Waitrose Weekend, January 13, 2022

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Waitrose Weekend

UK & Ireland magazines

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Confessions of a boy named Elvis


Paul Kirkley

Elvis Costello talks to Paul Kirkley about guardian angels, imaginary sins, losing his mother in lockdown, and why he was never really an angry young man

In February 2020, Elvis Costello kicked off his latest UK tour at the Liverpool Olympia in front of a sold-out crowd that included his mother, Lillian. "It was in the same dance hall she used to go to as a young woman, when it was known as the Locarno Ballroom," the singer, songwriter and distinguished musical man of letters tells Weekend.

"It's an old circus building, which actually used to be on my way home from school, except it had closed down by then. Anyway, they brought it back to life, and it was the opening night of the tour, and there's my 93-year-old mother singing along to 'Alison.' I couldn't have imagined anything better."

After the show, Lillian, who'd recently left hospital after a stroke, asked for her wheelchair to be pushed onto the floor where, seven decades earlier, she'd danced to the big band music of the 40s. It was, by all accounts, a good night.

Elvis and his band The Imposters then continued the tour, making it as far as the Hammersmith Apollo in London before the encroaching Covid-19 pandemic caught up with them. With the remaining dates cancelled, Elvis flew to spend the early months of lockdown in a cabin on Vancouver Island with his wife, Canadian jazz musician Diana Krall, and their teenage twins, Dexter and Frank "Given how confined many people were, that was very fortuitous," says the 67-year-old. "We went for walks in the woods and, as both mine and my wife's job often involves travelling to play music, it was no bad thing to have a good period of time together."

But even in splendid isolation, there was no escaping the anxiety and uncertainty of life during Covid. "I lost a few friends, you probably did, too," says Elvis. "I couldn't go to England, the border was closed. My eldest son [Matt, 45, from his first marriage to Mary Burgoyne], I didn't see for 18 months. My mother had had a series of crises, and the last few I couldn't respond to by travelling there to cheer her up.

"And in the end she passed, with little anticipation, and... you know, you have to have a virtual funeral. Can you think of anything more peculiar? Of course, I'm not alone — many people have said goodbye to loved ones in those circumstances, or have gone through a door in a hospital and never seen them again. Very strange." Music, perhaps inevitably, provided a therapeutic outlet. "You want to scream and shout and get something out," he says. "Diana was up on the second floor, mixing a record, and I'm out in the back garden, screaming my head off, so we're a good pair?'

Indeed, while the world slowed down, Elvis only seemed to become more prolific. Since the start of the pandemic, he's released a new album, 2020's Hey Clockface, re-recorded six of its tracks for a French-language EP, remade his entire 1978 album This Year's Model in Spanish, written and recorded an original audiobook, and curated a lavish boxset reissue of 1979's Armed Forces. And for an encore, he's now created a second new album of original material, The Boy Named If, for which he's also written an accompanying book of children's stories. Because of course he has.

The record, he says, is a series of snapshots, loosely themed around the end of innocence — "the moment when you're leaving the certainty and the magical imagination of childhood, and entering into the terror of desire and lust, and all the lies you tell yourself and other people." The 'If' of the title track, he explains, is a nickname for your imaginary friend — the 'secret self' you can conveniently blame for all your bad or hurtful decisions.

Not that the young Declan Patrick MacManus, who was born in Paddington and spent his early years in West London before moving to his mother's native Merseyside at 16, ever had an actual imaginary friend. "I didn't need one, because I'm a Catholic, so I was told I had a guardian angel," he says. "I'm also the person who confessed to adultery in my very first confession, because I thought I'd better have something on my rap sheet. I was quite an honest, fresh-faced boy, so I picked a sin where I didn't know what the word meant.

"The priest, of course, just sniggered. Though I think confessing in advance to adultery put me in good stead for the number of times I did actually commit that sin later in life," he notes drily. "And maybe I'll have less time in purgatory when I go there."

Though he talks in the accompanying press notes about "guilt and shame and all those other useless possessions that you must throw overboard," it's hard to tell if the songs on The Boy Named If are confessionals, as such. As smart, playful and densely literate as you'd expect from this master storyteller and self-described 'rock 'n' roll Scrabble champion,' the album's 13 tracks offer few Adele-style clues into the state of their creator's life, or his relationship with his wife, children or pets. "I don't have any pets," he smiles. "And honestly can't comment on Adele. But you don't have to have lived through every single thing you imagine — otherwise crime writers would all be in jail, because they're constantly killing people."

The Boy Named If conjures something of the raw, spiky urgency of Elvis' early new wave period, when he harnessed the energy of punk to a songwriter's craftsmanship on instant classics like "Oliver's Army," "Accidents Will Happen" and the reggae-infused "Watching the Detectives." If that is the case, he says — and it wasn't intentional — it probably just arose from the way he wrote and recorded it with longtime Imposters sidemen Pete Thomas (drums), Steve Nieve (keyboards) — both graduates of his original band, the Attractions — and Davey Faragher (bass). "It's just what we do," he shrugs.

If he's pleased to be told he still sounds young and hungry (and he sees no reason why musicians of his vintage shouldn't), he's less comfortable with his reputation as a former 'angry young man' of rock. "I don't know if anger is particularly something I aspire to," he considers. "I don't want self-satisfied contentment, but I don't want to deny love or tenderness, and I never did. It's people's choice to believe the reductive legend of my first records. Some of them are critical, some of them are doubtful or sceptical about certain concepts of beauty and romance, but there's no hate in them.

"Just the other day, someone quoted me the famous revenge and guilt quote [in 1977, Elvis told the NME his only two creative motivations were "revenge and guilt... love doesn't exist in my songs" and asked me if I still felt that way. I said: 'How many things that you said for effect when you were 22 and half drunk do you believe?"

Declan MacManus inherited some of his musical gifts from his Irish-descended father Ross, a jazz trumpeter and singer with the Joe Loss Orchestra, who played the 1963 Royal Variety Performance bill alongside The Beatles and Marlene Dietrich, and later scored a solo hit in Australia with a cover of "The Long and Winding Road." He also wrote and performed R White's Lemonade's legendary "Secret Lemonade Drinker" ad jingle, with the young Declan on backing vocals.

With his rockabilly suits and trademark specs, Elvis Costello (the name was his manager's suggestion) emerged in the late 70s looking every inch the punk poet, with an attitude to match — he was famously banned from America's Saturday Night Live for more than 20 years after stopping a performance of "Less Than Zero" mid-song to play the anti-commercialisation anthem "Radio, Radio," in defiance of an order from the producers. But as early as 1981 he was diversifying into country, with a hit cover of George Jones' "A Good Year for the Roses," and in the decades since his eclectic and prolific output has taken in folk, jazz, chamber music, opera, ballet and all points in between.

He's performed at Live Aid, played himself on everything from The Simpsons to Austin Powers and confirmed his showbiz credentials by marrying Krall — his third wife, who he met backstage after watching her perform at the Sydney Opera House in 2003 — in a ceremony at Elton John's house.

In 2019, a year after receiving successful treatment for prostate cancer, the one-time rock 'n' roll rebel accepted the OBE in The Queen's Birthday Honours — largely, he says, to please his mum. "I was turning it down and my mum said: 'No you're not!' But do you know what else it was? I have a programme of the staff Christmas ball at Buckingham Palace in 1962, where the Joe Loss Orchestra was hired to play the samba and the waltz and The Gay Gordons. And you can bet your life my dad went in the tradesmen's entrance, because they were the help. Well, you know what? I went in the front. Eventually, they've got to look you in the eye."

As one of only two properly iconic Elvises in the world ("That depends on who you ask," he demurs. "I think there's a skater and an ice hockey player as well"), does he ever stop to consider his own legacy?

"Never," he says, firmly. "The thing about legacy is, you only need it if you're not here. And I'm not planning on dying any time soon. I'm actually not planning on dying at all."

The Boy Named If (And Other Children's Stories) is out on 14 January (EMI)


Tags: The Boy Named If (And Other Children's Stories)Liverpool OlympiaLocarno BallroomAlisonThe ImpostersHammersmith ApolloDiana KrallHey ClockfaceLa Face de Pendule à CoucouThis Year's ModelSpanish ModelArmed ForcesDeclan Patrick MacManusMatt MacManusMary BurgoynePaddingtonMerseysideOliver's ArmyAccidents Will HappenWatching The DetectivesPete ThomasSteve NieveThe AttractionsDavey FaragherNMERoss MacManusJoe Loss OrchestraRoyal Variety PerformanceThe BeatlesSecret Lemonade DrinkerSaturday Night LiveLess Than ZeroRadio, RadioGeorge JonesGood Year For The RosesLive AidAustin PowersElton JohnOBE

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Waitrose Weekend, January 13, 2022


Paul Kirkley interviews Elvis Costello.

Images

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Page scans.


page 12
Page scan.




A life in music


Paul Kirkley

For his 1986 album King of America, Elvis recruited members of the other Elvis's old backing band, including James Burton and Jerry Scheff. "That was a real, 'woah, how did this happen?' moment," he admits.

Other favoured collaborators have included Burt Bacharach, Carole King and Paul McCartney, who's on record as saying it's Elvis' voice he hears in his head when he's making records. "I said to him: 'What are you talking about? Why are you saying that?"' he recalls, shaking his head. For a kid who partly grew up in Liverpool, does it ever feel normal, being mates with Macca? "Never," he says. "I saw him just the week before last, and I never quite get over it."

Alongside his Grammies (most recently for 2018's Look Now album), Bafta, OBE and an Oscar nomination, Elvis has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and was ranked number 80 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time ("Why don't you shower me with faint praise?" he laughs).


Photo by Mark Seliger.
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Cover.
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