Every Day I Write The Book - Elvis' writings

[johnfoyle]

Throughout this forum are pieces written by Elvis ; this thread is an attempt to group them all together and make them easy to access and refer too.
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`Elvis Costello offers a handful of stories from his ten years on the beat-
Hot Press, 1987-07-16 '

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... =hot+press

Elvis' notes on his Starbucks Artist Choice collection -

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3605

Elvis' journal on his official site in 2002

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... ls+holland


Elvis writes about the '04/'05 tour etc.

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=4388


Elvis' notes for GIRLS +₤?RLS =$& GIRLS compilation -

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3590

Elvis' note for Extreme Honey - Best of Warner years -

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3594


Elvis writes about Norwich and 'that match', May '05

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3998


http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/ ... 1101a.html

Elvis Costello picks music for every hour of the day
Vanity Fair, 2002-11-01


http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/ ... 041101.php

Interview of Joni Mitchell
Vanity Fair, 2004-11-01
Elvis Costello

http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/ ... 1101a.html

Elvis picks the 500 Greatest Albums Ever
Vanity Fair, 2000-11-01
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Elvis writes about Frank Sinatra , July 1998

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... 8292#68292

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Elvis writes about The Beatles


http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... 4764#74764

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1977 - My Aim Is True sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3464

1978 - This Years Model sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3465

1978- Armed Forces , sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3466

1979 - Get Happy sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3467


1980 - Trust sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3468

1981- Almost Blue sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3469

1982 - Imperial Bedroom sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3470

1983 - Punch The Clock sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3471

1984 - Goodbye Cruel World sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3472

1985 - King Of America sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3473

1986 - Blood and Chocolate sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3474

1986/7/8/9 - Spike sleevenotes

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3475

1990 - Mighty Like A Rose sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3476

1990 - Kojak Variety sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3477

1991/2 - The Juliet Letters sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3478

1993/94 - Brutal Youth sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3479

1995/96 - All This Useless Beauty sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3480

2002 - Il Sogno sleevenote

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3481


Elvis notes for 'Dusty In Memphis'

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... pringfield

Elvis`sleevenote for a 1982 Gram Parsons compilation.

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... am+parsons


Elvis sleevenote for ' George Jones Salutes Hank Williams'

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... php?t=3584

Elvis' reviews Presley biography/ foreward to jazz book

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... enny+green

[so lacklustre]

john - You're a star.

[alexv]

John, are the liner notes that EC wrote for the great "George Jones Salutes Hank Williams" record available on the Net? I had the vynil record at one time but can't locate it.

[johnfoyle]

John, are the liner notes that EC wrote for the great "George Jones Salutes Hank Williams" record available on the Net?

No and thanks for reminding me of this. Elvis wrote 'notes for the 1984 re-issue. Hopefully they survive on a copy I've just ordered via Amazon.

see

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:George%20Jo ... ge=credits

[RinghioStarr]

Wondeful "sticky topic".

[Jackson Monk]

Is there a more dedicated fan than our John?

Cheers mate

[bambooneedle]

The Extreme Honey notes: http://members.aol.com/starlingv/ehnotes.htm

This is the only site google can find that has them.

[dead_lizard]

Anyone got the liner notes to Girls Girls Girls?

[wardo68]

Anyone got the liner notes to Girls Girls Girls?

I've got the CD version -- I'll try to type them up this weekend if nobody else gets to it first.

On a slight tangent -- in the late lamented Beyond Belief fanzine there was a semi-regular feature by Dave Farr (I think) called "EC A to Z". Sadly he only got halfway through the alphabet when the magazine ceased publication. Does anyone know if he ever finished it?

[LittleFoole]

John, thanx for the links - I've rather enjoyed reading the sleevenotes, ....taking me back in time .

[MegJS]

Are there any notes for When I Was Cruel?

[bambooneedle]

Are there any notes for When I Was Cruel?

Check out his 'journal notes' - these are the few entries that he made to the official Island Elvis Costello site in the WIWC period. There was also 'Ask Elvis', where he responded to questions posed by supporters, though I haven't cared to read them if they're online at all.

[IStandAccused]

I just read an amazing new blog at http://www.bebe-buell.com
It addresses some points in regard to EC liner notes- it is on the main page under the heading "Recent Updates & Blogs". You have to scroll down a bit past the Paul Cowsill blog, etc...
I'm not here to stir the pot but I believe her and think she sounds very SOUND and intelligent.
Please don't attack me for pointing this out. I found it valid and interesting reading.

[Who Shot Sam?]

I just read an amazing new blog at http://www.bebe-buell.com
It addresses some points in regard to EC liner notes- it is on the main page under the heading "Recent Updates & Blogs". You have to scroll down a bit past the Paul Cowsill blog, etc...
I'm not here to stir the pot but I believe her and think she sounds very SOUND and intelligent.
Please don't attack me for pointing this out. I found it valid and interesting reading.

Can I ask you very politely to go away?

Funny that her godawful writing style is nearly identical to yours.

[IStandAccused]

I just read an amazing new blog at http://www.bebe-buell.com
It addresses some points in regard to EC liner notes- it is on the main page under the heading "Recent Updates & Blogs". You have to scroll down a bit past the Paul Cowsill blog, etc...
I'm not here to stir the pot but I believe her and think she sounds very SOUND and intelligent.
Please don't attack me for pointing this out. I found it valid and interesting reading.

Can I ask you very politely to go away?

Funny that her godawful writing style is nearly identical to yours.

LOL- absolutely WSS. Absolutely. I had no idea that my tiny little blurt had a "style" but I'll keep that in mind. LOL... Bye and sorry to disrupt your hero worship.

[Who Shot Sam?]

LOL- absolutely WSS. Absolutely. I had no idea that my tiny little blurt had a "style" but I'll keep that in mind. LOL... Bye and sorry to disrupt your hero worship.

No hero worship from me, but this Bebe Buell business is SO FUCKING BORING.

[IStandAccused]

LOL- absolutely WSS. Absolutely. I had no idea that my tiny little blurt had a "style" but I'll keep that in mind. LOL... Bye and sorry to disrupt your hero worship.

No hero worship from me, but this Bebe Buell business is SO FUCKING BORING.

And I agree with you my friend. I do in fact think that she has a right to respond to very public attacks. I think she handled it well. This is after all a thread about El's writings and liner notes et al.

I also notice that there is a link here to purchase "Complicated Shadows" which also features her, photos and all.

I am no enormous fan of her's but I don't hate her either. I am however a big Costello fan and follow much of this type of stuff. The link was sent to me by another person from this forum. Sorry to have started any trouble. That was never my intention WSS.

And if she or it are so boring, why does Elvis keep her as a topic of conversation to the point where she felt compelled to write this blog, kind sir? On second thought- lets not answer that, lol. I'll drop it if you do. Deal? Carry on.

[Jackson Monk]

BLAH BLAH BLAH

[johnfoyle]

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/book ... lets_.html


CD booklets from My Aim, Imperial Bedroom, and Useless Beauty

Photo illustration by Jane Zitomer.


Everyday I Hide the Book
Elvis Costello’s rock-star memoir is one of the best ever. It was written for 17 CD booklets, and it might never see the light of day again.

By John Lingan

Friday, Aug. 3, 2012

Thirty-five years ago, a gangly 22-year-old named Declan MacManus quit his job in a London lipstick factory and adopted the stage name Elvis Costello. Stiff Records was about to release his debut LP, My Aim Is True, and had signed him to a contract that could support his wife and young son. With the windfall, Costello bought back the copy of A Hard Day's Night that he’d pawned to afford the previous month’s gas bill.

Costello has never been overly forthcoming about his personal life, so it might be surprising to hear that he divulged this humanizing anecdote, and many others, in one of the best rock-star memoirs of the last decade. His story is more music-oriented than Patti Smith’s Just Kids, less self-aggrandizing than Keith Richards’ Life, and more revealing than Chronicles Pt. 1 by Bob Dylan. Unlike those books, Costello's memoir hasn't won any awards or appeared on any best-seller lists—fact is, it doesn't even have a title or a publisher. But between 2001 and 2006, Costello authored 17 long reflective essays to accompany Rhino Records’ full reissue of his 1977-1996 catalog. These reminiscences add up to more than 60,000 words—longer than The Great Gatsby—and they provide the only intimate firsthand look at one of the most written-about pop careers of all time.

But good luck finding them. After the Rhino reissue series, Universal Music bought the rights to Costello’s first decade of recordings and reissued them yet again, essay-free, under their Hip-O Select label. Rhino has since stopped releasing even the other ‘80s and ‘90s records that included Costello’s writings; if you want to own them now, you’ll have to find used copies or pay anywhere from $30 to $80 for new ones on Amazon. (Alternatively, you can read typo-riddled transcriptions of some of the essays on the Elvis Costello wiki.)

You’d think that Costello, who according to his management now owns the rights to the essays, would be keen to publish them for a broader audience. (He denied Slate's request to run an excerpt to accompany this article.) After all, musician memoirs have become big business since he wrote his. Books by Eric Clapton, Gil Scott-Heron, Jay-Z, and Bob Mould have been covered as cultural events, just as Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace promises to be when it arrives this fall. And certainly Costello’s career choices have been inscrutable enough to warrant explanation. The memoir-in-CD-booklets engagingly chronicles Costello’s evolution from cantankerous young man to irrepressible middle-aged gadfly and collaborator. Now in his 50s, Costello is an improbable ambassador for big band jazz, New Orleans funk, American roots, and Gershwin-indebted orchestral music, to name only a few of the styles he’s indulged over the last decade. But the liner notes remind the reader that Costello’s tastes and ambitions extended beyond rock from the beginning. Remembering the songwriting process for My Aim Is True, he recalls the mix of influences he stirred into one of his best songs:

I spent a lot of time with just a big jar of instant coffee and the first Clash album, listening to it over and over. By the time I got down to the last few grains, I had written “Watching the Detectives.” The chorus had these darting figures that I wanted to sound like something from a Bernard Herrmann score.

Costello pays heed to the required arc of the rock star memoir, though the limited space available to him prevents wallowing in backstage excesses. “I surrendered to temptation, committed selfish acts of betrayal, and destroyed any possibility of trust and reconciliation in my marriage,” he admits of his heavy-touring days following 1979’s Armed Forces. “I was as normal as any young idiot suddenly thrust into the charts and onto the cover of periodicals while being spoken about with exaggerated awe.” But he avoids self-pity, writing, “If I seemed a little self-absorbed at the time, then I have to say that much duller songs have been written on the subject.”

Amid all the pill-popping and excessive drinking, Costello found solace in relatively “duller” styles than his own vengeful proto-New Wave. In 1980, he released Get Happy!!, 20 songs in the manner of Stax/Volt soul, then followed it in 1981 with a country covers album, Almost Blue. In the essay for that album, Costello explains that his first couple years as a pop star had been so personally and professionally exhausting that he craved a break from his own head. “I had developed the notion that I might better express my feelings through other people’s words and music,” he writes. “Country ballads suited my blue mood most of all.”

Costello’s mood has ebbed and flowed but generally improved since that time, but he’s never lost the desire to wear whatever stylistic hat suits his current whims. In the essay for King of America, his first album cut largely with session musicians (including a few who played in the original Elvis’ band), Costello explains why this mid-career shift into troubadour mode was so liberating:

During my visits to Hollywood, I found myself sitting around hotel rooms late at night with other songwriters, drinking and swapping stories and songs. This was entirely new to someone who had started out in the rather more insular and competitive London scene. I would meet a lot of interesting characters in [King of America producer] T-Bone [Burnett]’s company over the next few years, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Dixon, Harry Dean Stanton, Kris Kristofferson, and Lucinda Williams.

There’s a long and well-documented history of English musicians fleeing gray Britain for America. What differentiates Costello is the great leap he made to incorporate those genres into his own music, against expectations. This Year’s Model and Armed Forces, his first records with his rampaging band the Attractions, were quintessentially British, full of amphetamine-boosted tempos, rancorous class politics, and eloquent wordplay.

But the success of songs like “Pump It Up” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” seems to have activated Costello’s paranoid streak, sending him running, Dylan-like, for anything other than what audiences expected of him. Writing about his 1993 collaboration with the classical-minded Brodsky Quartet, The Juliet Letters, Costello recalls critics who accused him of suddenly straining for artistic respectability:

Clearly anyone who made such a statement had little or no knowledge of the critical hyperbole that can rain down on even the slightest talent before the bloom goes off the romance in pop music. I had found myself being taken too seriously and over-analysed from the very outset of my recording career.


All This Useless Beauty, Costello’s last record with the Attractions, was released in 1996 and reissued by Rhino in 2001. It’s a mature and ruminative album, full of songs that Costello had written either for or with other artists. “None of these lyrics contained any anger toward the characters,” he writes, “only disappointment that they had settled for so little. I could just as easily have been talking to myself.” Though he leaves the source of his self-disappointment unspecified, Costello hasn’t approached this kind of frankness in any interview or writing I’ve seen elsewhere. It’s particularly startling given that he was only five years removed from the record in question. But by then he had already inaugurated the obsessively dilettantish approach that has distinguished his post-Attractions career. Since 1996, Costello has appeared intent on leaving no creative opportunity untaken, whether hosting a talk show on basic cable or releasing a symphony, Il Sogno, in 2004.

It’s a career path that has put all but the most devoted fans off his scent, though the Costello revealed in these mini-memoirs is both more humble and more expressive than some disappointed fans might think him to be after the last 15 years. Whatever the merits of his recent albums (and a few are quite good indeed), he has come to embody a searching and catholic kind of musical fandom that only seems more appropriate now, when seemingly all of recorded history is available to anyone with an Internet connection. (His 2002 Vanity Fair article “Rocking Around the Clock,” which lists his favorite music for all 24 hours of the day, simply begs for a Spotify playlist.) Most musician memoirs are an indulgence for author and reader alike, but Costello’s is the rare one that actually conveys the musical mind and shows how complex and generous it can be.

Even if, like me, you’ve listened to 1982’s Imperial Bedroom countless times and admired the Attractions’ melding of styles over its 15 songs, it’s still stunning to read the tangle of allusions that Costello unravels in his essay. He explains that his listening habits at the time included Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra, Erik Satie and Debussy, Miles Davis and the Left Banke. “Now as an adult,” he writes, “there was certainly something attractive about the way these records felt out of step with fashion and had a connection to so many musical threads.” That’s Costello’s late career in a sentence: chasing musical connections no matter how far afield of fashion they lead him. No wonder he took half a decade to write his memoirs—and then let them escape with a shrug.

[docinwestchester]

That's a really interesting article, john.

But who's responsible for all the "typo-riddled" transcriptions on the EC wiki? It's an outrage!

[johnfoyle]

As a contributor to the wiki site I have to hold my hand up and admit part responsibility for the imperfection of some of it's content. It is , however, the work of enthusiasts and fans. I , for one, just don't have the time to go through every line and fix things. It is still better than nothing and , hopefully , with time the texts will be corrected.

[docinwestchester]

Your efforts, typos and all, are very much appreciated by me and I'm sure everyone else here, if I may speak for them.

[johnfoyle]

Thanks!

The Slate feature was, sort of, done before , in May '05 - http://www.avclub.com/articles/elvis-costello,1464/

[Jack of All Parades]

Thank you, John, for pointing back to your '05 listing of known writings at the time. Fun reminder and as the Slate piece notes refreshing in its attention to the music and the creative process.

[johnfoyle]

Francis posts to the Slate link -

Actually, all of these liner notes are (thankfully) still accessible at http://www.elviscostello.com/records.


He's right. Click on the album cover, then click on ' liner notes' and then you can scroll down through the (typo free!) text.