Elvis was on the "Allinson" show and someone transcribed it.
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PlaythingOrPet writes -
The things I do for this board....
I missed a teeny little bit off the start, for which I apologise. Excuse grammar and spelling - I'm no writer. Btw, anyone else notice how much he says "You know" and "I mean"? It became quite annoying after a while so I edited out a lot of them.
E = You know who
R = Richard Allinson
R: ...He's been making records since 1977, no two of
them are alike. Maybe it's just my ears but I don't
think any of them are alike....
E: Not particulary
R: And, er.... How are you doing?
E: I'm doing great.
R: I've been listening to your music since then and
this is the first time we've met, so if I'm a bit
thrilled...
E: That's very nice, it's the first time I've met you
too.
*incoherent talking over each other*
R: Listen, this new album is called North, and you
famously said a couple of weeks ago, "'Cos that's
where I'm headed", that's why it's called North. How
far north are we going here?
E: Very far. No, I always get amused by how much
people read into a title of a record, you know. North
is a place, it's a state of mind, it's as opposed to
"That's gone south".
R: Right, okay. Did it take a long time?
E: To write it, no. I wrote it between late September
and new year's day of this year, and recording it
didn't take a tremendous amount of time; took a little planning, a few experiments. I was in the studio learning how to play the songs & how to sing them, but the recording of it, no - only a few weeks.
R: And is this the biggest number of musicians you've
ever worked with on one album?
E: Not really, no. I mean, you could characterise it
as having an orchestral dimension, but of course the
orchestra actually only appear on 4 or 5 of the songs,
and there's just as many songs that are accompanied by
piano and bass or piano, bass and drums, or even
tracks that are predominantly piano, bass and drums
with a small addition of orchestration, so it's er....
R: Yeah, but some people say it's orchestra and it's a
sequence and they overdub it.
E: Yeah, and some people when you say orchestra, they
hear immediately certain preconceived ideas about it
and I think you have to listen to the record to hear
how that orchestra is used; it's very spare and the
main thing about it it's a vocal record based around
piano accompaniment. They're the two key elements.
R: I'm trying to put my ear across it and it begins
with a song I'm going to play in a bit called You Left
Me In The Dark, the end track is I'm In The
Mood Again. You said you have to listen to what goes
on in-between to find out why, and we have, and I
reckon it's about the end of one relationship and the
emotional and mental journey you go through until you
arrive at another one, with all the ache and hurt and
stuff. Am I warm?
E: You're close, yeah. I think that it's certainly
about finding yourself in a fairly desolate place.
However you got there, that's not important, that's
not commented upon. It begins with, as you say, You
Left Me In The Dark, a fairly bleak song for which I
make no apology about it being bleak; I'm not trying
to put on a happy face, and then there begins a sort
of transition.... I didn't plan it, I didn't
preconceive it in this fashion. I started to write and
it was only when I took a step back I realised there
was a story linking the songs. You can hear it as a
kind of transition, therefore somekind of story. But
everybody will of course hear it, if they have the
patience to listen, differently because their own
experience is different.
R: 'Cos you've never struck me as someone who does put
on a happy face, but on this album.... in the past you
seemed to have been talking about your view of things,
but on this album this is just YOU.
E: Certainly I'm in here. I mean I'm not singing songs
for the selfish reason of making people look or
morbidly consider my life, but so much as to say I
know these things to be true, perhaps you do too.
R: Can I play it then?
E: Absolutely.
*YLMITD plays*
R: From the new album, North, it's from Elvis Costello
who is on late night Radio 2 with us tonight. It's
good to see Steve Nieve on there again.
E: Yeah, well he playes I think very beautifully on
this record. Somewhat uncharacteristically in that the restraint, you know, he's really known for being to invent and decorate and really embellish any musical idea I throw at him. But on this record he recognised the need to play completely with a kind of stillness, and we're supported very well by Peter Erskine and Mike Formanek in the rhythm section, and on other tracks by Brad Jones who's just playing along with Steve where there's no drums at all. So there's a lot of responsibility for Steve and he did a marvellous job.
R: 'Cos he's been with you a long time.
E: We've worked together predominantly for 25 years.
There was a period of about 8 years when we didn't
work together.
R: Did you fall out with him and then he came back and
you shook hands and made up and all that stuff?
E: I never fell out with him, no. I stopped working
with The Attractions in 1986 and in the meantime he
went on and had a career in television and played on a
lot of different records by other artists. I was
working with other musicians in that time and then
when we reassembled The Attractions for two albums, we
in particular made a kind of musical alliance that was different to the band. And in '95 I think it was, we began playing concerts as a duo, just piano, voice and guitar. That's been some of my most enjoyable touring experiences in the last 10 years. I've been with Steve..... we toured nearly the whole of 1999, we're about to start a world tour in that format.
R: Is that when you did the singing without the mic?
'Cos there was a couple of gigs - I didn't see them
but I heard about them - and you took the mic away.
They weren't obviously big halls but....
E: Well, you can do it in reasonably big halls because
I have a pretty loud voice. I did it in the Royal
Albert Hall once and people told me it could still be
heard, 'cos of course those halls were designed to be
sung in unamplified. Part of the problem, particularly
in the Royal Albert Hall, is keeping the level of
amplification down because the hall defeats you
otherwise. So it's not a trick, it's just some way of
breaking down... it's all about directness to the
audience. In the old days people didn't have a
microphone, they really saw it as a human up there
singing; there's a lot of things about moderm music
that creates a sense of illusion and I'm going the
opposite way.
R: Are you quite dogmatic in the studio? Are you in
control of the whole thing?
E: I think on this record I needed to be because I
heard it a certain way, it is very much the sound
inside my head. I wrote all the orchestrations, which
is the first time I had done that on record, although
I've been writing different kinds of orchestration for
concert work for about 8 years, so obviously I've
developed a sound that I really like. I co-produced
the record, I even stood up on a podium and directed
the musicians through the charts - you could call that conducting but I don't know what it looked like. I wouldn't get a gig conductiong the London Philharmonic or anything, you know.
R: When did that kick in? I don't know about anybody
else but I associate you so much with that awful
phrase "new wave" in the late 70's. There were certain
people that needed a tag put on them and there were
certain people who I thought were genuine innovators.
You fall into the latter catagory. Then a couple of
years ago there you are in Sweden with Anne Sophie Von
Otter, playing with orchestras and doing the
classicals.
E: Well I wasn't singing classical music, I mean I
have an appreciation of classical music and I've got a
huge curiosity for many forms of different music and
sometimes they play a part in your own writing or they
have an influence on your own writing. Obviously in
the early 90's I worked with the Brodsky Quartet and
that was a big departure to work exclusively with a
group without any drums, all of the music was coming
from the string quartet. That was what that record was
about. Of course it shocked and horrified some people,
but as often happens when you make a record that's
very different, either from the one before or from
what you're perceived to be best known for, even
most talented at - which is just somebody's opinion -
you get a very strident, negative reaction. Then 5
years later they're kissing your arse about it, you
know. That's kind of been my experience over the last
10 years.
R: You still talking to Tony Parsons, then?! I
remember 'cos he was writing for The Telegraph at the
time and he just didn't like The Juliet Letters album
and it was like....
E: Well, I never DID talk to him! He'd be an example
of someone who can at least wield a pen with a degree
of talent.
R: It's a bit like do you feel any compulsion to
repeat yourself because, as I said at the beginning, I
don't think you've done any record that's alike...
E: I don't really. I think that's actually patronising
the listeners, to consciously craft a record that
repeats something. You can go back to certain
blueprints in music, and I have done. The rock and
roll combo is a renewable source just as the love song
is. It's great to go back from time to time and check
in with that blueprint and see what you think you can
make. You know, when I made Blood & Chocolatein '86,
Brutal Youth in '93/'94 and When I Was Cruel the year
before last, you could say that they have some
relationship to the combo sound of 4 guys as I started
out with, certainly the first Attractions record, This
Year's Model, but I didn't feel as though I was trying
to recreate anything. I'm really not nostalgic by
inclination, I think that must be pretty obvious by
now. I also don't care for posterity, which is quite
unusual in this line of work, I actually don't care
what happens when I'm gone. So I'm just doing the
thing now, I'm not changing my religion every time I
change musical emphasis or methodology, I'm just doing
the thing I believe in most of all at that moment with
the inspiration I've got. Honestly, if you don't like
it then I can't help you.
R: Yeah. The Stones asked you to support them on a few
dates on their American tour.
E: Yeah, only one, actually.
R: Did you enjoy that?
E: I did. You know, I've never seen the Rolling
Stones. For one thing a got a good seat in the
house...
R: What do you mean, you've never seen the Rolling
Stones?!
E: I'd never seen them play. 1972, I took the day off
school to go and buy tickets for the Sticky Fingers
tour and I got down there and took a look at the queue
and I thought the queue was too long, so I went a
bought a record with the money instead. So I passed up
the chance to see them at their height. They used to
be playing down the road when I was a little kid,
living in Twickenham, they used to play in the Railway
Tavern or whatever it was called... the Railway Hotel
in Richmond, but of course I was too young. So they
were a kinda local band. The Yardbirds lived in the
next street to me.
R: I heard a story that after the gig, Mick actually
came up to you and thanked you personally.
E: No, before the show they each came up to me in turn
and said Thanks for doing this, and I started to get
the feeling that maybe we weren't gonna get paid
because, you know, the way they were saying it! When
Charlie said Thanks for doing this, man, I thought,
"What's going on here?!". No, but they were great,
they were really good as well. I didn't have any
expectation... I thought Charlie and Keith
particularly were fantastic, you know. I really
enjoyed the show.
R: We were talking to Keith a few weeks ago and he was
in a hotel, just down the road from yours, only for 44 minutes...
E: 44 minutes, yeah...
R: And the room service bill came to 92 quid...
E: Good man!
R: ....plus tip. He had a bottle of vodka, an orange Fanta....and a packet of peanuts!
E: Good man. I think the single most awsome sound I've
ever heard on a stage is that guitar when it starts
off - it's just fantastic. I mean, I don't play many
opening sets, now and again they fit into your
schedule. I'm just going to do my third opening show,
with Neil Young, and it's great because you get to go
and see the show and you play for 40 minutes.... I
play for 2 1/2 / 3 hours so if I go and do a 40 minute
show, I'm not even getting warmed up. So I've played
with Bob Dylan, the Stones and Neil Young. I'm gonna
set the standard high! (laughing)
R: 40 minutes is a Neil Young solo, isn't it?!
E: It can be, yeah.
R: How do you tour an album like North? Will you tour
it?
E: Yeees. Playing a number of dates in England, er,
starting around the 6th October in Glasgow, working
our way through Newcastle on the 8th, 10th in
Manchester....
R: Now I'm impressed. There are not many artists who
know their itinerary.
E: I think I right in saying the 11th at the Royal
Festival Hall, and then going to Europe for a number
of dates there. This tour will be Steve Nieve and
myself. I want to present the songs as they were
written rather than the way they are heard on the
record. The record is one thing and live performance
is another.
R: And presumably new versions of old songs as well?
E: Oh yeah. I haven't decided yet if we will play the
North songs in their entirety, because they do make
sense as a sequence, but as I didn't conceive them
that way I think it's unlikely I'll performe them in
one sequence. But I have to say to anyone who's
considering coming to the show, if you are coming to
hear Oliver's Army then perhaps it's better to stay at
home and play the KTEL 78 collection - it's not that
kind of concert. I don't wanna make it sound like it's
grand, but the songs will be chosen to suit that kind
of performance. There's a lot of energy in the show,
it doesn't lack pace, it doesn't lack intensity just
because there aren't electric guitars.
R: We've seen you with the electric guitars and the
rock band and we're looking forward to seeing just you
and Steve.
E: I find them among the most intense shows to sing
but also the most fun.
R: Can't wait.
E: I can't wait either.
R: I know you don't normally tart yourself around so
it's a great pleasure to have you on the show.
E: (laughing) Tart yourself around. I love that!
R: Elvis Costello with us on late night Radio 2. Thank
you.
E: Thank you.
*'Still' plays*
