British GQ, April 1994

Bibliography   72 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UK & Ireland weeklies UK & Ireland magazines UK & Ireland newspapers US newspapers US rock magazines US music magazines US magazines US alternative weeklies European magazines European newspapers Canada  •  Mexico  •  Asia Australia  •  New Zealand South America  •  Africa Blogs  •  Fanzines  •  Books Online publications GQ   1993 November 1998 November 1999 December 2015 October 2018 September GQ UK 2002 April GQ Germany 2002 June GQ Italy 2013 September GQ Japan 1998 October GQ Mexico 2014 April — GQ Dave Hill GQ, April 1994 Dave Hill interviews Elvis Costello. In 1977, Elvis Costello was an angry nerd who sang about his disgust with war, work, women and the world. Seventeen years on, he’s made music in every style from country to classical. But, as DAVE HILL discovers, he’s still the main attraction Elvis Lives There are certain things that Elvis Costello cannot do: he cannot cross the Thames via the Hungerford footbridge on his own, because heights put his equilibrium to flight; he cannot gratify himself with the knowledge that his face fuels the fantasies of a million teenage girls, because he doesn’t have those kinds of looks; he cannot reflect that seventeen years in show business have made him the object of universal love, because he has an outsider’s talent for pissing insiders off he cannot cut a dash in the slick suit of celebrity because he only ever lifts it from his wardrobe in order to tear a strip off it; and he cannot quite reconcile his image of himself with the tailored pages of CQ. “How the fuck I get to be in it, I don’t know.” He makes the observation in passing, not with malice or false modesty. but with an insistent self-effacement that contrasts strongly with the definition, edge and ardour that characterise his many, varied and often brilliant songs. And making songs is something Elvis Costello can do, He has been doing ii — writing, playing and singing them — in rest less abundance since he debuted in earnest with My Aim Is True in 1977, an album which from artwork to attitude, chimed with the tone of its time as resonantly as any of the raging punk rockers whose slipstream Costello moved in. The record presented the romantic heroism of the conventional rock scar turned inside out: for the sleeve he posed as a cartoon nerd with loser’s glasses, a malicious smile, pigeon toes and a twangy guitar; in the grooves, the caricature assumed three dimensions….

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• GQ_magazine Wikipedia: GQ