today. One of the few recent precedents for this music comes from the work of his co-producer, T-Bone Burnett.
"He saw the songs as they were coming up. He said 'Well, why don't you just make it clearer? Why don't you call these people?' Instead of doing it half solo and half with The Attractions, which was one idea. Part of his job was to stop me messing about with the songs.
"There should be due credit to Larry Hirsch the engineer. A lot of records with acoustic bass are quite small and this is quite large without a lot of silly effects. He recorded it so that the personality of the actual player is identifiable which is pretty uncommon now."
Like a jazz production.
"Yeah, there was a track on that Miles Davis record Man With The Horn where they went into raptures about a fantastic innovation on the drums - and it was just a lot of really horrible echo they've put on them. But it was an innovation for a jazz record."
Was the chime of this LP any reaction to an over-production on the last few Costello records?
"The last record was just a mess - it started off to be one record and changed halfway through. The one before, I probably don't like as much as I did when we made it. But it might be over-produced in your opinion or maybe in mine, and the people who like it like it because it sounds like that. That's why they bought it. I'm not going to disown it.
"The songs are the most important thing, and then the singing on them. Everything that contributed to that was a good idea and everything that got in the way of it was a bad idea. It's bloody simple. What's hard about that?"
Bang! Bang! And as we proceed , the paid murmur of doubt and the impervious artist, it grows clear how Declan MacManus and Elvis Costello have made peace with each other: instead of killing Elvis, Declan has scrubbed out his ambiguities. The songs have it; it’s that simple. You hear it; or you don’t. I think: therefore…
This ‘King’ might have been a solo record?
“I considered it, but you have to understand the folk-singer prejudice that exists. People expect it to sound like something else. It’s very hard to make a record with very few instruments on it these days. People associate it with another time, and they don’t really listen to the record at all. The minute certain people hear any kind of country inflection on the record, they won’t listen to the song at all. It’s as if it’s a mortal sin.
“Like ‘Our Little Angel’ – the chorus sounds like it might have come out of a country song, but the verse doesn’t. They’re my songs. I borrowed some mannerisms from some traditional styles of music, but they’re my songs. Nobody else could have written them.”
Costello speaks a truth that might be harsh for himself. Out of the simple materials of verse and chorus and language, he’s carved this closed-off brilliance . For all its clarity and mastery of the form, ‘King Of America’ doesn’t seem like something you make friends with. Only when he has fun, in the record’s two covers, does the fist unclench.
“I think ‘Eisenhower Blues’ is hilarious. My records often have little traps for critics to step into, and that’s one – I was waiting for someone to go , Here we go, the English blues revival, or something. That’s one of the joys of this not entirely comfortable relationship I have with the music press. Interviewers and reviewers want their prejudices confirmed. They’ve framed questions in such a way that it’s impossible to answer without subscribing to their prejudice.”
He grins his messy smile and perches his head on one side.
“One writer got his knickers in a twist about ‘Misunderstood’ – did it stop the world? He was gullible enough to believe a lot of unfounded rumours about me. It’s not the best track, but it’s one that introduces people to the sound of the record, and when you compare it to the rest of what’s on the radio, it’s like a punk record. What better way to do that then use a familiar song that I have some sympathy with? I don’t want to be misunderstood. I mean, don’t you lie awake and worry about the little sinful things you’ve done? I do! But it’s not a life and death struggle for my soul. It’s only a record.
“Eisenhower Blues” is just fun, especially this year. I could have written a very heavy song about the retrogressive moral and political aspects of America, but I’d rather get drunk and sing ‘Eisenhower Blues’ just for a laff. And it swings. I’d dance to it in my personal disco.”
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