CostelloNews.com

Radio Times ( London) 8-14 May 2004

The raging process.

Andrew Duncan meets Elvis Costello

His music may have mellowed , but the singer -
don't call him ` rock legend `, for pity's sake -
certainly hasn't.

As so often, the image is contradicted by reality.
Admittedly Elvis Costello is prolix, agonising over
three words when one will do, and there’s a
justifiable smidgen of irritability at lazy questions.
But the man with a soft voice, sitting in a London
hotel wearing nerdish horn rims and a three-piece
suit— even though its uncomfortably hot outside— is
far removed from the angry rocker who (according to
his song Tramp the Dirt Down) wanted to live long
enough to dance on Margaret Thatcher’s grave.

Costello’s reputation as a monosyllabic poseur makes
him unnervmg, and he can be truculent. Hes a 'bit of a
workaholic, edgy, and lacking manufactured pop star
charisma, but good for him.We need an antidote to the
bland.
But hang on....his latest incarnation is as a love
balladeer much to the annoyance of some fans,
bewildered by the twists and turns of his pleasingly
eclectic career.

To date Costello’s made more than 20 albums,
collaborated with Burt Baeharach, mezzo-soprano Anne
Sofie von Otter and The Brodsky Quartet, written an
Italian ballet based on Midsumnier Night’s Dream, and
music for Alan Bleasdale's TV opuses Jake’s Progress
and GRH. He even acted as a magician in Bleasdale’s
film, No Surrender.

‘There’s talk about me doing more substantial acting.
I enjoy working with Alan. I’m not sure television is
worthy of him. It's run by morons, and those making
creative decisions are mediocre, their aspirations
constrained by the business environment. I watched The
Great War on DVD. I’d seen it first as a child, and
was shocked at how much more it assumes on the part of
the audience than anything done today”.

Costello’s often angry lyrics were softened in last
year’s album, North, which metamorphoses from his
second divorce (You Left Me in the Dark) to falling in
love with his third wife,acclaimed Canadian singer
Diana Krall ( I`m In The Mood Again),whom he met when
they co-presented the Song of the Year award at the
2002 Grammys. They married at Elton John’s Windsor
home last Christmas.

Predictably North has been on a seesaw of reviews —
from brilliant to ”pompous. pretentious, soporific”.
The lyrics are clearly personal. “lt doesn't matter if
people become morbidly curious that it’s
autobiographical. If you write something direct and
open, you’re inviting listeners to say, ‘Is that you?’
I say, ‘No. I see you in it.’ Songwriters become
identified with their words. Bob Dylan and Joni
Mitchell opened the way for a lot of boring lyricists
to burden us with their less interestiisg lives.
“People ask why I go in different directions. Why not?
As far as I know we only get one life, and when
opportunities come your way, the only reason not to do
them is if you’re defending a brand, which is a
wretched way to think about music.

“Bnt it’s not for me to judge singers who are more
pragmatic — or cynical, depending on how generous
you’re feeling. The record industiy has given me a lot
of money not to play the game. It’s been a huge con
all these years, wasting vast amounts of their money,”
he jokes, but adds more seriously, “I’ve spent my time
making records I like, and some they didn’t like at
all.

“Rock ‘n’ roll has become oddly conservative, although
I’ve had a problem about how financially crooked the
whole game is. A lot of it is falling apart through
its own greed and stupidity."

Some of his lyrics are hectoring, expressing deeply
felt views, but he says, “I haven’t written any
political songs. I’ve written as an emotional response
to events, so they're called political because
they’re not about love.

“You cant have it both ways — serious intent and
Popularity. It doesn’t all have to be insubstantial.
There’s a small rearguard action from smart people who
understand that art needn't be forbidding, and realise
some listeners want to spend time with a record that
isn’t completely disposable.” For the past 13 years
Costello has lived mostly in Dublin, “But I don’t
consider myself based anywhere. When I'm in England I
find the obsession with a handful of invented
celebrities is weird, amid dreamy. But it will pass,
like everything else.”

Time , perhaps , to have a go at him. last year hee
and his hand, the Attractions, were inducted into the
Rock ‘n ’ Roll Hall of Fame (which honours legendary
performers ”), an honour he dismissed as ‘crap” a
few years earlier. “So many friends were really
excited,” he explains now. “I’ve been churlish about
accolades, so I thought, ‘It’s only a party. Go and
see for yourself’ My first instinct was right. It’s
ghastly. Those running it, who are on the business
side of music, spoke so much self—important hot air I
nearly walked out.I thought, ‘Please don’t tell me
these people think I’m good.’ Awards are a joke, but
I’m not sure who on. Nobel invented dynamite and now
has a peace prize. Is he trying to get in good with
God?” And as for being called a rock ‘n’ roll legend,
now he’s in his 50th year, he becomes almost
apoplectic. “I don’t see myself like that. I’d never
use ‘rock’ in a description of myself, or ‘legend’ — a
word promoters use to sell a few tickets for someone
who’s not so good as he thinks he is.”

Alter his initial success Costello joined another hall
of fame — the pop excess brigade. “I went slightly off
the rails, and didn’t make a big success of my
personal life. I had a fair go at the rock ‘n’ roll
lifestyle — it suits the younger man. Some of it was
fun, and some caused a lot of pain. Bad behaviour
is not necessary for pop Success. Some of my first
lyrics were written bya relatively puritanical young
man who thought, ‘I’ll try this temptation.’ You go
mad for a couple of years, and then deal with the
guilty side and try to regain tenderness, trust, and
a belief in something other than waking with a
headache. You start to look outwards and use some of
the skills you’ve almost accidentally accrued.”

He said he was motivated by revenge and anger.
‘There’s an element of truth,as well as exaggeration.
It’s obvious to anyone who listened that there were
many more emotions being expressed, but that first
image is potent. It made better copy, and I can’t be
blamed for that. It was journalists and advertising
men collaborating in myth-making.

"Attitudes you pretend to have at 23 stay with
you. When you’re starting you like to come in hot and
determined, flatten everything around you while you
learn who you are and what you’e going to do. Then it
goes wrong, and from that you accumulate knowledge,
not necessarily wisdom. I never attached myself to any
gang or movement. Obviously I’m not an opera singer.
I’m in pop, but that’s a dirty word now, meaning
contrived and manufactured music. Everyone is just
trying to do their job — that’s what I say.”

In 1979 — when he was drunk and trying to goad
rockstar Stephen Stills during a bar-room brawl — he
described singer Ray Charles as an ‘ ignorant blind
nigger”. The comment — for which Costello later
apologised — could have ruined his career. “Is this a
skeleton I hear? I spend a lot of time explaining the
effect even 25 years later, It’s complex. I’d like you
to read an essay I wrote about Get Happy!!, the album
that came out after that event [“it was the product of
crazed indulgence, the exact opposite of my true
beliefs”]. In the larger scale of transgressions there
are much more wicked things we can all say we did. I
did worse, hut I’m not telling you what.”

I wonder if he was a bit up himselF “What a
charming expression,” he mutters. “I think everyone
is. But the most idiotic criticism of anyone creative
is that it’s self-indulgent. What in the world is
creativity supposed to be? It can be useless and
boring, but to criticise it for being self-indulgent
is missing the point entirely.”

What next? “I don’t have ambitions as such. Never had.
I didn’t go for fame. I’d rather the songs were
better-known than me. It worked out that I’m a little
hit known in a lot of places, rather than so
uncontrollably known my life is bent out of shape. I
have friends like that, and I’m not sure that even all
their rewards are worth it . I’m big and ugly, so
people don’t confront me.”
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This side feature also appears -

Who is Elvis?
Real name

Declan Patrick Aloysius McManus, Renamned by manager
in I977
—Costello is his great-grandmother's maiden name, and
Elvis to annoy people.

Born
25Auguat 1954, in Paddington, London, Family moved to
Birkenhead. Married (I) Mary Burgoyne, November 1974.
One son: Matthew, 29, musician; (2)CaitO’Riordan, the
Pogues’ basslst, May 1986; (3) Canadian jazz singer
Diana Krall, December 2003.
Family
Grandfather was a travelling musician. Father Ross
was a singer (he sang the R Whites’ “Secret Lemonade
drinker ”TV advert). Mother sold records. Younger
brothers have a band.
Before fame
Left school at I8, worked in a bank, and then
computer programmer for EllzabethArden.
First success aged 22 in l977 with debut album My Aim
Is True.

and Jeremy adds this comment -

ELVIS COSTELLO (Friday)
One of my big heros.I’ve seen him l6 times in concert
and I think he’s the most important UK songwriter
since Lennon and McCartney. For me, This Years Model
is the greatest rock ‘n’ roll album of the second half
of the 20th century , so I was nervous about meeting
him. The impression I got, though, was of a bright
bloke who thinks about what he’s writing and who
welcomes the chance to talk about it at length.
Place In rock history
Up there with the greats; the problem for his fans is
that he's moved so fast in so many different
directions that he’s been quite difficult to follow.