CostelloNews.com

The Live Aid DVD's will include Mr. Costello's stirring rendition of 'All You Need Is Love' (full track list)

(Submitted by Micheal Hernandez)

Posted by at 9:50 PM | Permalink

After months of rumours and speculation, Warner Vision International have finally confirmed the release date and contents details of the forthcoming Live Aid DVD set. The 4-disc set, originally put together after Sir Bob Geldof caught a bootlegger selling pirate versions on the web, is currently set for a pre-Christmas release making it the must have present for music lovers world-wide.
Elvis' performance of ‘All You Need Is Love’ will be on Disc One.

Posted by at 5:37 PM | Permalink

And we have our first contestant. Dave Weil hands us his preview, preliminary, initial, might-change-my-mind-later thoughs on The Delivery Man:

First of all, I've only heard it once.

My biggest problem with it is what I was a little worried about when I read the tracklisting and that's "Where's 'The Delivery Man' "? The conceit is just swallowed up. It doesn't even come across as anything if you don't know that it was supposed to be a full-fledged project at one point. Sure, if you listen closely, a couple of the songs name-check the women. But as far as a story, it just isn't there.
Guess he just gave up on it, but it sure had a promising plot potential.

Button My Lip is an odd choice for an opener. It's not unprecedented to have a one-chord rant (B&C anyone?). It almost strikes me as overcompensating for the fact that he's married to Diana Krall (yes, I'm over-psychoanalyzing this but I can't help it). It's noisy, jarring and neat in a way, and I like all of the odd SN piano jabs.
But I can't help but wish it were over at the 3 minute point. I *do* like the cheesy spring-loaded echo effect on his voice at the end.

Then we seque into the song that I was underwhelmed with when I first heard it, Country Darkness. It's not bad, but it's a bit of a retread.
And Pete's cymbals sound like pie plates.

Now there's the rave-up, There's a Story in Your Voice, which starts promisngly, but it seems weird to have Lucinda to come barrelling into the song, and, as much as I like her, her delivery is just weird, especially for the song. Chris was right when he called it snarling (or whatever it was he said). The harmonies were cool though. And then we get a Rebel Yell at the end. I guess that this was to underscore that this is a "southern album".

The Either Side of the Same Town is good and pretty close to the way that he's been doing it live. And we get a couple of brief falsettos from EC, which is brilliant (although I would have liked it better if he had sung the phrase normally first, then slipped the falsetto in as contrast). The drums still have that brittle sound that's starting to annoy me a little. Having said that, I realize that Nick Lowe could screw the drum up sometimes as well. You really hear the raggedness of his voice that we heard in Oxford. It's pretty cool.

Now we come to Bedlam. Its fits and starts sort of mirror the album up to this point. I like the song but up to this point, the album just hasn't grabbed me. And where's the Delivery Man?

Oh, here it is. It seems to drag a little. Its tempo is somewhere between the slow and fast versions we heard and it just seems too lean and sparse-sounding, at least until the bridge. It also seems weird to have all of the namechecking if there's not going to be a whole project about these people. Well, at least we're going to get a continuation of the story, right?

Oh wait, now it's Monkey To Man. Guess I was wrong. And frankly, the recording messed up the call-and-response. I thought Davey should have been beefed up a little bit. Also, it's weird that they leave out the "Yardbirds" riff at the beginning and then stick it in almost randomly right before the chorus.

Hey, I didn't know that they were going to cover Imagine. Oh wait, it's Ivy. My mistake. Frankly, they've sucked the quiet power out of the song by making it pretty much bass and keyboards. It sounds too precious, as compared to the versions that we heard. It's reminicent of Party Girl but doesn't have the intensity, and drags a little. I like the harmony vocals from Emmylou but they're nothing all that special.

The closest to what we heard in "rehearsal" is TNOTTINL (sorry, but I'm feeling lazy this morning). Roughly the same tempo and arrangement. I like it a lot. I'd have liked it a lot better if he had yelled, "Take it Steve!" The hollow sound of the drums works for this song.

I like Heart Shaped Bruise, although I still liked it better as an acoustic guitar based song. I think it's far better than Country Darkness. And Emmylou! This works better than Ivy. Also, her solo verse works better in this context for me than Lucinda's solo works (it's sort of that classic "he said/she said/two sides of the same coin" country concept). The pedal steel is nice. I wish they had played up the Party Girl style ending that we heard live.

Now for a little Needle Time. I can't help but think that the title is a double-entendre poke at Cait (my imagery was more druggie when I heard it live). I like the counted intro and the sound of this really works for the song. I'm still up in the air about the slowed chorus but I tend to like it. There's a nice little wank going into the second verse, and those of you who were worried about wanking on the album don't have a lot to fear. LOVE SN's keyboards. I like the hard ending.

Hey, Circus Music! Neat way to open The Judgment. Now *this* has a "sound" that they should have used for Ivy. Big, wet, and juicy.
There's a real sense of drama in the sound. It's a cleaner version of what we heard live. Mabye this is the answer song (or apology song) to the previous song. This should have been the end of the album.

Still, The Scarlet Tide is a nice coda. For some reason, I keep hearing a fiddle that just ins't there. and the word "mechanism" needs to go away...

Well, now I've heard it twice. Some of my criticisms are the kind that would get on Costello's last nerve, the main one being, "Hey, now's your chance to engage a whole new set of people and you're just going to piss them off". I know that he wants to make music as he sees fit and if people come along, well then, that's cool. Still, seems to me that you could have just come up with this track order by randomly drawing names out of a hat. It's not even close to having the flow and pace that the live shows had (and maybe I'm prejudiced because of this). Also, why screw up his time-honored tradition of album titles by using The Delivery Man? Oh, I get it, it's a variation of that "unexpected" thing - we'll give you a concept album that *isn't* a concept album. I really do think that he's overcompensating by trying to be more "difficult" than he had to be.

I'm a little disappointed with Dennis Herring's production. He didn't blow it or anything, but I think that there were some odd production choices (which might have been EC's, who knows?) Some things he really hit on the head, and others he missed by a considerable margin, at least to me.

I find it odd that I think of this as WIWC pt. 2.

Well, there ya have it. My ramblings. It's not bad at all, just not the cohesive whole that stamps his best works. I give it a B/B+. It will definitely be an album that I skip around on.

Posted by at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A new feature for CostelloNews - Your Reviews.

Starting today, we'll accept reviews of any Elvis show, recording, event, or semi-related topic. With the upcoming releases and concerts, it should be interesting. Send your submissions to costellonews - AT - gmail.com.

We will excercise editorial discretion, but plan to post just about any review that adds some value - a thoughful or interesting take on the subject, no matter what the opinion. This is an experiment, we'll see how it goes. - Jake

Posted by at 12:31 PM | Permalink

It looks like the Japanese version of THE DELIVERY MAN will include both "She's Pulling Out The Pin" and a second bonus track:

1. Button My Lip
2. Country Darkness
3. There's A Story In Your Voice
4. Either Side Of The Same Town
5. Bedlam
6. The Delivery Man
7. Monkey To Man
8. Nothing Clings Like Ivy
9. The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love
10. Heart Shaped Bruise
11. She's Pulling Out The Pin
12. Needle Time
13. The Judgement
14. Scarlet Tide
15. The Monkey

I assume "The Monkey" is a cover of the Dave Bartholomew song which inspired "Monkey To Man." (Submitted by Nunki)

Posted by at 2:28 PM | Permalink

Posted by Paul on the EC ListServe:

"Just wanted to let you know that this weekend magic happened at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway during the Saturday evening performance of "The Boy from Oz" while I was there -- Elvis Costello was in the audience and during the opening number of Act 2, Hugh Jackman singled him out and had him come up on stage and at the audience's encouragement, Elvis performed a number while Hugh sashayed (ala Peter Allen) all over the stage. It was sheer magic and entire show stopped cold for about 30 minutes. Since I was sitting in one of the VIP boxes to the left of the stage you could see the other actors standing in the wings just lapping up everything going on onstage. After this whole bit it was virtually impossible to keep going on with the show -- Hugh was freaking-out and the rest of the show went along like gangbusters."

More info:

"According to an entry on a forum on The Boy From Oz site - www.the boyfromoz.com - Elvis attended the show with his mother ` her first time out in 18 years'. The account notes:

'It was AWESOME. Elvis was jamming on the guitar, Hugh dancing like crazy all over the stage and doing the i'm not worthy bow , and then had a polaroid taken with Elvis while he was still playing. Everyone in the audience was standing and cheering , it was great !!' The account tells of more Costello references through the rest of the show.

Posted by at 10:09 PM | Permalink

Red Trumpet's got the Delivery Man LP up for preorder.

(Submitted by Craig Montoya)

Posted by at 10:05 PM | Permalink

Leave your personal birthday wishes in the comments!

FYI: These stars were all born Aug. 25:
Game show host Monty Hall is 83.
Actor Sean Connery is 74.
Talk-show host Regis Philbin is 73.
Actor Tom Skerritt is 71.
Jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter is 71.
Actor David Canary (All My Children, Bonanza) is 66.
Singer Walter Williams of The O'Jays is 62.
Actress Anne Archer is 57.
Actor John Savage is 55.
Bassist Gene Simmons of Kiss is 55.
Musician Elvis Costello is 50.
Director Tim Burton is 46.
Country singer Billy Ray Cyrus is 43.
Actor Blair Underwood is 40.
DJ Terminator X of Public Enemy is 38.
Country singer Jo Dee Messina is 34.
Actor Kel Mitchell (Kenan and Kel) is 26.
(list submitted by John Steffes)

Posted by at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

USA Today reports: Sean Penn, Elvis Costello and Harry Dean Stanton will guest-star as themselves on the season premiere of CBS' Two and a Half Men on Sept. 20 (9:30 p.m. ET/PT). In the episode, titled “Back Off, Mary Poppins,” Jon Cryer's character becomes upset when his brother does not include him in the group's bonding activities.

(Submitted by Dave Farr, David Caplan)

Posted by at 9:26 PM | Permalink

The track listing of the UK release of The Delivery Man is out and it DOES include "She's Pulling Out The Pin". This song is supposedly not included on the US release.

U.K. tracklisting

1. Button My Lip
2. Country Darkness
3. There's A Story In Your Voice
4. Either Side of the Same Town
5. Bedlam
6. The Delivery Man
7. Monkey to Man
8. Nothing Clings Like Ivy
9. The Name of This Thing Is Not Love
10. Heart Shaped Bruise feat
11. She's Pulling Out The Pin
12. Needle Time
13. The Judgement
14. The Scarlet Tide

(Submitted by Gilbert)

Posted by at 3:06 PM | Permalink

In the bonus footage of the DVD of Mayor of Sunset Strip, a documentary-movie about sex, drugs and rock'n' roll -- and celebrities, groupies, fame, gossip and the glittering nightlife of Los Angeles -- Elvis and Brian Wilson are interviewed together and talk at length about fame and autographs and stuff like that.

(Submitted by Jill Rydman)

Posted by at 7:40 AM | Permalink

The liner notes and lyrics for The Delivery Man are now online.

1. Button My Lip (4:51)
2. Country Darkness (3:56)
3. There’s A Story In Your Voice (3:42)
4. Either Side Of The Same Town (4:00)
5. Bedlam (4:48)
6. The Delivery Man (4:39)
7. Monkey To Man (4:25)
8. Nothing Clings Like Ivy (4:15)
9. The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love (2:48)
10. Heart Shaped Bruise (4:06)
11. Needle Time (5:06)
12. The Judgement (3:50)
13. The Scarlet Tide (2:22)

ELVIS COSTELLO
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liner Notes: The Delivery Man
COMPACT DISC LINER COPY Elvis Costello & The Imposters The Delivery Man B0002593-02

INLAY TRAY CARD:

1. Button My Lip (4:51)
2. Country Darkness (3:56)
3. There’s A Story In Your Voice (3:42)
4. Either Side Of The Same Town (4:00)
5. Bedlam (4:48)
6. The Delivery Man (4:39)
7. Monkey To Man (4:25)
8. Nothing Clings Like Ivy (4:15)
9. The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love (2:48)
10. Heart Shaped Bruise (4:06)
11. Needle Time (5:06)
12. The Judgement (3:50)
13. The Scarlet Tide (2:22)

Produced by Dennis Herring and Elvis Costello

(Lost Highway Logo)
(FBI Warning)

Bar code w/# 602498624296

(P) & © 2004 UMG Recordings, Inc., 54 Music Square East, Nashville, TN 37203. Distributed by Universal Music & Video Distribution, Corp. Warning: All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.

**SPINE OF INLAY:
B0002593-02 Elvis Costello & The Imposters The Delivery Man Lost Highway

COMPACT DISC BOOKLET:

FRONT COVER:
Elvis Costello & The Imposters
The Delivery Man

INSIDE PAGES OF BOOKLET:

Button My Lip

Don’t want to talk about the government
Don’t want to talk about some incident
Don’t want to talk about some peppermint gum
Don’t want to talk about the time to come

Button my lip
‘Til I’m smart enough

Don’t raise your hand
‘Cos I’m not offering
It serves you right
Now you are suffering
Give me a chance
To see it though
It all depends on what you hold is true

Button my lip
With your kiss

Don’t want to hear some little sniveling
You just don’t get what I’m delivering
Maybe you want me
But you know you can’t
I’d say, “I want you”
But you know I don’t

Button my lip
‘Til I’m old enough
‘Til I’m smart enough
‘Til I’m…
Button my lip

Don’t want to come at your beckoning
For any day they’ll be a reckoning
Don’t want to hear what is impossible
Baby, you’ve become invisible

Button my lip

I’ve seen those clowns vacant and insolent
I stand accused but I am innocent
I am the mighty and magnificent

Elvis Costello – Vocals and Gibson Super 400 Guitar; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano; Davey Faragher – Gibson EB1 Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums

Country Darkness

This tattered document
A mystery you can solve
Some burnt out filament
Flies still buzzing around the bulb

Country Darkness

He thought of traveling
Heard an approaching train
Drown out his desperate pulse
A song with no refrain

Country Darkness

She daydreams forbidden sins
There must be something more
The prison she lives in
The one with the open door

Country Darkness

The veil is covering
A glistening and cruel blade
Suffer little children
Repent, unfaithful maid

Country Darkness

Elvis Costello – Vocals, Gibson Super 400 Guitar and Wurlitzer Piano; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano and Hammond Organ; Davey Faragher – Vocals and Fender Precision Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums; John McPhee – Pedal Steel Guitar

There’s A Story In Your Voice

Once upon another time
If you had the need
I’d step right in the shoes that you’ve been walking
‘Cos someone put the hurt in you
For everyone to see
And you only have to speak to tell your fortune

There’s a story in your voice
Both by damage and by choice
It tells of promises and pleasure
And a tale of wine and woe
The uneasy time to come
And the long way ‘round we go to get there

Once I told you fairytales
Everybody knows
But I didn’t care for their prediction
Now you say you’re leaving me
And packing up your clothes
I finally see you were a work of fiction

There’s a story in your walk
Then you crumble just like chalk
And I could say that I was sorry
But I wouldn’t mean it much
There are pages I can’t touch
And something that’s been torn out of this chapter

Far away, not far enough
‘Cos I can still recall
How it felt when I read that last sentence
Now I go inside some rooms with Gideon in them all
And hide myself from all hope of repentance

There’s a story in your eyes
Cheap sunglasses might disguise
But when the bedroom light reveals
All that bravado and that fright
That you cover up in spite
Attempts to strip away this fabrication

There’s a story in your voice
Both by damage and by choice
It tells of promises and pleasure
And a tale of wine and woe
The uneasy time to come
And the long way ‘round we go to get there

Elvis Costello – Vocals, Fender Telecaster, Gretsch Tenor, Fender Bass 6, Gibson J-50 Guitar and “S” Tambourine; Lucinda Williams – Vocals; Steve Nieve – Harmonium and Melodica; Davey Faragher – Fender Precision Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums

Either Side Of The Same Town

Nothing will ever be the same
All of the promises we made seem hollow
But there are still streets in this town
Marked with your shadow

So if you see me, look surprised
If you don’t, then pass me by
And I may even brush your sleeve
As you turn to leave

Now it’s hard to act like strangers
When we used to be so strong
Everything is changing
And most of it is wrong
What do we know of anything?
Two fools of some renown
Either side of the same town

Somewhere, there’s a light
I can sense it
Oh, though I may fall back again
Although it’s a fight
I know I must remain

Now it’s hard to keep ignoring
Someone you recognize
And if I seem contented
It’s only my disguise
What do we know of anything?
Two fools of some renown
Either side of the same town

Elvis Costello – Vocals and Fender Telecaster Guitar; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano and Hammond Organ; Davey Faragher – Vocals and Fender Precision Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums

Bedlam

I’ve got this phosphorescent portrait of gentle Jesus meek and mild
I’ve got this harlot that I’m stuck with carrying another man’s child
The solitary star announcing vacancy burnt out as we arrived
They’d throw us back across the border if they knew that we survived
And they were surprised to see us
So they greeted us with palms
They asked for ammunition, acts of contrition and small alms

I might recite a small prayer
If I ever said them
I lay down on an iron frame
Found myself in bedlam
I wish that I could take something for drowning out the noise
Wailing echoes down the corridors

I’ve got this imaginary radio, and I‘m punching up the dial
I’ve got the A.C. trained on the T.V. so it won’t blow up in my eye
And everything that I thought fanciful and mocked as too extreme
Must be family entertainment here in the strange land of my dreams
Now I’m practicing my likeness of St. Francis of Assisi
For if I hold my hand outstretched
A little bird comes to me

I might recite a small prayer
If I ever said them
I lay down on an iron frame
Found myself in bedlam
Escaping from the fingers that were stretching through the bars
Wailing echoes down the corridors

The player piano picks out “Life Goes On”
Ring tone rang out “Jerusalem”
And in this pit of sadness
Where the rank of wretched plunge
We’ve buried all the innocents
Now we must bury revenge

They’ve got this scared and decorated girl strapped to the steel trunk of a mustang
And then they drove her down a cypress grove where traitors hang and stars still spangle
They dangled flags and other rags along a coloured thread of twine
And then they dragged that bruised and purple heart along the road to Palestine

Someone went off muttering, he mentioned thirty pieces
Easter saw a slaughtering, each wrapped in bloodstained fleeces

Then my thoughts returned to vengeance, and I put no resistance
Though I seemed a long way from my home
It really was no distance

And I might recite a small prayer
If I ever said them
I lay down on an iron frame
Found myself in bedlam
Bowing like an actor acknowledging applause
Playing the Crusader who was conquering the Moors
When he knew the consequences, but he won’t admit the cause
Wailing echoes down the corridors

Elvis Costello – Vocals and Gibson Super 400 Guitar; Steve Nieve – Theremin, Melodica, Upright and Wurlitzer Piano; Davey Faragher – Gibson EB1 Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums and Maracas

The Delivery Man

“Abel was able,” so Vivian said
Her shoulders flung forward
Her lips in a purse
She talks like the beauty that she never was
Of the fabulous wild nights that she never has

In a certain light he looked like Elvis
In a certain way he feels like Jesus
Everyone dreams of him just as they can
But he’s only a humble Delivery Man

Geraldine blushes and brushes away
The cigarette ashes that Vivian scatters
Stares out of the window at things that she says
While gossip within her competes the widow

Ever since he’s gone, she feels like crying all the time
She knows for sure Vivian is lying
Now she has a daughter to raise as she can
She just wouldn’t trust that Delivery Man

Ivy puts down the ghost story she’s reading
Looks up at that face on the wall
Thinking about how her father lay bleeding
Shot in the back ‘cos orders were misleading
And how a flag and a medal don’t have any meaning

On the 5th of July as they tore down the fair
When he’d seen all the local girls who were worth kissing
With the smell of the gunpowder still in air
They noticed that Abel and Ivy were missing

In a certain light he looked like Elvis
In a certain way he seemed like Jesus
He said “Why can’t we be kind to me like you were meant to be?
When they let me out, I had a brand new identity.
Now everyone dreams of me just as they can.
I want to be your Delivery Man.”

In a certain light he looked like Elvis
In a certain way he seemed like Jesus
In a certain light he looked like Elvis
In a certain way he felt like Jesus

Elvis Costello – Vocals and Gretsch Tenor Guitar; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano, Wurlitzer Organ and Omnichord; Davey Faragher – Hofner Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums

Monkey To Man

A long time ago, our point of view
Was broadcast by Mr. Bartholomew
Now the world is full of sorrow and pain
It’s time for us to speak up again

You’re slack and sorry
Such an arrogant brood
The only purpose you serve is to bring us our food
We sit here staring at your pomp and pout
Outside the bars we use for keeping you out

You’ve taken everything that you wanted
Broke it up and plundered it and hunted
Ever since we said it
You went and took the credit
It’s been headed this way since the world began
When a vicious creature took the jump from Monkey to Man

Every time that man struggles and fails
He makes up some kind of fairytales
After all of the misery that he has caused
He denies he’s descended from the dinosaurs

Points up to heaven with cathedral spires
All the time indulging in his base desires
Ever since we said it
He went and took the credit
It’s been headed this way since the world began
When a vicious creature took the jump from Monkey to Man

Big and useless as he has become
With his crying statues and his flying bomb
Goes ‘round acting like the chosen one
Excuse us if we treat him like our idiot cousin

He hangs up flowers and bells and rhymes
Hoping to hell that someone’s forgiven his crimes
Fills the air with his pride and his praise
He’s big disgrace to our beastly ways

In the fashionable nightclubs and finer precincts
Man uses words to dress up his vile instincts
Ever since we said it
He went and took the credit
It’s been headed this way since the world began
When a vicious creature took the jump from Monkey to Man

Elvis Costello – Vocals and Gibson Super 400 Guitar; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano, Vox Continental and Hammond Organ; Davey Faragher – Vocals and Hofner Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums and Tambourine

Nothing Clings Like Ivy

Nothing clings like Ivy
Frightened by dark
Though she cuts deep
It never leaves a mark

No one quite like Ivy
Ever gets it straight
What she believes
She won’t negotiate

All the words of tenderness
That never quite got through
She said, “You know how young girls are
From my contempt for you.”

Outside in the hollow
She may dare herself
For there may be
A serpent in the grass

Nothing clings like Ivy
Trying to scare herself
And it may strike or
Wait for her to pass

All the words of tenderness
That she never possessed
“So what’s the use of promises?
I had my fingers crossed.”

All the words of tenderness
That never quite got through
She said, “I laughed behind your back
When I told them to you.”

Nothing clings like Ivy
Frightened by dark
Though she cuts deep
It never leaves a mark

Elvis Costello – Vocals and Gibson Les Paul Guitar; Emmylou Harris – Vocal Harmony; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano; Davey Faragher – Hofner Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums

The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love

There’s a part of this feeling that I just cannot kill
But the name of this thing is not love
And I can’t take a potion, and I won’t take a pill
So it tortures me still
But the name of this thing is not love

Then you start entertaining such a terrible thought
Life is so very short
And the name of this thing is not love

There’s a bruise on her arm
And some blood on the floor
But the name of this thing is not love
And they’re taunting some girl
That they claim to adore
She can’t take anymore
But the name of this thing is not love

Who in the world do you think you are?
That you pushed me this far
But the name of this thing is not love

He thinks of her still
Although you’d never guess
He’s trying so to forget her
The occasional moments that he’ll always bless
Watching her dress
For worse or better

He watched her pick over her broken playthings
What played on his mind is not love
The cast aside tokens and discarded rings
Over one of his flings
But the name of this thing is not love

Then he threw something down in the wild rushing river
And won’t ever recover
But the name of this thing is not love

Then you start out pretending that you’re so very tough
Life is not short enough
But the name of this thing is not love

Elvis Costello – Vocals and Gibson Super 400 Guitar; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano and Hammond Organ; Davey Faragher – Vocals and Hofner Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums

Heart Shaped Bruise

Tell me now
Or are you only teasing?
I felt the cold hard facts of life
Five degrees from freezing
Does it amuse you to always hurt me so?
I try my best it’s not enough
Should I give up and let you?

What more is there to take from me?
There’s nothing else to give you, dear
There’s nothing more that I can lose
Except this Heart Shaped Bruise

It will fade
From purple to violet
It will fade
Just as the day dissolves into twilight

Tell me now
Or am I only dreaming?
You said that you’d be mine for life
And now you say you’re leaving
If I could hold you once more before you go
When I approach you just lash out
Should I give up and let you?

What more is there to take from me?
There’s nothing else to give you, dear
There’s nothing more that I can lose
Accept this Heart Shaped Bruise

It will fade from purple to violet
It will fade…
She’s pulling out the pin

Elvis Costello – Vocals, Gibson J-50, Gibson Super 400 and Fender Bass 6 Guitar; Emmylou Harris – Vocals; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano and Hammond Organ; Davey Faragher – Fender Precision Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums and Tambourine; John McPhee – Pedal Steel Guitar

Needle Time

I wish that I didn’t hate you
Least not as much as I do
And squander all my contempt for
A little nothing like you
Liar like you are ten-a-penny
Women would slap you, if you knew any

Sometimes I feel just like committing a crime

I’ve got a suitcase of phony wisdom to dispense
These twenty-seven or so years
You’d think I would have made them some cents
Now they want me fingerprinted
Like I was smuggling drugs
While the government does deals with the most convenient thugs

Sometimes I feel just like committing a crime
It’s Needle Time

I’m trying not to despise you with a passion that is hard to extinguish
Or maybe I really love you
Although it’s hard to distinguish

I wish I could be
A little more like a saint is
Forgiving those who trespass against us

Sometimes I feel just like committing a crime

I started talking nonsense, just like I did to begin with
Around the time I tired of those sour English

Sometimes I feel just like committing a crime
It’s Needle Time

Elvis Costello – Vocals, Gibson Super 400 Guitar, Magnatone Typhoon Guitar and “S” Tambourine; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano, Vox Continental Organ and “Kay” Melodica; Davey Faragher – Gibson EB1 Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums and Maracas

The Judgement

The accused will rise
To be torn in two
Guilty of nothing but loving you
This is the Judgement

And I’m willing to plead
Now you don’t want me
Hoping this torment will cease
Will I be released?

There’ll be lies
There’ll be tears
A jury of your peers
With the pitiful look of experience
Hand down the Judgement

And if I’ve done wrong
And loved you too long
Stand up and just testify
How can you deny it?

Objection overruled
I wait for my reprieve
With trust of the deceived
The wisdom of the fooled

Is his sorrowful face too heavy for his head?
‘Cos he bowed it as something hung over him
It was the Judgement

He falls to his knees
“Have mercy on me.”
He clings to the hem of her gown
She says, “Just take him down.”

Elvis Costello – Vocals and Fender Telecaster Guitar; Steve Nieve – Upright Piano and Hammond Organ; Davey Faragher – Fender Precision Bass; Pete Thomas – Drums

The Scarlet Tide

Well, I recall his parting words
Must I accept his fate?
Or take myself far from this place

I thought I heard a black bell toll
A little bird did sing
“Man has no choice
When he wants everything.”

We’ll rise above the scarlet tide
That trickles down through the mountain
And separates the widow from the bride

Man goes beyond his own decision
Gets caught up in the mechanism
Of swindlers who act like kings
And brokers who break everything

The dark of night was swiftly fading
Close to the dawn of day
Why would I want him just to lose him again?

We’ll rise above the scarlet tide
That trickles down through the mountain
And separates the widow from the bride

Elvis Costello – Vocals and Ukulele; Emmylou Harris – Vocals


All songs written by Elvis Costello © 2004 BMG Music Publishing Ltd. (PRS), admin. by BMG Songs Inc. (ASCAP) except:
“Either Side Of The Same Town” – Words by Elvis Costello, Music by Elvis Costello and Jerry Ragovoy
© 2004 BMG Music Publishing Ltd. (PRS), admin. by BMG Songs Inc. (ASCAP); The Tune Room Inc. (ASCAP).
“The Judgement” – Words by Elvis Costello and Cait O’Riordan, Music by Elvis Costello
© 2004 BMG Music Publishing Ltd. (PRS), admin. by BMG Songs Inc. (ASCAP)
“The Scarlet Tide” – Words and Music by Elvis Costello and T. Bone Burnett
© 2004 BMG Music Publishing Ltd. (PRS), admin. by BMG Songs Inc. (ASCAP); Henry Burnett Music, admin. by Bug (BMI).

"Button My Lip" contains interpolated elements from "America" written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Courtesy of Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing, Co. LLC, administered by Universal-Polygram International Publishing, Inc. (ASCAP) and Chappell & Co., Inc, administered by Universal-Polygram International Publishing, Inc. (ASCAP). Used By Permission. All Rights Reserved.

All songs – All rights reserved. Used by permission. International copyright secured.

Produced by Dennis Herring and Elvis Costello
Engineered by Chris Shepard
Assisted by Matt Gillentine, Davey “Perkins” Rieley and Nathan Provence
Mixed by Chris Shepard, Dennis Herring and Clay Jones
Recorded and Mixed at Sweet Tea (Oxford, MS)
Studio Manager: Dawn Palladino

“Monkey to Man” basic track recorded at Delta Recording (Clarksdale, MS)
Engineered by Jimbo Mathus
Assisted by Miss Olga
Studio Manager: Mr. Tater

Lucinda Williams and John McPhee recorded at Village Recorders (Los Angeles, CA)
Engineered by Csaba Petocz
Assisted by Andy Brohard

Emmylou Harris and “The Scarlet Tide” recorded at Ocean Way Nashville (Nashville, TN)
Assisted Alan Ditto
Emmylou Harris appears courtesy of Nonesuch Records

Mastered by Doug Sax and Robert Hadley at The Mastering Lab (Los Angeles, CA)

Photography & Collage: Jesse Dylan
Image Enhancement: Erik Asla
Design and Typography: Helicopter
Chevy Cheyenne and Clarksdale Photography: Dennis Herring

Management: Macklam/Felman Management Inc. – Email: elvisinfo@mfmgt.com

www.losthighwayrecords.com
www.elviscostello.com

Mr. Thomas would like to thank D.W. Drums and Zyldjian Cymbals.
Thanks also to IZ Radar 24.
E.C. and the Imposters Studio and Stage Management: Milo Lewis
Dubmaster General: Frankie Reilly
Vancouver Mission Control: Steve Macklam and Sam Feldman, Darrell Gilmour, Colin Nairne, Dave Levinson, Alex Dembicki and all at Macklam/Feldman Management.
Gower Peninsular Mission Control: Gill Taylor
Dublin Mission Control: Steve Maidment

Special thanks to Lew Difford, Peter Fairley, Robbie McLeod, Paddy Callaghan, Marsha Vlasic, Paul Charles, James Harman, Euan Lawson, Trudie Frith, Gail Lebowitz, Stuart Robinson and all at Altour, Marilyn Laverty, Mark Satloff, Aliza Rabinoff, Rebecca Shapiro and Shorefire Media, Barbara Charone, Moira Bellas, Lucy Maxwell Stewart, Sarah Maidment, Declan O’Hanlon, Sharon O’Connor, Paul Curran, Ian Ramage, Jackie Always and Julie Sturgeon.

Greetings to: Luke, Lauren and Georgia Lewis, Kim Buie, Ken Robold, Andy Nelson, Ben Kline, Ray Di Pietro, Jim Flammia, Jeff Stoltz, Eric Dout, Cristie Chadwick, Fount Lynch, Karen Naff, Michael Deputato and all at IDJ and UMG Nashville. Max Hole, Lee Ellen Newman, Iain Snodgrass, Greg Castell, Bruno Morelli, Clive Cawley, Richard Marshall and Chris Roberts.

Thanks to all our friends and acquaintances:

In Oxford: Scott Caradine, Mark Adamack and all at Proud Larry’s, John “Johnny Snacksville” Currence, Square Books, Mayor Richard and Lisa Howorth and all at Thacker Mountain Radio.

Very special thanks go to Susan and Andy Howorth for their kind hospitality.

In Clarksdale: Guy Malvezzi and all at the Shack-Up Inn, Shelley Ritter and all at the Delta Blues Museum…Check it out if you can…

In Helena: Mr. Fisk, Sonny Payne, Skeet and Lil’ Henry

In Memphis: Jody Stephens and Ardent Studios, Deanie Parker and all at the Stax Museum, R.W. Whitten, Robert A Johnson, Tim Sharp, Kang Rhee, Robert Gordon and Tad Pierson for the ride and all at the Hi-Tone.

Endearments and Salutations: Diana, Elton and David, Bill. F., Alan B., Henry Coward, Chaim Coward, Jesse and Susan, Eddie G. and Coco, Joe Henry, John Goddard, Jerry Ragavoy, Howard Tate, Alison Krauss, Solomon Burke, Polly Harvey and Hubert Sumlin.

Leading Light: Dan Penn

Thanks to Peter G. and Buddy Guy for showing me the way to Sweet Tea.
Fondest Regards to Ms. Lucinda “Vivien” Williams and Ms. Emmylou “Geraldine” Harris.

This record is for my wife.

BACK PAGE OF BOOKLET:

B0002593-02
© 2004 UMG Recordings, Inc.
(Lost Highway logo)

COMPACT DISC LABEL COPY

Elvis Costello & The Imposters
The Delivery Man

1. Button My Lip
2. Country Darkness
3. There’s A Story In Your Voice
4. Either Side Of The Same Town
5. Bedlam
6. The Delivery Man
7. Monkey To Man
8. Nothing Clings Like Ivy
9. The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love
10. Heart Shaped Bruise
11. Needle Time
12. The Judgement
13. The Scarlet Tide

Produced by Dennis Herring and Elvis Costello

(Lost Highway logo)
(Compact Disc logo)
(FBI Warning)

B0002593-02

(P) & © 2004 UMG Recordings, Inc., 54 Music Square East, Nashville, TN 37203. Distributed by Universal Music & Video Distribution, Corp. Warning: All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.

Posted by at 5:09 AM | Permalink

The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports:

Elvis Costello will return to the Hi-Tone for two shows Sept. 17, said David Green, owner, promoter and talent buyer for the nightspot at 1913 Poplar.

Costello, who recorded his new album in Oxford, Miss., played several shows April 16-17 at the Hi-Tone. A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, Costello is recognized as one of the most distinctive songwriters and performers in popular music.

Shows will be at 8:30 and 11 p.m. Tickets: $20 in advance; $25 at the door. No date has been set for ticket sales, said Green.

Posted by at 1:52 AM | Permalink

Still thinking about finding the time to compare all these Rhino Re-Re-Re-Issues to the old Ryko Re-Re-Issues? Don't bother. It's been done.

Posted by at 11:47 PM | Permalink

The River Front Times makes this entirely valid claim for Almost Blue:

Almost Blue is the album here with the greatest commercial success. In 1981 New Wave fans were stunned when Elvis Costello went to Nashville to do an LP of honky-tonk music. Imagine what country fans must have thought when they compared these tentative-if-well-meaning versions to the classic originals. For those of us on the rock side who followed Costello's tribute to his heroes, Almost Blue crossed the line we hadn't imagined had been drawn, revealing the harsh bigotry of our ignorance. It probably isn't stretching a point to claim that alt-country wouldn't have happened without this record opening the minds of a lot of alternative-rock fans.

Costello hadn't yet learned to inhabit this kind of music, so listening today, we hear reverence, some mildly interesting arrangements and a lot of songs we've heard done better. The bonus disc includes some terrific live material from a variety of settings.

======================
FULL TEXT
======================
Elvis Costello
Almost Blue
Goodbye Cruel World

Kojak Variety (Rhino)

BY STEVE PICK
stevevin@mo.net

When Rhino Records decided to reissue Elvis Costello's
catalogue in groups of three non-chronological
releases, it was inevitable that the process would end
here. Two years after launching with some of
Costello's best and hardest-rocking albums, Rhino is
left with three of his least essential or popular
oddities. These include the only two albums ever made
by one of pop's greatest songwriters without even a
single original composition, as well as the album
Costello once rightly called the worst he'd ever made.

Almost Blue is the album here with the greatest
commercial success. In 1981 New Wave fans were stunned
when Elvis Costello went to Nashville to do an LP of
honky-tonk music. Imagine what country fans must have
thought when they compared these
tentative-if-well-meaning versions to the classic
originals. For those of us on the rock side who
followed Costello's tribute to his heroes, Almost Blue
crossed the line we hadn't imagined had been drawn,
revealing the harsh bigotry of our ignorance. It
probably isn't stretching a point to claim that
alt-country wouldn't have happened without this record
opening the minds of a lot of alternative-rock fans.

Costello hadn't yet learned to inhabit this kind of
music, so listening today, we hear reverence, some
mildly interesting arrangements and a lot of songs
we've heard done better. The bonus disc includes some
terrific live material from a variety of settings.

Goodbye Cruel World came out in 1984, and more than
anything else Costello has ever recorded, it sounds
trapped in its time. The fresh pop sheen of the
production overwhelms the songs, with dated keyboard
sounds and incessant saxophone interjections getting
in the way of modern enjoyment. There are good to
great songs here, but ironically, only the two most
heavily produced cuts -- "The Only Flame in Town" and
an obscure cover song, "I Wanna Be Loved" -- still
sound fresh. Interestingly, the bonus disc has two
alternate versions of "The Only Flame" that are even
better, revealing the subdued, haunting chills at the
core of this song.

Costello always improves songs live, and the six newly
unearthed live cuts on the bonus disc show up the lack
of emotional honesty on the record itself. Given that
this album was recorded at the time of the final
ending to his first marriage, it's possible he was
afraid of revealing too much truth in the recording
studio. If so, it was the only failure of nerve he's
ever shown us.

I'd forgotten what a gem Kojak Variety is. The album
was recorded in 1991, in five days, with a brilliant
lineup of musicians. The group took a week's vacation
in Barbados and ran through a bunch of amazing,
frequently completely obscure cover songs from a
variety of genres. Costello has always displayed
impeccable understanding of other people's songs.
There's a palpable sense of fun on this record too, as
the players have no thoughts of trying to make this
one a commercial success.

The bonus disc includes a lot of rarities rounded up
from the mid-'90s, with the core being a set of ten
songs, most previously unissued, Costello recorded in
the style of George Jones with the intention of
convincing the country master to cover material by the
likes of Tom Waits, Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen.
It could be the best album George Jones never made,
though Costello's vocals are a far cry from his
influence here. Of the three new reissues, Kojak
Variety easily offers the most consistent pleasures.

Posted by at 6:37 PM | Permalink

Q magazine have another one of their special issues
out , this time all about the 2 Tone Ska movement in
1979/1980.

Elvis produced The Specials first album , and is
quoted in a few places. As you can read some of his
comments echo his recent words about the U.K. cultural
scene .

'I saw The Specials’ early shows, in the days when
they’d have bonfires on the beach after gigs with
their traveling gang of mates. I wanted to produce
them the way they sounded best before someone
professionally fucked them up. We used a basic
24-track studio to get the right sound but you could
only stay in it for a limited time because it shared
an airvent with a laundromat and the smell kept coming
in.

All the crew and the band’s mates were in and out the
studio, so we shoved them all into the cubicle one
day, turned out the lights and recorded Nightclub. One
day, Neville let off this replica gun in the control
room, as a gag, which no one realised would deafen
you. We had to go home after that. They were a proper
band, know what I mean?

The Specials sung about things that sounded obvious
but which were direct. Terry sounded like he was
singing to someone as opposed to on a cloud, and
sometimes you have to state the obvious about racism
and stuff because of who’s listening. If you want a
sophisticated, jaded view of life go to The Groucho
Club in London, but if you want to do it to dance
music, then be direct. Stevie Wonder knew this when he
wrote songs like Living In The City. '

Q magazine have another one of their special issues
out , this time all about the 2 Tone Ska movement in
1979/1980.

Elvis produced The Specials first album , and is
quoted in a few places. As you can read some of his
comments echo his recent words about the U.K. cultural
scene .

'I saw The Specials’ early shows, in the days when
they’d have bonfires on the beach after gigs with
their traveling gang of mates. I wanted to produce
them the way they sounded best before someone
professionally fucked them up. We used a basic
24-track studio to get the right sound but you could
only stay in it for a limited time because it shared
an airvent with a laundromat and the smell kept coming
in.

All the crew and the band’s mates were in and out the
studio, so we shoved them all into the cubicle one
day, turned out the lights and recorded Nightclub. One
day, Neville let off this replica gun in the control
room, as a gag, which no one realised would deafen
you. We had to go home after that. They were a proper
band, know what I mean?

The Specials sung about things that sounded obvious
but which were direct. Terry sounded like he was
singing to someone as opposed to on a cloud, and
sometimes you have to state the obvious about racism
and stuff because of who’s listening. If you want a
sophisticated, jaded view of life go to The Groucho
Club in London, but if you want to do it to dance
music, then be direct. Stevie Wonder knew this when he
wrote songs like Living In The City. '

Posted by at 7:53 AM | Permalink

MnnyMoNHak reports that he "did a phone interview with EC, and the most interesting bit of news was that he and the Imposters are going to film a full-length live DVD in the very near future, trying to capture the vibe of this record while they've still got it and, of course, apply it to the older material as well."

More later..

Posted by at 5:06 PM | Permalink

Press Release:

Two new albums by Elvis Costello will be released September 21: 'The Delivery Man' (Lost Highway Records) with his band the Imposters, and 'Il Sogno' (Deutsche Grammophon), his first full-length orchestral work.

Costello and the Imposters (drummer Pete Thomas; keyboardist Steve Nieve; and bassist Davey Farragher) recorded most of 'The Delivery Man' in April
2004 at Sweet Tea Studios in Oxford, MS. The sessions were produced by Dennis Herring and Costello. One cut, "Monkey to Man," which Costello has said is a sequel to New Orleans songwriter Dave Bartholomew's 1954 single "The Monkey," was recorded during a day trip to the to the nearby Delta town of Clarksdale, MS and will be the first single and video from the album.

Several songs are written in the voices of characters found in the narrative of the title track. These include guest vocal appearances by Lucinda Williams on "There's a Story in Your Voice" and Emmylou Harris on "Nothing Clings Like Ivy" and "Heart Shaped Bruise." The album also contains a ukulele-accompanied duet with Harris on the Oscar-nominated "The Scarlet Tide," which Alison Krauss recorded for the 'Cold Mountain' soundtrack. 'The Delivery Man' features the pedal steel guitar playing of John McFee, who appeared on Costello's first album 'My Aim is True' and also on the 1981, Nashville-recorded 'Almost Blue.'

Costello co-wrote "Either Side of the Same Town" with legendary soul producer and songwriter Jerry Ragovoy.

'Il Sogno' was originally commissioned by Italy's Aterballeto dance company in 2000 for their adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Costello says, "I was extremely surprised to be asked, I had little or no understanding of the world of dance. When asked 'Who is your favourite dancer?,' I replied honestly, 'Cyd Charisse.'"

Following the ballet's premiere in Bologna and staging in a number of other Italian houses, Costello began to adapt the score for this recording. "In the end, I tried to create a piece of music to which people would respond without the visual cues that come from the dancers. I took out a lot of repetitions demanded by the choreography, re-orchestrated some passages, and composed several new transitions and resolutions," he explains.

Describing the nature of the music contained in the score, Costello said, "There are elements of humor-when it came to writing music for the supernatural beings in the story, I thought it is only appropriate that they should be swinging faeries. However, there are also passages representing confusion, jealousy, anger and turmoil. These cues have the edges, angles that I go looking for in rock and roll but the way they are achieved is utterly different. I hope there are also moments of tenderness."

'Il Sogno' was recorded by The London Symphony Orchestra at London's Abbey Road Studio One in 2002, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas and with guest soloists drummer Peter Erskine and saxophonist John Harle.

Elvis Costello headlined the Lincoln Center Festival this July with a trio of thrilling shows (including the North American premier of 'Il Sogno'), offering previews of the upcoming releases and reinterpreting older material. Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote in a review of all three shows, "Mr. Costello is ceaselessly curious about music. He is inquisitive enough not just to listen widely, but to learn the makings of every idiom that moves him, from lieder to New Orleans rhythm and blues. In the three nights at Lincoln Center he was a crooner, a howler, a swinger, a brooder, an orchestral composer and a guitar twanger."

Costello said, "All the music comes from the same place. It's just the trigger that's different."

Posted by at 10:12 AM | Permalink

The Independent On Sunday (London) has a feature on Elvis to mark his upcoming 50th birthday.

Extracts: -

"The thing is, it's about trusting yourself. I really do believe that everyone can write songs. They just don't trust themselves to do it. We can all write books, we can all sing songs. We can do it when we're children, we can all draw and sing. And then it's either beaten out of us, scared out of us, or our own inhibition - our adult self - doesn't allow us to do it anymore. And one of the great things about music is the freedom in it. Not rock," he says with visible distaste, "as we know it now, that commodity. But rock'n'roll at its purest. Jazz certainly has it. It's about freedom."

It's about freedom. To hell with prejudice, inhibition or fear. With boring, uptight old rock. Elvis Costello has spent all his 27 years as a recording artist making music on that basis. Now, as he hits middle-age, he seems more energetic than ever with a work slate that is ridiculously full and varied.

But would anyone think badly of him if he decided to chill out a bit, to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his labour.

"Well, two things probably affect that," he says, poking his glasses up his nose. "I have not ruthlessly pursued success and I have not capitalised on success as cynically as I might have done. Therefore, I am not as assured... though obviously I am not hurting... I'm not as wealthy as I would be if I'd been very much more ruthless in the pursuit of certain successes I've had. Therefore, I have the need to keep working. I have a lot of people I want to be able to look out for. I want to be able to move and live with the freedom I have at the moment. I have responsibilities.

"And the second thing is - what else am I gonna do? I don't wanna be defined by a handful of songs I wrote 25 years ago..."

Singing "She" in the film Notting Hill, he says, that was a detour. Did that take bravery - cheesy song for cheesy film? Even the film's writer, Richard Curtis, warned him: "I'm going to ruin your reputation."

"There's no bravery in it," he says dismissively, "there's no such thing. Bravery is a misused word in terms of art, or even in pop music - not to call it art. It was fun. Singing a song like that is going to a fancy dress party. Those sort of things, they're the true detours. The work that I've done aside from rock'n'roll are full-blooded collaborations or investigations of one particular way of working. You can't do [something like] writing Il Sogno in your spare time. It's an all-consuming thing. And to do it well you have to throw yourself totally into it. What you have to be prepared to do is let go of how you look doing it. If you want to look hip - that wouldn't go with my..." and here he spits the word with visceral distaste "...image. I don't give a fuck about being a rock'n'roll star. I just want to do the things that interest me."

Does he get a kick out of offending purists?

"It's not my motivation but I'm ready for it. I know that I'm going to read patronising dismissals of Il Sogno simply because I wrote it. By people who won't have heard it. I had the same thing happen, particularly in England, with North. People dismissing it, and describing it in terms that really proved they hadn't even heard it. Because they were making assumptions based on hearsay. They couldn't possibly have heard it and described it as they did."

"But, you know," he says, with a defiant prickle in his voice, "if North got the worst reviews of my career in England, it got the best reviews of my career in Germany. It was number one in the jazz charts in America. I mean, you can't please all the people. I don't live in England. I'm not very with the English sensibility, I haven't been for many years. And I'm getting further and further away from it. It's very distant to me and seems very small and - I don't mean this to be rude - but kind of insignificant. That's not to say the people of the country are insignificant - I have some of my closest friends there, my family lives there. But the cultural scene and its seethingness doesn't interest me."

Does he find it insular?

"It's like a tiny crowded bar, with everybody elbowing for room. And it just bores me."

But the best evidence of the new lease of life Costello is enjoying is the vibrant, organic-sounding The Delivery Man. It's a cracking record, at times hungry and enthusiastic, at others simple and heartfelt. It's his least mannered, most unforced album in years, even as it ambitiously aims to encompass parts of a Gothic story-cycle about the character of the title, meditations on the War on Terror, and more general thoughts on the nature of violence and fear.

He considers "Bedlam" to be as vitriolic about the Dubya era as "Tramp the Dirt Down" was about Thatcher. He aims a few digs at the Jessica Lynch capture/rescue fiasco. "She's Pulling Out the Pin" is a classic piece of Costello lyrical imagery, twinning the plight of the female suicide bomber with that of the pole dancer letting down her hair. Costello says the song "juxtaposes the most heartless part of our culture and the most desperate part of another culture. Two women's fates. It's just a bald telling of it. It doesn't have a judgement. They're both desperate, dead-end jobs," he says. Interestingly, this song will not be on the US version of the album because, he says, "it slows the flow". Might it also be that any hint of understanding of the plight of "terrorists" is too contentious an idea for the US?

"There's no moral point of view in it," Costello insists. "I don't feel myself equipped. I'm not the Holy Ghost. I'm just a songwriter."

But he has, surely, made much creative hay out of moral certainty before?

"Oh, I have moral certainty that I know better about this than some of the people who are pulling these levers right now!" he laughs.

He thinks British dance culture offers the "greatest musical choice", more so than any other genre, and positively bobs with enthusiasm for The Streets's A Grand Don't Come For Free. He sees Mike Skinner as part of a continuum of storytelling English songwriters, from Ray Davies through The Specials and Madness.

Ask him how he feels about hitting 50, twice the age of Mike Skinner, and he swings back to the music, as he must: "I was glad that this Lincoln Centre [thing] gave me an opportunity to have a hugely charged way of celebrating it."

But aside from the music?

"I never wanted to be young," he shrugs, that faint, knowing Costello smile playing on his lips. Maybe he's casting his mind back to those late-1970s/early-1980s tours of America when drink, drugs and women nearly did for him. "I didn't like being young. It just never appealed to me that much. I always thought the adults seemed to be having all the fun. And now I am old, and I'm having lots of fun!" Has he had a chance for a post-mortem on the New York shows yet? "Ah, it was what it was. There's no point in a post-mortem. It's on to the next thing."

FULL TEXT:
===========
Elvis Costello: Elvis lives

He's newly married to the jazz singer Diana Krall, celebrating his 50th birthday and about to release his best album in years. And, admits the sardonic Elvis Costello, he is finally happy. But Craig McLean soon discovers it's perhaps best not to mention Britain ('insignificant'), critics ('patronising') or ex wives ('I can't live in the past')

15 August 2004

Elvis Costello picks up a tiny guitar-like instrument from its plush case rest- ing on a huge hotel bed. He cradles it lovingly, as if it were a baby, against his barrel-like chest and picks out a little melody. It's a vintage ukulele, precision tooled by Hawaiian craftsmen.

He likes guitars a lot. But even though he still enjoys cranking things up to 11, he's no Nigel Tufnell. Costello's guitars are not for show. All receive a vigorous work-out. At a concert he played the other night he used seven different ones. Has he any idea how many he has?

"Oof," he exhales. "Dunno." A fair few, he says, but some were damaged when the storage lock-up he rented in Dublin was flooded by a canal. U2's The Edge, who also uses the facility, lost some of his instruments too.

"Beautiful sound," Costello murmurs to his mandolin as he coochy-coos its strings.

It's a Sunday afternoon in SoHo, New York. The air is heavy; the heavens are about to open with torrential summer rain. Costello cuts a regal but vaguely battered figure. The glasses, of course, are there, but his hair, shot through with steely silver these days, is retreating apace up both flanks of his head.

Also less in evidence is the pinched, frowning Elvis Costello of repute. The singer-songwriter has long had a reputation as an intense artist and a very intense man. His ever-more-infrequent interviews hardly seemed comfortable, never mind fun, for any of the parties concerned. The sleeve of his last album, North, told you everything you needed to know about this middle-aged punk survivor: Costello, suited and booted, black overcoat, striding down a street in the rain, in black and white, unshaven, glowering.

But North was the sound of Costello in transition, deploying wrenching, orchestrated piano ballads to deal with what he calls "the change of heart" after he split with former Pogues bass player Cait O'Riordan and began a romance with the Canadian jazz singer Diana Krall. Now married to Krall, they are blissfully in love. As a result, this year's model Costello is more relaxed, less clenched, almost - who'da thunk it? - playful. It is surely no coincidence that his upcoming album The Delivery Man is exciting, energetic and soulful. (The same cannot be said of his other new album, Il Sogno - that'll be Italian ballet-inspired classical adaptations of Shakespeare for you.)

"I'm definitely, unashamedly happy," he says with very un-Elvis-like giddiness. His voice is precise and confident, his accent polished but not plummy, occasionally lapsing into mild Scouse. "I don't see my wife enough; we work a lot. But we try to keep our separation down to a minimum. We're in contact all the time. I know where's she's at. It's the best thing..."

Costello gives a sigh bordering on the soppy. "We understand each other's gig really well."

Today, Krall is on the other side of America, playing at Los Angeles's Greek Theatre. She's been touring since February, promoting her highly successful album The Girl In the Other Room. Her husband talks rhapsodically of writing songs with her for the record. She had never really written before, but he assiduously plays down his role. The music, he says, was mostly hers - he made a "couple of changes" to the end of the title track's chorus - and the lyrics largely came from things Krall had written in her journal. Costello took "the essence" of her ideas and moulded them into shape.

"The thing is, it's about trusting yourself. I really do believe that everyone can write songs. They just don't trust themselves to do it. We can all write books, we can all sing songs. We can do it when we're children, we can all draw and sing. And then it's either beaten out of us, scared out of us, or our own inhibition - our adult self - doesn't allow us to do it anymore. And one of the great things about music is the freedom in it. Not rock," he says with visible distaste, "as we know it now, that commodity. But rock'n'roll at its purest. Jazz certainly has it. It's about freedom."

It's about freedom. To hell with prejudice, inhibition or fear. With boring, uptight old rock. Elvis Costello has spent all his 27 years as a recording artist making music on that basis. Now, as he hits middle-age, he seems more energetic than ever with a work slate that is ridiculously full and varied.

But would anyone think badly of him if he decided to chill out a bit, to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his labour.

"Well, two things probably affect that," he says, poking his glasses up his nose. "I have not ruthlessly pursued success and I have not capitalised on success as cynically as I might have done. Therefore, I am not as assured... though obviously I am not hurting... I'm not as wealthy as I would be if I'd been very much more ruthless in the pursuit of certain successes I've had. Therefore, I have the need to keep working. I have a lot of people I want to be able to look out for. I want to be able to move and live with the freedom I have at the moment. I have responsibilities.

"And the second thing is - what else am I gonna do? I don't wanna be defined by a handful of songs I wrote 25 years ago..."

Costello had plans for his 50th birthday, Big plans. He had booked Carnegie Hall for the night in question, 25 August. Although he has toured America almost every year since 1977, he had never - despite an Oscar nod, three Grammy nominations, one Bafta, two Ivor Novellos, a Nordoff Robbins Silver Clef Award, something called the Dutch Edison Award, a berth in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame and collaborations with everyone from Burt Bacharach to the Brodsky Quartet via Transvision Vamp's Wendy James - played the legendary New York venue.

Costello at Carnegie, it just sounds right. So, to celebrate turning 50, he was going to play the old dame and invite some of his friends along to join him. You can just imagine the line-up.

Then, New York's Lincoln Centre phoned. Did Mr Costello want to do three nights at its annual, highly august festival? Three different shows at which he could showcase the breadth and depth of his repertoire? In This Moment: Elvis Costello would follow past retrospectives and tributes to artists such as Ornette Coleman, Philip Glass, Leonard Bernstein and Oliver Messiaen.

"So I let the Carnegie date go," says Costello. "This was really a better opportunity."

And so on a hot summer night last month, Costello took to the stage of the Centre's Avery Fisher Hall. It was Saturday, and this was the last installment of his trio of performances which had begun with an engagement with Holland's Metropole Orkest.

That was followed by a rock show at which Costello and his three-piece band The Imposters barrelled through a two-and-a-half-hour set that roamed freely over a back catalogue numbering some 400 songs. "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" was energetic but messy; "Radio Radio", introduced by a brisk "One-two-three-four", was greeted with lusty cheers; "Indoor Fireworks" was tender and lovely.

The lengthy set also found room for a raft of new numbers from The Delivery Man: "Bedlam", "Needle Time" and a rollicking "There's A Story In Your Voice", which he told the sold-out audience of 2,700, was, on record, a duet with Lucinda Williams. The acoustics of the hall, not designed for electric guitars, thumping drums and rasping vocals, weren't overly kind, especially to the unfamiliar new material. But Costello, being Costello, had relished the challenge of tackling architecture. He would later reflect that, while "it was exciting-sounding, I think clarity was difficult with the new songs, for lyrics and everything. But they didn't know that we were gonna play an entire new record at it. When they booked us they thought we were just gonna come and play a rock'n'roll show." As if.

Finally, on the Saturday night, the capstone on Costello's current career activities was lowered into place. The Brooklyn Philharmonic was, in the capitalised words of the Lincoln Centre press release, "Performing the North American Premiere of His First Symphonic Work, Il Sogno, and Orchestral Versions of Some of Costello's Pop Classics". Il Sogno is based on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Costello sat in the gods and watched as the orchestra played the 63-minute piece. He seemed to have woven elements of swing, jazz and Bernstein's West Side Story into more "traditional" sounding classical textures. So did it work for him?

"I thought [the orchestra] did an excellent job," Costello reflects the following afternoon in his suite in the Mercer hotel. He says any success wasn't about whether the score was written down accurately - having taught himself how to write musical manuscript, he had spent 10 weeks writing 200 pages of score in pencil - but whether the musicians "can feel it". Did they understand his musical ideas for this incarnation of the Shakespeare play, with its suggestions of "swinging fairies", use of cimbalin (a kind of hammer dulcimer used in Eastern European folk) and evocation of Bottom by marching music?

Because he could talk about the nuts and bolts of music until the cows come home (or until the time left to ask him personal stuff has dwindled away), he expounds at length like this, one hand on his lightly bristled chin, a leg swung over the other, vaguely ursine body moulded into a too-comfy hotel chair. There was the thrill of importing a "jazz drummer who does a lot of Broadway work" into the orchestra, the possibilities offered by the few bars where he had given the saxophonist the opportunity to improvise. It all sounded very impressive and thought-out. He'd clearly put the hours in. No dilettante he.

For the second half of the previous evening's performance, he and his long-standing pianist Steve Nieve had hopped on stage for those orchestral versions of some of his more familiar songs. Costello's week of pan-genre, cross- cultural roaming ended with what was mostly an a capella version of the closing track from 1991's Mighty Like A Rose. He had thought the song's "circus music" feel would be fitting for the finale. He also thought it would be funny to have the orchestra join him at the line "I'm the lucky goon who composes tune from birds arranged the high-wire".

As 70 musicians weighed in, and Nieve pounded away, the sound was chaotic and flying out of control. Costello loved it. He beamed and bowed as he received a standing ovation and a bunch of flowers. He applauded his conductor, and his lead violinist, and the whooping crowd. He exited stage left, came back for more cheers, then trotted off again, his leather coat wafting behind him.

Costello has left the country. Home these days is the New York apartment he shares with Krall, whom he married last December at Elton John's Surrey mansion. The couple also spend time at their house on Vancouver Island in the Canadian's home province of British Columbia.

Strictly speaking, Costello hasn't been "here" much recently anyway. For much of the 17-year duration of his relationship with Cait O'Riordan, he lived in Dublin. That is when he wasn't in a studio recording one of his near-annual albums, or playing a show with someone someplace on a world tour that has, in various guises, been going on for 27 years. This autumn, Costello the aesthete can be found gigging round Australia's finer vineyards.

But Costello's departure from the British isles is more than geographical. Of his two new albums, Il Sogno was originally written as a dance piece for an Italian ballet company, while The Delivery Man is a rootsy, vaguely thematic rock set recorded in the deeply Southern environment of Oxford, Mississippi. Assuming no other idea has barged its way into his big, restless brain - and by the time you've finished reading this article he's likely to have had at least one new creative notion - his next project will be a piece of musical theatre he's writing on the life of Hans Christian Andersen, commissioned to celebrate next year's bicentenary of the author's birth.

The diverse nature of these ventures leads us to the most fundamental part of Costello's leave-taking. If he were still here, in the Ireland of his ancestors or the England of his birth, he wouldn't be "allowed" to pursue his relentless high-art fancies. North, released barely a year ago, bore the imprimatur of venerable classical record label Deutsche Grammophon and was savaged in the UK. Following on from album-length collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet, Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter and Burt Bacharach, Costello was accused of having ideas above his station.

He's prepared, he says, for Il Sogno to receive a similar kicking, not least from classical purists.

"There will be some people who, even if it were the greatest piece of music ever written, would say it was terrible. Because they're defending a citadel against invaders. And you get it with jazz, you get it with pop music, and you get with classical music for certain."

Does he get a kick out of offending purists?

"It's not my motivation but I'm ready for it. I know that I'm going to read patronising dismissals of Il Sogno simply because I wrote it. By people who won't have heard it. I had the same thing happen, particularly in England, with North. People dismissing it, and describing it in terms that really proved they hadn't even heard it. Because they were making assumptions based on hearsay. They couldn't possibly have heard it and described it as they did."

"But, you know," he says, with a defiant prickle in his voice, "if North got the worst reviews of my career in England, it got the best reviews of my career in Germany. It was number one in the jazz charts in America. I mean, you can't please all the people. I don't live in England. I'm not very with the English sensibility, I haven't been for many years. And I'm getting further and further away from it. It's very distant to me and seems very small and - I don't mean this to be rude - but kind of insignificant. That's not to say the people of the country are insignificant - I have some of my closest friends there, my family lives there. But the cultural scene and its seethingness doesn't interest me."

Does he find it insular?

"It's like a tiny crowded bar, with everybody elbowing for room. And it just bores me."

This is Costello at 50: still criticising the critics, ever convinced of his own infallibility. He zealously pursues his own agenda, and will stoutly defend his right to take whatever musical path he pleases. His excursions are not the idle indulgences of the moneyed bored. Nor are they "detours" - a word that implies that they are brief forays off the one true path that will always lead back to rock music. The truth is, rock music was never broad enough to contain or satisfy him.

It is all about reinvention and regeneration for the angry young tyro who ditched his given name (Declan MacManus) for a deliberately provocative stage name. Who has had a succession of deals with different record labels, and has recently transferred his business affairs to the care of Krall's high-powered management. Who thinks that, if he had not blown the whistle on the sudden success of his early career by calming down his excesses and reassessing his music, he would either be dead by now or "bent out of shape". Commercial acclaim, he insists, "didn't sit well with me".

As far back as 1981 Costello was banging the drum for his right to experiment. The sleeve of his album of country music covers, Almost Blue, bore a warning sticker: "May produce radical reaction in narrow-minded people." The album was slated at the time - the impudence of this skinny, amphetamined, New Wave geek who thought he could take on Nashville. History, though, has been kinder and the album has just been rereleased and lovingly expanded.

Singing "She" in the film Notting Hill, he says, that was a detour. Did that take bravery - cheesy song for cheesy film? Even the film's writer, Richard Curtis, warned him: "I'm going to ruin your reputation."

"There's no bravery in it," he says dismissively, "there's no such thing. Bravery is a misused word in terms of art, or even in pop music - not to call it art. It was fun. Singing a song like that is going to a fancy dress party. Those sort of things, they're the true detours. The work that I've done aside from rock'n'roll are full-blooded collaborations or investigations of one particular way of working. You can't do [something like] writing Il Sogno in your spare time. It's an all-consuming thing. And to do it well you have to throw yourself totally into it. What you have to be prepared to do is let go of how you look doing it. If you want to look hip - that wouldn't go with my..." and here he spits the word with visceral distaste "...image. I don't give a fuck about being a rock'n'roll star. I just want to do the things that interest me."

All that said, Costello is patently less tense these days. Love seems to have chilled him out. When Krall phones up from Los Angeles during our conversation he comes back almost gooey. "It's an amazing thing to fall in love with somebody and find that you can write together," he murmurs. "I imagined I would just be a collaborator with her and I didn't try to become what I have become." He goes quiet for a moment; it's a rare, un-self-conscious moment for one so controlled and controlling. "So for it to have worked out the way it has, is extra."

Notoriously clam-like when it comes to discussing anything other than music, Costello's personal contentment even enables him to open up a little. Having children together, he concedes, "would be lovely [he has a son, Matthew, 29, by his first wife, Mary]. But it's a big thing to take on, with me being older and for her, because her career is in an amazing place - it's a huge success this record and deservedly so. It's the best work she's done." It doesn't feel like he's saying this because he co-wrote half of it.

He's also careful to temper his bliss.

"I'm not ignorant or careless, or not mindful, of the sad things that you have to pass through to reach this point. I haven't made a success of two relationships before. I'm not proud of that but I can't live in the past. I live in the moment, with hope for the future. And that's the best I can manage, I have respect for the past. And you know, you should have. But you can't keep turning something over."

But the best evidence of the new lease of life Costello is enjoying is the vibrant, organic-sounding The Delivery Man. It's a cracking record, at times hungry and enthusiastic, at others simple and heartfelt. It's his least mannered, most unforced album in years, even as it ambitiously aims to encompass parts of a Gothic story-cycle about the character of the title, meditations on the War on Terror, and more general thoughts on the nature of violence and fear.

He considers "Bedlam" to be as vitriolic about the Dubya era as "Tramp the Dirt Down" was about Thatcher. He aims a few digs at the Jessica Lynch capture/rescue fiasco. "She's Pulling Out the Pin" is a classic piece of Costello lyrical imagery, twinning the plight of the female suicide bomber with that of the pole dancer letting down her hair. Costello says the song "juxtaposes the most heartless part of our culture and the most desperate part of another culture. Two women's fates. It's just a bald telling of it. It doesn't have a judgement. They're both desperate, dead-end jobs," he says. Interestingly, this song will not be on the US version of the album because, he says, "it slows the flow". Might it also be that any hint of understanding of the plight of "terrorists" is too contentious an idea for the US?

"There's no moral point of view in it," Costello insists. "I don't feel myself equipped. I'm not the Holy Ghost. I'm just a songwriter."

But he has, surely, made much creative hay out of moral certainty before?

"Oh, I have moral certainty that I know better about this than some of the people who are pulling these levers right now!" he laughs.

In contrast to the beefy, beardy, dishevelled figure he was in the early 1990s, Costello's 50 years sit well on him. He's the first extant icon of the punk generation to raise his bat for a half-century - John Lydon has two years to go, Paul Weller has four, while Joe Strummer didn't see out his 51st year. And unlike his peers, he is less of a hostage to his past. He complains about Britain's tall-poppy syndrome, yet his gently declining sales, a tricksy image and a dogged eclecticism give him a creative freedom and a general leniency that isn't afforded, say, Sting.

He thinks British dance culture offers the "greatest musical choice", more so than any other genre, and positively bobs with enthusiasm for The Streets's A Grand Don't Come For Free. He sees Mike Skinner as part of a continuum of storytelling English songwriters, from Ray Davies through The Specials and Madness.

Ask him how he feels about hitting 50, twice the age of Mike Skinner, and he swings back to the music, as he must: "I was glad that this Lincoln Centre [thing] gave me an opportunity to have a hugely charged way of celebrating it."

But aside from the music?

"I never wanted to be young," he shrugs, that faint, knowing Costello smile playing on his lips. Maybe he's casting his mind back to those late-1970s/early-1980s tours of America when drink, drugs and women nearly did for him. "I didn't like being young. It just never appealed to me that much. I always thought the adults seemed to be having all the fun. And now I am old, and I'm having lots of fun!" Has he had a chance for a post-mortem on the New York shows yet? "Ah, it was what it was. There's no point in a post-mortem. It's on to the next thing."

High fidelity Nine of the best (and one to avoid)

My Aim is True 1977

Knock-kneed geek in big specs appears out of nowhere to bring suburban angst-romance to the punk age

This Year's Model 1978

The very definition of uneasy listening for uneasy times, TYM contains the hit singles "Radio Radio" and "Chelsea"

Get Happy 1980

Punch the Clock is probably a better record, but this is the funky, Motowny one that everyone bought

Almost Blue 1981

The first departure from the norm was, paradoxically, a conservative gesture - an album of covers of country songs

Imperial Bedroom 1982

Featuring some of his best songs, this is My Aim's only serious rival as Costello's greatest neutral-friendly pop collection

King of America 1986

Another return to punch-pop form, KoA was released almost simultaneously with the gloomy Blood and Chocolate

Spike 1989

EC gets to write with Paul McCartney and delivers a bunch of minor classics, including "Tramp the Dirt Down"

The Juliet Letters 1993

Collaboration that challenged listeners to hear Costello's voice in a new and surprisingly sympathetic context

All This Useless Beauty 1996

Throughout his career, Costello has donated songs to other artists. Here, he reclaims some of them

Goodbye Cruel World 1984

Even North is no match for the dullness of this - despite the inclusion of "The Comedians". Nick Coleman

'The Delivery Man' is released on 11 September on Lost Highway; 'Il Sogno' is released on Deutsche Grammophon on 20 September

Posted by at 7:30 PM | Permalink

Rolling Stone reports that Mick Jones has found tapes which

"contain demo versions of fifteen songs that would end up on the band's classic London Calling, plus six unreleased songs, including a cover of Bob Dylan's "Man in Me."

The Vanilla Tapes have long been legend among fans -- now they will be released for the first time as part of a three-disc package to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of London Calling, due out on September 21st. The package contains the remastered original album and a DVD with interviews and footage of the London Calling sessions.

Posted by at 1:01 PM | Permalink

Nellie McKay, maker of the excellent Get Away From Me, knows her Elvis Costello.

A mention of Emerick's production of Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom prompts her musings on her own life as an artist. "It's interesting, because [Costello] has proven himself adept at getting publicity, and that's something that I hope to do. And he's gotten a good amount of critical praise, which I hope to sustain. Though I don't believe critics should be in the position that they are...And he has a certain amount of don't-push-me-around-ness about him, and I certainly think I have that. So I would like to have the artistic freedom and longevity he's had."

Smarter Than You Think

by John Boonstra - August 12, 2004

AMY T. ZIELINKSKI PHOTO

Nellie McKay: The world doesn't change as much as I would like it to. And some of us already thought she was pretty darned smart.

Nellie McKay is standing on a sidewalk outside a midtown Manhattan recording studio on a muggy August evening. It's the only place where her cellphone will come through clearly for this interview. "It's not a problem--all in a day's work!"
McKay's first album, the double-CD Get Away from Me , was released in February and has accumulated enthusiastic reviews and steady sales. In its breadth of styles and its ambition, it's been favorably compared to the Beatles' White Album . Which, as it happens, was engineered by Get Away's producer, the estimable Geoff Emerick . I'll tell you right now: it's the year's best record, bar none, and the most impressive debut I've heard in a decade

Just 19, McKay was born in London, spent most of her first decade raised by a single mom in Harlem, then sojourned in Washington state and Pennsylvania. Dropping out of the Manhattan School of Music in 2002, she began a cabaret career at gay bars in the Village, building a reputation which soon found her courted by several major labels. "It's crazy," she says of that time. "Virgin wanted to have me as a rap artist. I could've had an album full of 'Sari's, gone a completely different way with it." She's what must be her album's biggest stumbling block for listeners drawn in by the piano-based balladry of several of her songs, which might've made her the next Norah Jones if only she'd toned down the biting wit and confined herself to a single musical genre. But "Sari" is an unapologetic angry-white-female rap, full of expletives which earn the CD its parental warning label. It's not the only conceptual leap she demands of her audience. She references The Wizard of Oz (on "Toto Dies"), playfully croons about the ethical issues raised by cloning ("Clonie," of course), engages in a feisty feminist dialogue with a symbolic male whom she kneecaps with the line, "Your arrogance is what makes you special" ("It's a Pose").

"I've got too many people coming up to me who really seem to enjoy the entire album, who can listen across the spectrum. But of course there'll always be people who have problems with one song. I skip over 'Yellow Submarine' every time I listen to Revolver . I don't really think that's a stumbling block. I think most albums--well, a lot of albums--have one or two good songs, and the rest is crap. A lot of albums are misrepresented by the single that sells them--some heavy metal with one sweet song. So if we have one single that hits it won't be any greater misrepresentation than all the other stuff that's out there. I think people actually hope for a surprise.

"For the Beatles it happened quite organically, and for me too. I'd hear a disco track, and I'd want to write a disco track, you know? All the time there's just so much good music which moves you. and you want to replicate it somehow. It informs what you do."

There's little doubt of McKay's political persuasion. The first song, "David," an upbeat ditty about unrequited romance, contains a verse targeted at the current president, in which "Mr. Bushie" shows up on TV, prompting the singer to click off the remote: "There you have my vote/Catchin' the next boat out of here." In another song, a disinterested narrator blithely notes, "Hey look, we're bombing Iraq."

"I do think the topicality [of the album] is underrated. I just feel politics are so important. But say there's a line about bombing Iraq. That was topical over 10 years ago. If you watch Bob Roberts , that movie hasn't aged a day. Unfortunately, things that are topical in anyone's day tend to stay relevant, because the world doesn't change as much as I would like it to."

It's no surprise that when she's not thinking about a songwriting assignment for NPR which is giving her far too much difficulty, or waxing enthusiastic about writing a musical based on the graphic novel The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom , or racing back into the studio for more work on her next album, due out early next year, she's consumed by the first presidential election where'll be able to cast a ballot.

"I vote in Pennsylvania, and as such I know who I gotta vote for. But I wish I wasn't living in a swing state. People who live in New York who are truly progressive, who think their gay friends should have equal rights, who truly believe that to stay in Iraq is to succumb to this militaristic ethic. We don't belong there, they don't want us there, we should get out--if I lived in a safe state, I'd vote for Nader. I'm voting in a state where it matters, so honestly I don't see how I can vote for him. But I really resent how the Democratic Party is trying to stop him. It's stupid: Kerry's trump card is Iraq, and he doesn't differentiate himself from Bush at all. We've got to get beyond this Republican Lite philosophy. It's just ridiculous."

A mention of Emerick's production of Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom prompts her musings on her own life as an artist. "It's interesting, because [Costello] has proven himself adept at getting publicity, and that's something that I hope to do. And he's gotten a good amount of critical praise, which I hope to sustain. Though I don't believe critics should be in the position that they are...And he has a certain amount of don't-push-me-around-ness about him, and I certainly think I have that. So I would like to have the artistic freedom and longevity he's had.

"I just try at every step of the process to do the right thing, and not the thing that will get me to a place where I can do more right things. Because it's easy to rationalize your whole career away on that basis."

Nellie McKay appears at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield on Friday, Aug. 13. <

Posted by at 6:31 PM | Permalink

The Austin City Limits Festival Sept 2004 will feature Elvis and The Imposters on Sun. Sept. 19th 4:30- 5:30.

Posted by at 6:26 PM | Permalink

Posted by at 9:33 AM | Permalink

New York Magazine has some interesting comments on the recent Lincoln Centre shows

"The hour-and-a-half-long ballet still sounds more like a compilation than an organically developed symphonic conception—but then, so do the great Tchaikovsky ballet scores. And who knows what a closer examination of Costello’s compositional processes might reveal, since something of genuine musical interest is going on every moment. Like all composers who have been attracted to Shakespeare’s Dream, from Mendelssohn to Britten, Costello makes capital from the play’s three dramatic levels: seductively mysterious visions for the fairy world, full-blooded romantic strains for the squabbling lovers, and bubbly rhythmic momentum for the earthy rustics. Even without the visual aid of dancers and scenery, the music creates a remarkable sense of fluidity that smoothly leads from one plain to the other, especially in the meticulously prepared performance by the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Brad Lubman.

Il Sogno may be no deathless masterpiece, but it definitely adds up to a most engaging romp through Shakespeare.

The rest of Lincoln Center’s homage showed Costello in more familiar contexts. The fans turned out in force for an evening with his band, the Imposters. Rock tribal rituals conducted at a decibel level beyond the threshold of pain are not my scene, and it seemed that whatever Costello hoped to accomplish with his songs and his voice got swallowed up in a sonic hell of screaming and pounding electronic amplification. Still, I had to wonder how many other pop-rock figures give this generously of themselves, singing, playing, and reaching out nonstop for a full two and a half hours.

An opportunity to get yet another perspective on Costello’s work came in a program with the Netherlands Metropole Orkest, a 52-piece jazz orchestra whose performance history goes back to 1945. That collaboration definitely had its charms, but Costello really won me over when, after the performance of Il Sogno, he put his microphone aside and sang an unamplified medley with pianist Steve Nieve and bassist Davey Farragher. Only without the fierce electronic trappings, I think, is it possible to appreciate the full stylistic range and stinging melodic twists of his songs, the verbal density of the lyrics (“Oh, it’s not easy to resist temptation walkin’ around lookin’ like a figment of somebody else’s imagination”), and even the husky vulnerability of Costello’s unglamorous but oddly appealing baritone."

From the August 9, 2004 issue of New York Magazine.

Classical Music Review

High Fidelity

By Peter G. Davis

Elvis Costello reads—and writes—symphonic scores better than other pop stars

It must have taken some nerve, if not downright gall, for Declan MacManus to rename himself Elvis Costello in 1977, with the King not yet cold in his grave. But then, Costello has never been shy about making bold career moves or finding new avenues for his restless musical interests, and by now he has produced a body of creative work that for sheer quantity, stylistic diversity, and risk-taking is probably without parallel in rock. For that reason alone, Lincoln Center had good cause to honor Costello with an ambitious three-concert retrospective in Avery Fisher Hall that served as the musical centerpiece of this summer’s festival. Apparently, the project held small appeal for the city’s classical-music fraternity, at least what’s left of it, since most of my colleagues stayed away.

Costello’s longtime attachment to classical music, however, was enough to pique my interest. He has already done some intriguing work with the Brodsky String Quartet and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, but the major event in Lincoln Center’s tribute was his first symphonic score, Il Sogno, a ballet based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and composed for the Italian dance company Aterballetto. Il Sogno is actually quite different from the sort of music usually produced by pop-rock musicians who dabble in classical forms. Paul McCartney, for example, can neither read nor write musical notation, and it’s said that he composes his orchestral pieces by humming some tunes and playing a few notes on a keyboard while a musically literate associate takes it all down and tries to stitch a piece together. Costello, to his credit, laboriously taught himself how to read music before working with the Brodsky Quartet in 1992, and he wrote Il Sogno directly into full score without relying on preliminary sketches, computers, or collaborators.

The hour-and-a-half-long ballet still sounds more like a compilation than an organically developed symphonic conception—but then, so do the great Tchaikovsky ballet scores. And who knows what a closer examination of Costello’s compositional processes might reveal, since something of genuine musical interest is going on every moment. Like all composers who have been attracted to Shakespeare’s Dream, from Mendelssohn to Britten, Costello makes capital from the play’s three dramatic levels: seductively mysterious visions for the fairy world, full-blooded romantic strains for the squabbling lovers, and bubbly rhythmic momentum for the earthy rustics. Even without the visual aid of dancers and scenery, the music creates a remarkable sense of fluidity that smoothly leads from one plain to the other, especially in the meticulously prepared performance by the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Brad Lubman.

The wide-ranging eclecticism that characterizes Costello’s songwriting style—punk, rhythm and blues, soul, jazz, folk, funk, bluegrass—can be detected in his classical persona as well, and it would be tedious to list all the composers who come to mind while listening to Il Sogno. I’m not sure that identifying them would be especially helpful either, since Costello has a way of absorbing his influences, rethinking them, and challenging the listener on his own terms. That partly comes from his quirky melodic shapes that always keep the ear guessing, as well as an innate feeling for tangy instrumental combinations that you can’t learn from orchestration manuals. Il Sogno may be no deathless masterpiece, but it definitely adds up to a most engaging romp through Shakespeare.

The rest of Lincoln Center’s homage showed Costello in more familiar contexts. The fans turned out in force for an evening with his band, the Imposters. Rock tribal rituals conducted at a decibel level beyond the threshold of pain are not my scene, and it seemed that whatever Costello hoped to accomplish with his songs and his voice got swallowed up in a sonic hell of screaming and pounding electronic amplification. Still, I had to wonder how many other pop-rock figures give this generously of themselves, singing, playing, and reaching out nonstop for a full two and a half hours.

An opportunity to get yet another perspective on Costello’s work came in a program with the Netherlands Metropole Orkest, a 52-piece jazz orchestra whose performance history goes back to 1945. That collaboration definitely had its charms, but Costello really won me over when, after the performance of Il Sogno, he put his microphone aside and sang an unamplified medley with pianist Steve Nieve and bassist Davey Farragher. Only without the fierce electronic trappings, I think, is it possible to appreciate the full stylistic range and stinging melodic twists of his songs, the verbal density of the lyrics (“Oh, it’s not easy to resist temptation walkin’ around lookin’ like a figment of somebody else’s imagination”), and even the husky vulnerability of Costello’s unglamorous but oddly appealing baritone.

Posted by at 8:16 AM | Permalink

The track listing is now official:
1. Button My Lip
2. Country Darkness
3. There's A Story In Your Voice
4. Either Side Of The Same Town
5. Bedlam
6. The Delivery Man
7. Monkey To Man
8. Nothing Clings Like Ivy
9. The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love
10. Heart Shaped Bruise
11. Needle Time
12. The Judgement
13. The Scarlet Tide

The U.K. catalogue no. is MERCURY B000259302
The U.S. catalogue no. is Lost Highway 000259302

(Submitted by Nunki)

Posted by at 1:48 PM | Permalink

An amazing EC & The A's 1978 tour program, scanned and ready for your viewing pleasure at The Elvis Costello Home Page.

Posted by at 11:57 PM | Permalink

Glasgow Oct 6th, On Sale Saturday Aug 7th.
Perth Australia On Sale Monday Aug 9th.

Posted by at 7:51 PM | Permalink

In the September Atlantic Monthly, in an article on Ray Charles, Mark Steyn makes this comment about "crossover" music: "Even if the stuff doesn't make you vomit, a guy who does everything comes across like an opportunist (Ray Charles, old buddy Quincy Jones) or a poseur (Elvis Costello, who, after avant-garde string quartets and Burt Bacharach, now seems to be doing to the career of his wife, Diana Krall, what he did to his own)."
(Submitted by Chris Forhan)

Posted by at 7:50 PM | Permalink

Blub in the Herald-Displatch:

When chanteuse Diana Krall began collaborating on songs with Elvis Costello, she says, "It was very exciting, and also daunting. I had to get over that overwhelming sense of, "Oh, my God -- am I worthy of his time?’"

Apparently, the answer was yes. Not only did Krall and Costello end up co-writing half the 12 tracks on her new CD, "The Girl in the Other Room," but the two married in December.

Due April 27, "Room" features tunes penned by Mose Allison, Tom Waits and Joni Mitchell, as well as Costello’s "Almost Blue." But Krall also spreads her wings as a composer and lyricist. "I started writing when I was a student but didn’t really have the confidence to (pursue) lyric-writing in great depth," she explains. "I’ve never done anything so personal

Posted by at 10:36 AM | Permalink

Wednesday, October 6
REGULAR PRESENTS: Elvis Costello & The Imposters
at Glasgow Barrowland
£25.00
On sale: Saturday, August 7 at 9:00 AM

Posted by at 1:55 AM | Permalink

Elvis came on stage at Diana's show up at the St. Michelle concert in Woodinville Washington and sang two songs at the end of the show with Diana. Report from one attendee: "a great end to a nice show."

(Submitted by Mick Pegg)

Posted by at 10:41 PM | Permalink

The fine folks at Deutsche Gramaphone have put up a page for the upcoming Costello title. Some Excerpts:

Prepare yourselves for Elvis Costello's next musical adventure: Following the success of his intimate collection of love songs North, which remained at the top of Billboard Traditional Jazz charts for several weeks in 2003, Deutsche Grammophon is releasing Elvis Costello's first full-scale orchestral work. Il Sogno is compelling ballet music, successfully blending elements of impressionistic classical style à la Debussy with a bit of jazz.

". . . this former angry young man has grown into perhaps the most adventurous and accomplished musical polymath of our times . . . It is almost skittish in flavour, light and playful and entirely lacking in the kind of darkness that characterises Costello's songwriting. It is as if, liberated from his black lyrical sensibility, he has abandoned himself to the delightful possibilities of instrumental music . . . "Il Sogno" shifts its musical terrain from Debussy-like harmonies to Leonard Bernstein-flavoured jazz and swing, making references to Broadway musicals as much as to the classics . . . it abundantly displays the musical diversity that has become Costello's hallmark." Neil McCormick , Daily Telegraph, 20 July 2004

(submitted by Conner Ratliff)

Posted by at 9:57 AM | Permalink

LA band The Monolators have posted I Want You as their "song of the month" in MP3 format.

(Found, as usual, by John Foyle)

Posted by at 2:48 AM | Permalink

This site (including both CostelloNews and elvis-costello.com) had just shy of 250,000 page views in the first six months of this year, from 80,000 unique visitors representing 50 different countries. In any given month, approx. 60% of visitors are first timers, while about 40% have been here before. 13% were Mac users.

57% of the site visitors were from the U.S., of which 33% were from the East Coast, 11% Central, 3% Mountain, and 12% from the West Coast.

70% of those who came via search engines came from Google, vs 14% from Yahoo and 9% from MSN. Only 4 individual search phrases represented over 1% of search engine traffic. Anyone care to guess what those four search phrases were? A free copy of the Il Sogno Sampler to anyone who can leave a comment with the exact four phrases.

Posted by at 2:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

CostelloNews.com is undergoing a redesign. Elvis has new albums coming out. The site is nearly two years old. Blogs, web design, and the world has changed. This site ain't all it could be. And I sometimes have a few minutes between 1:30 and 2:00 in the morning. All good reasons for a redesign.

Rather than do it all hidden away in a dark room somewhere, and not letting you see it until it's done, everything will be worked-out in front of your very eyes. Think of it as being invited into the studio while the new album is recorded. Or think of it as a sloppy way to run a weblog. Either way, things are likely to get worse before they get better.

I'm mulling around some new editorial ideas too. More on these soon. Comments on any of this are welcome.

Posted by at 2:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Those in the know report the following about the upcoming Elvis Costello & The Imposters LP:

It will be out on The Lost Highway label, and called either 'The Delivery Man' or 'South' or 'Stop Me Before I Polka'.

It contains the following tracks (probably not in this order):
1. The Delivery Man
2. Country Darkness
3. Monkey To Man
4. Bedlam
5. Heart Shaped Bruise (w/Emmylou Harris)
6. Button My Lip
7. Needle Time
8. Nothing Clings Like Ivy
9. The Name of This This Is Not Love
10. There's A Story In Your Voice (w/ Lucinda Williams)
11. Either Side of The Same Town
12. The Judgement
13. The Scarlet Tide (w/Emmylou Harris)

Which means the Lincoln Center show on 7/15 included the entire album. At 13 tracks, this is shorter than his other "rock" albums of recent years, but comparable to his more ballad-heavy albums.

This leaves six potential outtakes that may show up as international bonus tracks or b-sides:
1. In Another Room
2. Suspect Your Tears
3. I'll Watch Out For You
4. Unwanted Number
5. Burnt Sugar (is so Bitter)
6. She's Pulling Out The Pin

(T.J. Young, Mike Bodayle, Conner Ratliff, John Foyle, Mike Hernandez and others contributed to this wildly speculative report.)

Posted by at 12:59 AM | Permalink

Mr. Costello's PR folks wanted everybody to know...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - July 27, 2004
ELVIS COSTELLO’S THREE NIGHTS AT LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL A MAJOR SUCCESS

Elvis Costello delivered a trio of thrilling shows at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall July 13, 15 and 17, showcasing the breadth and scope of his diverse musical talents. The first show featured rearrangements of his songs performed with the Metropole Orkest, the 52-member jazz orchestra from the Netherlands. The latter two concerts served as previews of his twin September 21 releases, The Delivery Man (Lost Highway Records) with his band the Imposters and a classical work called “Il Sogno” (Deutsche Grammophon), performed on stage by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Written and orchestrated entirely by Costello, the score exhibits yet another facet of his varied abilities.

Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in a review of the three shows, “Mr. Costello is ceaselessly curious about music. He is inquisitive enough not just to listen widely, but to learn the makings of every idiom that moves him, from lieder to New Orleans rhythm and blues.”

The Washington Post’s Terry Teachout reviewed “Il Sogno,” saying that “Costello has channeled his thematic material into simple, formal structures that he uses in the disciplined manner of a bona fide classical composer. Am I surprised? Totally. But if any rocker could pull off such an improbable feat, it's Elvis Costello, whose musical curiosity has always been boundless.”

Variety’s David Sprague stated of “Il Sogno,” “For the duration of the three-movement, 70-minute piece, the musicians kept up a vigorous dialogue, hemming and hawing, then breaking into lustful roars… [It is] a surprisingly profound concert experience.”

Bradley Bambarger of The Newark Star-Ledger compared Costello to Stravinsky and wrote, “’Il Sogno’ was also unflaggingly melodious, rhythmically vital and -- most impressive -- orchestrated with kaleidoscopic vividness. Reading music is one thing; orchestration is quite another (with most rockers who compose orchestral works ceding that all-important job to trained experts). Costello seems to have taken to this new art with as much panache as he did Americana, torch songs or other genre offshoots from his initial vein of combustible, if highly literate, rock 'n' roll.”

The New York Daily News reviewed both the Imposters show and “Il Sogno.” Rock critic Isaac Guzman dubbed Costello a “Renaissance Man” and lauded his “blistering set” while Classical critic Howard Kissel called Costello’s work “full of delights, sometimes sounding like vintage jazz, other times like vintage Hollywood. Its most notable feature may be Costello’s understanding of the riches of a symphony orchestra. One can only look forward to his explorations of this great resource.”

Posted by at 12:34 AM | Permalink