CostelloNews.com

NOT-SO-MELLOW COSTELLO Series: 10 PRESSING QUESTIONS

GINA VIVINETTO.
St. Petersburg Times.
St. Petersburg, Fla.:
Feb 19, 2004. pg. 1.E

Copyright Times Publishing Co. Feb 19, 2004

Elvis Costello comes to town this week to perform
music from the new North, his slow, and, some critics
complain, too somber album of piano music.

In an unusual move, Costello, 49, will play
back-to-back shows at two venues, but promises wildly
different sets. Calling from New York, Costello
answers 10 Pressing Questions about disgusting food
and the role his wife, jazz singer-pianist Diana
Krall, plays in his music.

(1) So, North - it's a slow, moody record, yet its
tone goes from despair to hope. Is it
autobiographical? It's something that happens to
people and I suppose you can say it happened to me. .
. . But I hope it's written in a way that isn't too
selfish.

It's not everybody's taste; I'm aware of that. Some
people want their music more abrasive. But I've made
plenty of abrasive music. And I'll make it again. I'm
not proposing this is a change of style altogether.
I'm proposing: THESE SONGS GO LIKE THIS. And, to do
them any other way would do them a disservice.

So, you haven't "abandoned rock 'n' roll," as some
reviews are proposing? Oh, that's such nonsense! Rock
'n' roll is actually a musical language, or it's a
state of mind. In some ways, this is a radical thing.
. . . Surely doing something that is completely
radical is more in the spirit of what we call rock 'n'
roll for shorthand, for not being cautious and timid.

So, that could be doing something very gentle,
couldn't it? To do something very intimate.

(2) It sounds like you're developing a more trusting
relationship with your own singing voice, like you're
falling in love with it, finally. It's a little
dangerous. You can start singing in that narcissistic
way. That tends to happen to people who are only very,
very able, with that effortless vocal capacity, which
I don't have. There's a decent amount of struggle in
my singing. The majority of my songs are nearly
impossible to sing - there are a tremendous amount of
words! It's a feat to remember them, let alone utter
them against the music.

But I think the most beautiful narcissistic albums
ever made were Al Green's 1970s records. Where he sang
like he was singing to himself looking in the mirror -
I mean that as a compliment. He was so beautifully
self-possessed.

(3) Do you have a favorite torch song? I heard you do
Billie Holiday's Gloomy Sunday on Marian McPartland's
Piano Jazz on NPR. Oh, you heard that? I love that
show. It was great fun. She is lovely. I made a
promise to come back and do some songs I've known and
never performed because the (American) songbook is so
deep.

Except now it seems like everybody has to be releasing
a standards record. The last thing I want to do is
join that race. Be like Michael Bolton and Rod Stewart
(laughs). There must be very few of those big
microphones left, those big RCA microphones. You have
to have one of those and you have to have your tie
undone (laughs). When Rod and Mike are doing it, it's
time to get out of town.

Your favorites? I don't know - Billie Holiday is, of
course, fantastic. Jazz is fantastic.

Only the Lonely or When No One Cares by Sinatra. So
many individual tracks by one singer - it could be a
torch song, it could be a song from the fairly recent
past, it could be Don't Make Promises (You Can't Keep)
by Tim Hardin. It could be Mr. Fool by George Jones.
It could be About A Girl by Kurt Cobain.

(4) You're known for your collaborations. Is there
someone who's no longer alive that you would have
liked to work with? I lament my laziness and my
narrow-mindedness at an earlier age for not seeing
some people (when they were in their prime). I never
saw Duke Ellington play. I never saw Miles Davis. But
nobody I wanted to have collaborated with. I would
have liked Frank Sinatra to have sung one of my songs.

(5) Do you have a favorite rendition of an Elvis
Costello song? I've got a few that I really think are
pretty great. Johnny Cash's Hidden Shame is pretty
amazing. I tried to write it so much suited for him.
To have him do it that vividly is pretty amazing.

Howard Tate did a recent recording of a song of mine
(Either Side of the Same Town) that I like. Solomon
Burke's The Judgement.

I wasn't that confident about sending songs out to
people when I was younger, so I often had a model in
my head to help me write the song, but I was really
writing it for myself. I wrote, like, Stranger in the
House for George Jones with no notion of it ever
reaching him, and then it did. And, not only did it
reach him, but I was asked to come sing with him on
it, which is really weird.

The most unusual one was Chet Baker. He played on a
record of mine and I gave him Almost Blue, which was
written with him in mind. He did record it before he
died. But I didn't know he recorded it, and he died
before I could thank him for recording it.

I have no apologies for any sentimentality this may
suggest to you, but truthfully, my favorite version of
any song of mine right as we speak now is my wife's
version of Almost Blue, which you haven't heard yet.
It's the best version of it that's ever been recorded.

I'm so . . . I'm, I'm . . . (speechless). I'm so
thrilled by it and it's all the better when it's the
person you share your life with. She played it in
concert when we were just friends and I was (mumbles
to himself), "Wow, she can really sing that song."

Is her version better than your version? I think so.

(6) Some critics suggest North is influenced by
Diana's style. But piano music is something you've
been interested in for decades, wouldn't you argue
that? Obviously, pointing back to songs pre-1980 -
it's not as if I've never referred to pre-rock 'n'
roll song form before.

These songs (on North) relate much more to an earlier
form of songwriting, to what we call classical songs
or "art songs," for lack of a better term, songs I've
listened to . . . by Debussy or Schubert. There's just
as much influence as listening to that kind of music
as any standard form or jazz.

It's a really lazy and easy thing to say because jazz
musicians appear (on the record) that this is a jazz
record. . . . Some of the harmonies have their origins
in jazz composition, but they have just as many in
lieder or folk music.

Now, the influence of my emotional life is profound
upon the mood and the text. But not an influence on my
music. I certainly didn't need any instruction in this
musical form from my wife.

I love her records, but I don't think we influence
each other in that very facile surface way. I think
it's down deeper, as it should be.

(7) What's the most disgusting food you've ever tried
in all your years touring the globe?

(Laughs) Oh, my God, I have no idea!

Come on, you must have tried some weird stuff,
octopus, things like that.

I love octopus. Octopus is my favorite. Do you have
octopus in Florida? I'll be looking out for the
octopus down there. I don't eat meat so that narrows
it down quite a bit. I eat fish, but I don't eat meat,
so the disgusting possibilities are a lot less if
you're trapped in a land with no food like Germany and
the one thing you have to eat is like, sheep's eyes or
something. How long have you been a vegetarian? Well,
I'm not a vegetarian. Okay, a pesce- (Dismissively)
Yeah, whatever it is. I just don't like the taste of
meat. Like I don't like the taste of alcohol.

You're not a big drinker? I'm a non-drinker. People
wouldn't think that, you're such the rock 'n' roller.
And, I used to be a big drinker. But I just lost the
taste for it. I'm very lucky.

(8) Do you have a favorite era in time, one you might
have liked to live in? (Heavy sigh) What do people
always say, they always say, (affected tone) "Paris in
the '20s." I don't know about that. There's a book I
read (about Paris) and it talks about how smelly
people were even in the 1950s. Cleaning wasn't as
familiar and there was no deodorant. So maybe you
would think you'd want to go back and then you'd be
like, "God, it really smells around here."

(9) So, what gets you angry nowadays? I have a
frightening amount of vitriol aimed at North
particularly in England, where they hated the record.
What's funny is, after 27 years of doing this, is that
you can make people so furious by singing love songs.
I guess they think I've abandoned my supposed punk
roots. They don't realize what a punk thing this is.
Quiet is the new loud. Quiet is the new loud - and
tangerine is the new cranberry (laughs). . . .

There's a war going on - it's turning into a Belfast
kind of reality. Iraq is kind of a Belfast. You have
these troops shedding blood every day forever and
forever, and it's going to cost you millions of
dollars to process a war that you can never win and
will never end. And so your president suggests going
to Mars (dramatic pause) as a distraction. . . .

I never, ever, ever thought there would ever be an
administration that would make that bunch of
inefficient crooks that used to work for Nixon look
good, but you've managed it, your country. It's such a
sad thing, because it's such a fantastic country. I've
spent such a long time here now. People are very, very
welcoming, open. The best of it here is so good.

(10) Do you go to bed at night, ever, content with
your career? You hope that whatever it is you do in
life, you're doing as well as you possibly can. You
don't want to be even more a burden on the draining
and the wasting of the paper and the effort in
whatever endeavor you're in. . . . You also hope
you're humble enough that you can remember why you
started out to do it. . . . On a scale of 1- 10, how
are you doing? Once or twice you look and, go, "That
song, or that concert, or that record was as good as I
could be at that moment." It's not the definitive
statement of my life, because that effort's still
ongoing. . . . Why do we (artists) share these things?
Because we feel we can communicate. Well, you do a
very good job, still. (Burst out laughing) Well, thank
you, thank you for the reassurance! You've got the
stuff, kiddo! Thank you! And, weren't you even on The
Simpsons, as yet another feather in your cap? (Both
laughing) You bet. You've done it all. It is the
absolute pinnacle, to have them accept me, me and
Rupert Murdoch, except I don't think Rupert did his
own voice and I did.

Contact Gina Vivinetto at gina@sptimes.com.