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 ASCAP
FOUNDERS AWARD
Beyond Belief:
Elvis Costello’s Astonishing Career
By Erik Philbrook
When Elvis Costello crashed the scene in 1977
with his first album, My Aim is True,
he came on like a brash and brainy new-wave
punk: knock-kneed, bespectacled, skinny ties
and all. Some fans rallied around his angry
young man persona and savored the gall the musician
had in naming himself after the king of rock
and roll. True music fans, however, rallied
around his songwriting and appreciated the breadth
of his formidable talent, from the tender soul
of "Alison" to the reggae-infused
"Watching the Detectives" to the brawny
R&B attack of "Less Than Zero."
Backed by an ace band of musicians, the Attractions,
Costello began to create some of the most energetic,
adventurous and ultimately enduring rock music
of the era. On albums such as This Year’s
Model, Armed Forces, Get Happy
and Trust, the supreme musicianship
of the band was matched by Costello’s
masterful command of words and melody, and the
obvious glee he had in pushing pop music’s
envelope.
At the dawn of the 80’s Costello was
a restlesss creative spirit and, having made
his mark on 70’s rock, was ready to explore
other musical avenues: His 1981 album, Almost
Blue, reflected his love for classic country
music and also featured jazz legend Chet Baker
performing on the title track; 1982’s
Imperial Bedroom was lush and layered
pop; 1986’s King of America was
stripped-down acoustic country-folk. While Costello’s
sound began to change with regularity, his writing
became sharper than ever. It was no surprise
to his fans, then, when he began collaborating
with one of the greatest songwriters of the
20th Century, Paul McCartney. The fruits of
their efforts appeared on Spike, perhaps
the most musically diverse collection of songs
Costello had recorded up to that point and an
album that also yielded Costello’s biggest
American hit, "Veronica."
In the 90’s Costello continued to defy
categorization, following his muse into even
more unlikely and interesting places. While
continuing to record and perfom with the Attractions,
he also dove into the classical music world
and wrote a song cycle with the Brodsky Quartet,
The Juliet Letters. As both a singer and
songwriter, his collaborations flourished with
such diverse artists as Johnny Cash, The Chieftains,
Tony Bennett, Bill Frisell, Roy Nathanson and
the Jazz Passengers, Ruben Blades, Ute Lemper,
Aimee Mann, the Fairfield Four, the Charles
Mingus Big Band and many others. Then, as the
decade came to an end, he collaborated with
the legendary Burt Bacharach on an orchestral
pop tour de force, Painted from Memory,
which earned Costello a Grammy Award for "I
Still Have That Other Girl."
Recent collaborations have found Costello working
with mezzo-soprano star Annie Sofie von Otter
and soul great Solomon Burke. In 2001, Costello
was also named Artist in Residence at UCLA and
performed a concert there with the Charles Mingus
Orchestra, featuring lyrics Costello had written
for Mingus compositions as well as orchestrated
versions of classic Costello songs. Then, just
as people were getting accustomed to Costello’s
stylistic changes and versatility, he released
When I Was Cruel (2002). Propulsive
and vitriolic with deep grooves and dark moods,
the album was a return of sorts to Costello’s
rock and roll roots -- just in time for Elvis
Costello and the Attractions’ induction
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier
this year.
While Costello will continue to play dates
this year with his rock band, the Imposters,
he has already finished writing and recording
a new album of atypical love songs and piano
ballads. His ballet score based on A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, written for the Italian
dance company Aterballetto and recorded by the
London Symphony Orchestra with Michael Tilson
Thomas conducting, will be released. Also, in
an ongoing collaboration with Bill Frisell,
they will present a concert called "A Century
of Song," in which they will perform one
song from every decade of the 20th Century.
While many stand in awe of Costello’s
accomplishments and not just the quantity but
the quality of his work, his modus operandi
remains simple: "I’m a musician,
therefore I go to work," he says. "I
play what I want when I want, and I hope people
will be interested in what I’m doing."
Today, that attitude has earned Elvis Costello
not only a worldwide audience, but an audience
made up of many different worlds. Fans of pop,
rock, jazz, R&B, country and classical music
have all found common ground in this uncommonly
gifted artist.
*
You are being presented with ASCAP’s
Founders Award and, as you know, the founders
of ASCAP and its early members were some of
the greatest names in music - Irving Berlin,
Cole Porter, the Gershwins. These are artists
that you obviously admire. At what point in
your musical development did you really start
to appreciate their craft beyond their obvious
surface appeal?
To be honest, and I'm not saying this to be
cute, but this is the truth. My mother tells
me that one of the first words that I uttered
as a child was "skin" in reference
to "I've Got You Under My Skin." And
I used to request it before I could form proper
sentences. So I suppose that's a pretty young
appreciation of Cole Porter.
I grew up in a musical household, but I didn’t
have a formal musical education. So I wasn't
subjected to music the way that a lot of people
are subjected to it and are given a fright of
it. I had a generous, open-minded musical education
and the availability of a broad-range of music
in my parents' house and through my own curiosity.
When did you first start playing a musical
instrument?
I didn't pick up an instrument until I was
in my teens, so I had plenty of time to absorb
a lot of stuff. Among those things were the
writers that pre-dated the pop music that I
actually grew up into, in other words the music
of the 1960’s. So I know an uncommon amount
of songs that pre-date the original blueprint
for rock and roll that my early music makes
reference to. The 60’s music was what
I grew up around and so that's my reference
point as a player, but as a listener and as
an appreciator of music, I've gone back into
the history of music many different times and
in many different ways, right back into very
early music and the stuff written before we
had any concept of popular music.
I know a lot of songs that you would call standards.
I can't play them all by ear, but I can sing
them all and I know the words of many of them.
I’ve just absorbed them from years and
years of listening just like anybody would.
But because I am a musician, they’ve obviously
had an influence on me.
Occasionally I'll write in forms that approach
that style, although I won't necessarily adhere
to all of the shape and rules, or otherwise
it sounds like a pastiche. You still want to
make it your own, but you can learn from those
masters. Just as you can from a Howlin' Wolf
record or a Lennon/McCartney song, or something
more contemporary. You've got to keep your ear
open to new sounds as well.
What benchmarks do you use to determine
when you've written a good song or when a song
is finished for you?
It isn't like a ruler (laughs) that you have
to take out and measure and go "Does it
go the full nine yards?" It doesn't work
like that. I think you just know instinctively
when a song is complete and whether you've reached
your objective. Sometimes you finish a song
and you take a step back and see that there’s
no way to make it better. That's as good as
you're gonna get out of a musical idea. Sometimes
I’ll realize it wasn't as strong an idea
as I first thought.
When you're inspired, of course, the ideas
flow through very quickly. I must say that the
songs that I’m recording at the moment
came through me very quickly and a lot of them
were written very rapidly, so they have a common
harmonic language. And they’ve been very
good to me. I heard everything in them all at
once. I heard what was possible in them emotionally,
where the lyric should fall. I also heard all
of the orchestral dimensions of them and where
it was possible to color them. I heard them
complete in my head as I was writing them. It's
very, very exciting when songs arrive to you
with such a complete, vivid picture in your
mind. It doesn't always happen; sometimes you
write a song and the ways to express it, the
ways to accompany it are various. You might
go down several different dead ends until you
arrive at the definitive way to convey the song
in performance.
You are considered an artist's artist in
that some of your biggest fans are other songwriters
and musicians, and you've collaborated with
some of the greats. In some way do these other
artists now become your audience when you write?
For example, when you were writing a song for
When I Was Cruel, was there a voice
in your head saying "I bet Burt Bacharach
is going to appreciate this."
(Laughs) Well, I bet Burt Bacharach would probably
find that thought horrifying. I learned a tremendous
amount from working with him and also from working
with Paul McCartney. They are the two main collaborators
of my career in that I’ve produced the
most material from a standing start with each
of them. That’s a very high standard and
I obviously learned a lot from them. But I would
say that I don't really regard those people
as my audience. I'm not writing for them. I
write for myself. The idea of self-indulgence
in art is completely obscure to me. You should
only please yourself. Nothing else matters.
Because people are trusting you to have your
own idea and if you're patronizing the audience,
talking down to them, trying to guess what they
would like to hear, then you should be writing
advertising jingles. It has nothing to do with
creative songwriting. You have listen to your
own voice and not give a damn about anyone else.
If you make mistakes or if you paint yourself
into a corner or try something and discover
that you’re not as smart as you think
you are, then that's a different thing. You
have to be prepared to fail. Everybody's written
bad songs, not bad songs but songs that don't
succeed in their objective.
And you can't listen to the record companies.
They're in a different business than what I'm
in. Because I'm not in a business. I'm blessed
with the fact that I'm a vocational musician
who has been able to indulge in the idea of
pursuing things from an artistic point of view
and make my livelihood at it.
You are a unique artist in that your music
has gone in so many different directions. How
has this affected your relationship with your
longtime fans?
I'm aware of the fact that with every change
I both lose and gain people from a potential
audience, and this is why I am reviled in some
areas of the record industry for not adhering
to brand identity. I am the person they fear
most (laughs). In some respects I’m the
person that proves that not listening to A&R
advice is actually a lifetime of adventure.
Listening to that nonsense that you must protect
your identity and all of that timidness is the
absolute antithesis of rock and roll.
To my mind, when I made King of America
in the 80’s and it was all acoustic, that
was more of a punk rock gesture at the time
than to be screaming and shouting. So was The
Juliet Letters. So was Painted from
Memory. Because, relative to what people
expect of me, I'm much happier to do the thing
that confounds expectations, and make people
aware of my curiosity in music and invite them
into the world that I'm trying to create.
I'm not doing this stuff to show off my versatility;
I just love lots of different forms in which
music can be expressed and I actually don't
care about critical opinion or record company
opinion. I care about reaching a number of people,
and while I'm aware that some people will walk
away aghast at the sound of The Juliet Letters
record or Painted from Memory or even
this record I'm working on now, there are many
other people who will relax into it, or who
will dive into it like the deep pool that music
is, and they'll say "Oh, yes, that other
stuff, I've heard him do that before, so now
this is more curious to me."
For me, it all works out in the end. I have
a free-floating group of listeners who I greatly
appreciate that go with me through a lot of
these changes. Some find the next change or
emphasis not to their liking and they may drift
away. Then something else I do regains their
attention. I have to go with what's true to
me, and I think the smart people appreciate
and respect that I'm doing it for sincere reasons
and that I'm not being perverse.
Those people who are superficial about me and
only say "Oh, it's that angry guy in the
glasses," I don't care about what they
think. They never understood me from day one.
They never understood the tenderness of a song
like "Alison." They only heard the
superficiality. A lot of the ideas of what it
is I do are written by overgrown boys who live
alone and don't know many women. I mean to say
that they have no experience of life. They're
like Comic Book Guy in "The Simpsons."
That's who writes those sort of reviews of my
records. And I know that's true.
I do know some things. I have lived a little
bit of a broader experience, so while I don't
want to be highhanded about it, I can't obviously
limit myself to this very narrow definition
of what's hip and what isn't hip. Because I
know what's hip. What's hip is what's hip to
you in the moment, you know? And if that's the
gentlest or the loudest sound, that's what's
hip to you, and that's what you need. There's
a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's
a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a
time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a
time in life for Destiny's Child. All of these
things have their moment.
*
The ASCAP Founders Award to
Elvis Costello
Songwriter...
Musician...
Iconoclast...
Unique creative spirit...
whose music defies boundaries and will enrich
generations to come.
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