Elvis Costello Fan Forum

At this distance it almost seems strange to reflect that The Juliet Letters recording was funded and released by the pop division of Warner Bros. During this sequence of re-issues, I have had the occasional harsh word for my former label, but in this case I can only say that this might have been one...

KING OF AMERICA The two interviewees wore large sunglasses. The tall one wore a Western-style jacket with lapels completely covered in rhinestones. The sullen one in white, floral brocade jacket wore a bolo tie and was perspiring in the California sunshine. They looked furtive and shifty. The CNN ti...

Il SOGNO Early in 2000, I received an invitation to attend a performance in Reggio Emilia of the Aterballeto production, “Paradiso” based on the writings of Dante. The intention was also to discuss my participation in their upcoming adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. In truth, I had little o...

ALL THIS USELESS BEAUTY Record companies were being devoured like cold shrimp on a lukewarm buffet. The good people of Warner Brothers were disenchanted. The nervous people were hiding under their desks and trying not to get fired. With flawless business acumen, I saw this as the ideal time to sugge...

BRUTAL YOUTH From where I was standing, jammed up against the off-white acoustic tiles behind a smeared glass screen, Pete Thomas was just visible in the opposite booth. I counted off the tune and hit a few guitar chords over the beat distorting in my headphones. I was back in Pathway Studios, where...

JULIET LETTERS So There was this professor in Verona who answered letters addressed to Juliet.... Well, if that sounds like the start of a tall story I suppose it is. My wife, Cait, pointed out the tiny newspaper item about a Veronese academic who had taken on the task of replying to letters address...

KOJAK VARIETY I walked from the blinding sunshine into the chill, air-conditioned gloom of the studio building. A shadowy figure was roused from a couch. He ambled toward us with an unfortunate air. He was an American who had been hired as second engineer for our sessions. Despite the lack of light ...

MIGHTY LIKE A ROSE The “Works Outing” had not turned out as planned. After many weeks in the studio under a pall of Hollywood smog, I had arranged for us all to go on a sailing trip off Long Beach. My co-producers, Mitchell Froom and Kevin Killen, must have thought the voyage doomed; after all, I wa...

SPIKE Away from London, after being a bandleader, out of the cold shadow of the Black Rock, I wrote these songs. In a Dublin hotel room, in a ship’s cabin off the coast of Greenland, on a summer’s afternoon in a house next to windmill as the English countryside rolled down to the coast. Some of them...

BLOOD & CHOCOLATE The Milanese audience did not respond to my enthusiastic introduction quite as expected. They caught sight of our "Special Guest" and collectively uttered a sigh of "Oh no, not her again"... only in Italian. Our promoter had sold us the idea that she was the...

KING OF AMERICA The two interviewees wore large sunglasses. The tall one wore a Western-style jacket with lapels completely covered in rhinestones. The sullen one in white, floral brocade jacket wore a bolo tie and was perspiring in the California sunshine. They looked furtive and shifty. The CNN ti...

GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD In 1999 I was making a small cameo appearance in a movie called 200 Cigarettes. The story was set in 1980, and with the help of some clever lighting and a hat I was playing “myself”. The film was a comedy that did a pretty good job of catching the mood of those days between punk ...

PUNCH THE CLOCK Preface 2003 It was rather like one of those anxiety dreams in which the groom finds himself at the altar, without his trousers. I was onstage at the “Red Parrot” nightclub in Manhattan with the entire Count Basie Orchestra behind me. I opened my mouth to sing, but all I could utter ...

IMPERIAL BEDROOM A familiar scene must have greeted Ringo when he walked into the studio. His former producer was stooped over the grand piano, talking through detail of an orchestral score. Our producer, Geoff Emerick, had asked George Martin to cast an eye over a madly ambitious Steve Nieve chart ...

ALMOST BLUE March 2004. Entering my dressing room at the Ryman Auditorium, I find a card attached to a gift basket wrapped in cellophane. Tearing open the envelope, I read: “Have a wonderful show at the Ryman. Sorry we can’t be there. Regards. George and Nancy Jones.” I pull out the foil-covered bot...

TRUST I was just telling Nick Lowe for the fourteenth time that our next record was going to cross the melody of Armed Forces with the rhythm of Get Happy!!, when one of the drummers present elected to do his party trick. This involved cutting the necktie of one of the other bar patrons with a pair ...

large amount of material in Holland, adapting “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” from a slow Sam & Dave B-side into a frenetic up-tempo, making use of a glass strings room as a vocal booth to create the signature sound of much of the album. This track would become the advance UK single, reachin...

MY AIM IS TRUE It was dark when I awoke. I could hear the rats scuttling across the rehearsal room floor. It was just as I had been warned. If the lights went off, the rats came out. Feeling for my shoes, I edged to the light-switch and illuminated the drinking party passed out on another ragged sof...

Any idea if any (all?) of the liner notes are up on-line somewhere? I'd hate to have to re-buy everything again.