Daddy , Can I Turn This - 10 years on
Today, March 23 2004, is the tenth anniversary of a tragic event that partly inspired a Costello song. On March 23 1994 Captain Yaroslav Kudrinsky, of
Aeroflot flight SU593 from Moscow to Hong Kong, let his children visit the cockpit , while the `plane was on autopilot. A cockpit tape-records his 13-year-old girl, Yana, saying “Daddy, can I turn this?” Then his 15-year old son El'dar took over at the controls, and a calamitous sequence happened. Eagerly swivelling the control column, the child disconnected the autopilot. The plane, still at full power, rolled over sideways and began to plummet at a dizzying 65 feet per second, while crew members shrieked instructions at the bewildered teenager and his father desperately tried to shift him out of the seat. Kudrinsky at last levelled out at 1300 feet, too late to stop the Airbus A310 shattering against a Siberian hillside, killing all 75 aboard.
Elvis first performed the song in August 1996. On what would turn out to be the final Attractions tour it was little more than an instrumental used to
conclude shows , with Elvis shouting the title line repeatedly in-between introducing group members. A completed lyric for the song was part of the Elvis and T-Bone Burnett’s proposal for a TV series in November 2000. The released song was first performed in the Vicar Street venue, Dublin as part of a charity show in February 2001.