Look Now , October 2018

Pretty self-explanatory
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johnfoyle
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by johnfoyle »

https://www.avvenire.it/agora/pagine/costello

Google translation -



Music. The real women of Elvis Costello in the new album
Andrea Pedrinelli Thursday 4 October 2018


In the cd "Look now" the English singer-songwriter dedicates 8 songs out of 12 to female subjects "because women are more credible than us men.

It was since 2013 that the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello did not publish unpublished CDs, even from 2010 he did not fire a solo one: but Look now, out on October 12th, is not just a rentrée expected by fans (who will not be disappointed), but also a real rebirth of the artist. In May, in fact, Costello had to cancel several shows to undergo the removal of a tumor, small but aggressive; and Look now,then just finished, we did not know when he would see the exit. Now, however, the time has finally come to start again: both with the tour (for now in the US and Canada but will also arrive in Europe) and with an album sounding as essential as vigorous, centered not by chance on the sense of living and future and nothing short of spectacular for poetic depth, musical inspiration and an ability to face strong themes in solid lightness, apparent and consoling, from pop-rock of the highest profile. Accompanied in the adventure by his band The Imposters, Steve Nieve on keyboards, Davey Faragher on bass and Pete Thomas on drums, Look nowferma on record the quality achieved by the complex; and in the songs it ranges between the insinuating and autobiographical Under lime, the majestic and absorbed Do not look now, the touching and cinematic Stripping paper, the open and symphonic I let the sun go down, the vital and scratched Dishonor the stars and the restless and pointinist Why will not Heaven help me? , the latter imbued with fears about old age and end of life.

At the center of the stories of the songs stand out above all women: an adolescent model uncertain about the future that returns in a second piece to scream as an adult the mistake of choosing money and not freedom, a betrayed wife who rereads the wedding in the corners of home, a disappointed daughter, even - in the black ballad and suspended Unwanted number - a girl victim of paternal abuse but has the strength to choose the love for the child born of them rather than an absolute hatred. And this song, which Costello has developed over time, transforming the protagonist from victim to winner, is just one of the many clues to revisit the sense of life due to cancer, which despite himself gave the London-based artist '54 new awareness: so much so that during our meeting, to the modest question about illness, Costello lights up his voice to say "Thank you: I really thank you, for asking."

Do you think you have learned anything from cancer?

"I do not know. Who is close to me was nothing short of terrified, me less: perhaps for the shock I was thinking only about the concerts to be done and the album to finish, I watched the operation as a small commitment among others, hoping only to take away as little time as possible. Afterwards, I realized that I felt more aware, more grateful to life, more attentive; to appreciate more both my time and my job. And I realized that when I was recording the last voices of the cd I was forced to do my best because I had something inside that told me that it could also be the last time I sang ».

The choice to go back to the records for what was due?

«I had chosen not to affect any more without important things to say or to make heard, and on tour I realized that The Imposters deserved a record visibility for the ability to give emotions that the band has achieved. In addition I had pieces of several years ago in the drawer ( Burnt sugar is so bitter wrote it with Carole King twenty years ago as Suspect my tears, Nda) and my wife, singer and pianist Diana Krall, has made me get to know them. It was the right moment for her. "

How did you come to sing the drama, complex and scabrous but full of pietas, of Unwanted number?

"I asked myself too: it's hard to understand where the songs come from. Of course this has its own particular development, over time from the occasion of complaint and judgment without discounts has become something else for me. Perhaps it was having overcome the modesty of facing it that makes me live now as a song of love for a child and not only. Of course I think people have a huge need for songs like that, and that my job as an artist is also to write about them ».

Is not it curious that you are today talking almost exclusively about women?

"In eight tracks out of twelve: it's strange, yes. I think it depends on the fact that when I have nothing to say about credible characters, women are more than men. They are deeper, they know how to love, they know how to share ... There is a greater authenticity in them ».

Has music ever been therapy, for Elvis Costello?

"I would not use that word because I know cerebral and music is emotion. But yes, for me it has always been a help, even something precious. High, like love or a sacrament. Never waste time with music, it makes you understand the world and yourself ».

But today Elvis Costello still intends to retire for his family as he said some time ago?

"Ah no. I love the stage, I want to meet people, and then I give a different value to time: of course I will always cut it off to bring my twins to school, but there are other stories waiting to be sung. And then believe me, now I have a crazy desire to travel the world to understand how the public will react to my new songs, the songs of my return ".
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

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"Suspect My Tears" video:

sweetest punch
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

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Image


https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/musi ... -1.3647920

Elvis Costello: Look Now review – Focused and pulsating with vigour
Tony Clayton-Lea
4 stars (ot of 5)


Despite the much-trumpeted news of Elvis Costello’s recent ill health (not a full-scale battle with cancer, but more of an unpleasant encounter), this is not an album written and recorded in dread. Those expecting a Blackstar (David Bowie), a Time Out of Mind (Bob Dylan) or a You Want it Darker (Leonard Cohen) can, much like the Grim Reaper, walk away disappointed. As implied by the album title, Elvis Costello is very much in the present.

This is ever so slightly ironic, as his latest studio outing (arriving eight years after the rootsy National Ransom, upon whose release he said he had come to “the end of the line” with the album format) harks back to his 1982 work, Imperial Bedroom. That record (not produced but “directed” by studio engineer Geoff Emerick, formerly a crucial pair of ears for The Beatles on Revolver, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album and Abbey Road) is widely regarded as one of Costello’s very best. Indeed, American music critic Robert Christgau, reviewing it in the Village Voice, declared that certain songs on the album “are as great as songwriting ever gets”. A bold claim at any time, it nonetheless holds some truth with regard to Imperial Bedroom. It is no understatement to say that Look Now is that album’s long distant cousin.

The songs, recorded in New York with his band, The Imposters (former Attractions drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve, and long-term bassist Davey Faragher), were performed with the knowledge of needing to undergo surgery to excise “a small but very aggressive cancerous malignancy”. It seems futile to ponder whether Costello’s impending surgery added any levels of emotional depth or resonance to the songs; what is perhaps more pertinent is that the majority of the songs on Look Now pulsate with undisguised vigour compared with much of Costello’s recent output.

This is by no means coincidental. Costello’s 2017 tour, Imperial Bedroom and Other Chambers, revisited the titular album – not in rote entirety but with more discrimination. Digging in and under Imperial Bedroom’s songs triggered the notion of returning to, at the very least, their aesthetics. Look Now gathers together similarly dynamic material (not all of which was written recently – Burnt Sugar Is so Bitter, co-written with Carole King, dates from more than 25 years ago) with such a steady hand that songs such as Under Lime, Photographs Can Lie, Stripping Paper, Suspect My Tears and Don’t Look Now constitute a latter-day high in the songwriter’s output.

It obviously helps matters that Costello’s writing remains as pointed (and less determinedly, quotably “clever”) as it has always been. One of contemporary music’s most perceptive lyricists, here he sings frequently from a feminine perspective: the dilemma of a wife in a failing marriage (Stripping Paper – “I wish we could laugh like that now, but what seemed to follow, it ended up hollow, was our vow”), a daughter’s thoughts on her cheating father (Photographs Can Lie – “he used to be more than this”), and a model scorning misplaced propositions (Don’t Look Now – “Don’t you dare, I’m not decent, go sit over there”).

The songs are framed in benchmark 1960s pop music arrangements that allude as much to Costello’s 1998 album, Painted from Memory, a collaborative high point with Burt Bacharach (who co-wrote Photographs Can Lie and Don’t Look Now) as to simmering Atlantic/Stax label records. There’s more to Look Now than reference points, however. There is a focus, a cohesive outlook, a defined outline, and ultimately the reappearance of a songwriter who aims to be in charge once more.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
jardine
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

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bronxapostle
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by bronxapostle »

Just ordered mine...$19.19 LP with free shipping on a friend's Amazon Prime. :)
jardine
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by jardine »

A cut and paste (w. thanks to Neil from the Mary Ann Hobbs thread) if you want to hear Don't Look Now and Stripping Paper.

The main show includes plays of Stripping Paper and Don't Look Now: https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/m0000mzb

in the main show, interview starts around 144, songs around 152
don't look now, 2:30, beautiful.

interview restarts at 2:05

stripping paper starts at 2:10.27
heartbreaking and exact
some of the best singing he's done and the clarity of the recording is fabulous.

end of the interview begins at 2:19
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A rope leash
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by A rope leash »

I'm jazzed about the release next week, and pleased because the new part-time job I got is working out, so it looks like I might be able to indulge my fandom.

All the released songs I've listened to over the phone-youtube-bluetooth-speaker bar connection are irritating me tremendously. Am I hearing 70's pop? Motown even? I hope there's some rocking tunes on this one, or funk even.

The critics are aflame, which bugs the shit out of me. This one might actually suck, but sell. I have to admit, I didn't dig Under Lime too much when I first heard it, but here it is stuck in my head. Maybe I really do like it, or maybe Elvis has tickled the cliche bone.

I've been checking the radio stations for signs of the new Elvis, but nothing so far here in San Diego. One of my favorite internet sites is showing ads for the release, a simple photo of the cover. No doubt they checked my browsing history to hit the target, but I'll be buying a CD at a store if I can find one.

Good luck to Elvis and may he have a big hit with this one. One critic said "every song a gem to treasure". I can't wait to get my hands on it!
bronxapostle
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by bronxapostle »

Me too rope. Unimpressed with the schmaltz of SUSPECT though i love the tune for 18/19 years now. UNWANTED a bit more pleasing to me as it is like it was all those years ago. YET, i remain quite unfazed by LIME after 3 hearings. THOUGH I DO ALWAYS SAY THOSE ARE THE GREAT ALBUMS...THE ONES THAT NEED 5 LISTENS. so i await the release and my changing opinion. I HOPE.
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by Neil. »

Guys, I think you're going to have to prepare yourself for a non-rocker - most of the reviews seem to imply it's the love child of Imperial Bedroom and Painted from Memory. I love the arrangement for 'Suspect My Tears' - it's definitely not a schmaltzy song if you listen to the lyrics. It's all about how people pretend to be upset in order to get what they want.
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by bronxapostle »

Neil. wrote:Guys, I think you're going to have to prepare yourself for a non-rocker - most of the reviews seem to imply it's the love child of Imperial Bedroom and Painted from Memory. I love the arrangement for 'Suspect My Tears' - it's definitely not a schmaltzy song if you listen to the lyrics. It's all about how people pretend to be upset in order to get what they want.
Oh Neil.. i know i will change my opinion. Like i said, THE GREAT ONES NEED TO GROW ON ME. I find if i like them right away, the attraction fades fast. Schmaltzy ain't bad necessarily.
Neil.
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by Neil. »

Four-star review in The Metro:

https://www.metro.news/music-review-elv ... s/1261121/

Review is by a British chain department store.
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by sulky lad »

Neil wrote
Review is by a British chain department store.
:D :D :D
Neil.
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by Neil. »

Google translation of this:

https://www.soundsandbooks.com/2018/10/ ... bumreview/

It's always amazing how hard gifted songwriters do with the charts. In his native Great Britain, Elvis Costello already celebrated his commercial breakthrough with his debut My Aim Is True. That was in 1977 and several top ten placings in the UK album charts were to follow. In Germany, however, yawning emptiness in the charts until the beginning of the new millennium (with the help of Anne Sofie von Otter), although almost everyone actually knew the glasses-nerd-buddy-holly-blend long ago. A favorite of critics was Elvis Costello, born in London in 1954, since long ago, with his stylistic diversity between pub rock, soul, rock-pop as well as excursions in jazz and classical music, he amazed everyone again and again.

First Elvis Costello album with the Imposters for ten years
Elvis Costello Look Now Cover Concorde Records His Album Look Now is the first collaboration with his backing band The Imposters since Momofuku in 2008. In addition to Pete Thomas on drums, Davey Faragher on bass and Steve Nieve on keyboard instruments, Costello has also engaged many female and male musicians Musician for the wind and string parts. Recording an album that "brings together the breadth of Imperial Bedroom and the emotional impact of Painted From Memory," was Costello's goal. He succeeded and his followers. When drumming at the beginning of the opener "Under Lime" one means to hear the Electric Light Orchestra with "Do not Bring Me Down". But piano, fanfare-like horns and soulful backing vocals and theatrical vocal inserts transform the song into a small drama.

The manuscript of Burt Bacharach
Almost all of the pieces were written by Elvis Costello himself, but in three Burt Bacharach had his hands in the game again. Of course these are by far the saddest and most graceful songs on the album ("Do not Look Now", "Photographs Can Lie", "He's Given Me Things"). The "Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter" written with Carole King, on the other hand, is a driving as well as elegant, in the end even wild songwriter disco soul pop piece. Costello & The Imposters are truly at their best. Gentle-melancholic grandezza ("Stripping Paper", "Suspect My Tears"), darker but euphoric soul ("Unwanted Number", already featured as song of the day), Born-Solemn Beatleeskes ("I Let The Sun Go Down") ) and boundless melodies ("Why Will not Heave Help Me?") are close together. The soul in the Costello version as well as fine-hearted ballads and a virtuoso songwriting characterize Look Now. Best Elvis Costello class.
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by Neil. »

From this Dutch website - according to Google Translate, the album is 'full of earwigs'.

https://www.humo.be/cd-reviews/395037/e ... o-look-now

Elvis Costello's wife Diana Krall goes to duet with the 92-year-old crooner Tony Bennett at the new 'Love Is Here to Stay'. The Great American Songbook is open to the chapter George Gershwin: '' S wonderful! 'S marvelous! / That you should care for me! '

And with Elvis itself it is also excellent. He and his doctor have defeated a small, malignant tumor. To the question "Which part of the body are you least happy with?" He replied recently: "I have always had to wear glasses to hide my nose."

Costello has also added a brand new chapter to his own songbook: 'Look Now' is his first since 'Wise Up Ghost' with The Roots, and his first in ten years with The Imposters, until further notice keyboard player Steve Nieve, bassist Davey Faragher and drummer Pete Thomas. In opener 'Under Lime' the drums and the piano come out of the Motown store. Blazers and backings bring short codes to George Martins Sgt. Pepper orchestra.

The key song seems 'Unwanted Number': written in 1995, for a fictional sixties-girl group in the movie 'Grace of My Heart'. The narrator is a teenage girl, the subject of an unwanted child: 'another unwanted number'. Text and atmosphere are reminiscent of 'Love Child' by The Supremes. Elvis, who long ago did not feel the ambition to perform with his own music - his idols were songwriters who went out for others, such as Burt Bacharach and the Holland-Dozier-Holland team - put their own, but on behalf of someone differently written song to his hand. And how!

Carole King, who also worked for those dream factories in the period before 'Tapestry', wrote to 'Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter', a song full of soul on their way to disco to roll on skates. Burt Bacharach crawls behind the piano for two ballads he has delivered: Elvis sings them even better than anything from 'Painted From Memory', his Bacharach album from 20 years ago.

Just the phrase 'I'll cry until you / suspect my tears' brings soul history to life. The tune, the arrangements and the impeccable production do the rest. You do not hear a rock guitar anywhere. Elvis' excuse: 'If my rhythm section is in blood form, I can better limit myself to the backbeat with my Telecaster.'

Special attention for the poignant 'Stripping Paper'. A woman thinks of the old days as she pulls wallpaper from the walls: 'Back then we did not have the means / for fine decorations / so we painted while mixin' wine with flirtations / (voice change) / there in the mess of it all '. The piano peeps up every time, winds struts subtly the short mistress, Elvis' voice twists are enchanting in all twelve songs.

'Look Now' is complex and straightforward, compact and opulent, to the point and nuanced. The album alternates the momentum of soul with ballads in which it usually ends badly. And she is - specially tested for you in tram, kitchen and bath - full of earwigs.
Neil.
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by Neil. »

Another Google translation from this:

https://www.suedtirolnews.it/unterhaltu ... -dem-krebs

"Look Now": Elvis Costello's big comeback after the cancer

Elvis Costello was ill, very sick even. Shortly after a cancer diagnosis, the Brit now released a new album. As if he wanted to oppose the particular vulgarity of his illness something particularly beautiful: "Look Now" - look, I am fully back.

It was a shock - for Elvis Costello, his wife, the famous jazz singer Diana Krall, his family, but also for his fans. In early July, the musician announced that he had found "a small but extremely aggressive cancer." Although it was eliminated, a longer recovery but force him to stop his tour. Concern for the British, one of the most important songwriters of the pop, was great (and still is in such an illness).

All the more gratifying that the singer and guitarist is now releasing a new album, five years after their most recent studio work "Wise Up Ghost" with the hip-hop band The Roots. In addition, after a decade, it's finally time for a record with his great band The Imposters, part of which was part of the legendary Costello accompanist The Attractions back in 1979.

But the very best: "Look Now", just that album after the cancer diagnosis and thus anyway a comeback of a special kind, sounds so confident and powerful that one inevitably perceives it as a statement against the ugliness of serious illness and fears of death: Look, here I am, Elvis Costello, 64 years young, at the height of my creative power, without fear.

Even without this serious background, the record would be one of Costello's strongest. And that's saying something to a songwriter who has developed into a highly respected master of all classes since his beginnings in punk in the 70s with a dozen different major works: New Wave, Rock, Soul, Country, Art Song - these are just a few the style drawers, which explored in 1954 as Declan Patrick MacManus man with horn-rimmed glasses extensively. And again and again beautiful ballads without expiration date.


Also "Look Now" has in many ways something timeless classic, without - as for example Costello's controversial chamber music "The Juliet Letters" of 1993 - concrete borrowing from the "serious" classic. Some songs were written by the Londoner along with two giants of pop songwriting: Carole King ("Tapestry") was involved some time ago in the now finally released "Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter", the 90-year-old Burt Bacharach even on three current ones pieces.

The most agile US composer on the stage today is considered the "King of Easy Listening" - an honorary title that reflects the sophistication of his countless world hits (from "Make It Easy On Yourself" to "I Say A Little Prayer" and "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head "to" That's What Friends Are For "). 20 years ago, Costello collaborated with Bacharach on the Grammy-decorated "Painted From Memory" - and the laid-back atmosphere of this collaboration between two fabulous songwriters of various generations now also radiates "Look Now".

Of course you can hear that on the common songs "Do not Look Now", "Photographs Can Lie" and "He's Given Me Things". But Costello's solo-writing tracks like Stripping Paper, I Let The Sun Go Down, Suspect My Tears and Why Will not Heaven Help Me? 60s influenced.

The musical background is provided by the Imposters - Steve Nieve (keyboards), Davey Faragher (bass) and Pete Thomas (drums) - as usual great as well as stylistically confident string and brass arrangements. And Costello's singing? He is known to be a matter of taste, and sometimes his voice sounded too overpowering. This time it's different: as casual and unstressed as on the recorded in some of the best US studios "Look Now" the Briton has probably never sung.

In his statement Krebs Costello also said that he was lucky - the tumor had been removed with surgery. Before that, considering the thoughts of his own mortality, it had been "a bit strange" to record some new songs, the musician now confessed in the magazine "Mojo" - like the line "Allow me to dictate my dying wants" in the album opener "Under Lime ".

Costello added: "There is no better reason than to be wide-awake for the present." He has set a strong, defiant signal with the wonderful, self-pitying "Look Now" record.
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

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Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter:

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verbal gymnastics
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

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Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by johnfoyle »

Nice chat , except for a rather glaring error. Carole fell off stage after a Dylan show in Dublin, not London.

https://www.expectingrain.com/dok/set/9 ... 50411.html

Now at link 10/10/18 -

'Correction: October 10, 2018
An earlier version of this article misstated the location of Carole King’s stage accident. It was in Dublin, not London.'






https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/arts ... -king.html


Elvis Costello, Carole King and a Song 20 Years in the Making

Image
A song Elvis Costello and Carole King wrote in the 1990s, “Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter,” is finally being released on Costello’s new album, “Look Now.
Photo by Erik Tanner for The New York Times


By Jim Farber
Oct. 9, 2018


Two decades ago, Elvis Costello and Carole King kept running into each other at a Japanese restaurant in Manhattan. “It was the lure of the sea urchin,” Costello said. And the meals paid off: Over the course of several omakase dinners, the musicians developed a friendship that led to a writing collaboration — but not before they went through a harrowing experience.

In 1995, the two were performing with Bob Dylan and Van Morrison at Brixton Academy in London. “At the end, it was too dark and when everyone went offstage left, I went stage right,” said King. “Boom! I fell 15 feet onto a concrete floor.” Costello said it was “truly horrifying.” King broke her right wrist and left thumb in the accident. “I think I was saved by landing on a pile of cables,” she said.
Not long after, the two musicians decided to write a song together. For more than 20 years, the piece, “Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter,” only existed as a demo, though Costello performed it live on several occasions. But the track finally has a home on “Look Now,” his new album with the Imposters, out Friday.

Several weeks ago, the two met at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village (where he recorded the album’s strings) to talk about their work together, as well as their separate histories as collaborators, writers and performers. Settling down on a plush red sofa, King, 76, kept referring to her collaborator by his birth name.

“Do you mind if I call you Declan?” she asked Costello, 64, who was looking healthy several months after revealing that he had undergone successful surgery for cancer.

“Anything but Gladys,” he answered. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters - "Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter" by Elvis Costello
“Burnt Sugar” fits right into “Look Now,” which recalls the grandeur of those highly arranged, early ’60s pop hits written by artists like you, Carole. When you heard the album, did you recognize yourself in it?

CAROLE KING I didn’t, but I did recognize a value I hold dear, which is authenticity in presentation. You take a song that’s good, and you go into the studio and you present it to the band, and they find themselves feeling the groove. Then you give them direction, and they take it to levels you didn’t quite imagine. You [Elvis] probably have more of the big picture going in than I do.

ELVIS COSTELLO That’s really true of this record. It’s one of the only ones where I recorded the vocals last. Normally, I arrange outward from a core vocal, which tortures the band. Sometimes the drummer says I drag or speed up a verse. Here, I had it all arranged in my head.
In your memoir, Elvis, you wrote about seeing Carole in concert in Manchester in 1971 when you were 17. Do you remember that show?

COSTELLO The two most memorable concerts I saw that year were you, with James Taylor, and Joni [Mitchell] doing “Blue” before that album came out. Can you imagine today someone touring before their album came out? You were playing all these songs that had been standards from the ’60s and then your songs from “Tapestry.” But you made sure not to tour until your album was in shops!
KING That wasn’t me. It was Lou Adler [the head of her record company, Ode].

COSTELLO I have a Lou Adler story. I was sitting at the Whiskey A Go Go in 1978 watching [the band] Rockpile, and this gentleman passes a piece of paper over the table, so I signed it. I thought he wanted my autograph. Looking floored, he handed the paper back to me and, after I turned it over, I saw it said, “Lou Adler” with his phone number on it. He was trying to sign me!

KING He knew your talent. We all knew! You did so many different things and did them all well. If you had begun in our generation of writers you’d be right there with us.

COSTELLO I can’t believe you said that!

KING A lot of it is just time and place. In some ways, I feel that it’s all undeserved for me. I know that I’ve done the work and I have the gift, but I feel grateful that circumstances put me in a time and place where people have gotten to hear it.

COSTELLO Do you remember the first reaction you got performing for people in the business? When I started doing it, they thought I would be coming in with a tape and I could see the look on the guy’s face when I walked in with my guitar. I made him listen to me play, and I’m super loud. I could see him thinking, “When is he going to stop?” I imagine it would be different if you come in playing “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.”



KING I have to say this as if I’m speaking of someone else: I got everybody’s attention. I think they weren’t expecting a small Jewish girl to have that much power or confidence. They were hungry for new talent. They were small start-up companies. Atlantic Records was in a tiny office on 54th Street.

Carole, you made history twice: first as one of the young, New York writers of the ’60s hits; then as part of the singer-songwriter movement of the early ’70s, which asserted that the quirky writer’s voice was more authentic than the “professional” singer. Given your unusual voice, Elvis, was that aesthetic shift an inspiration?

COSTELLO You hit the nail on the head. I never planned to be a singer. I was a songwriter. My role model was Robbie Robertson, but I couldn’t find a Levon Helm or a Rick Danko, so I was forced to sing. Had I come up in Carole’s time, I tell myself I wouldn’t have been a performer, which, for a lot of people, would have been a relief because they wouldn’t have to hear me sing.

KING I beg to differ. Probably you would have started off as a songwriter, but your vocal ability would have emerged. Your interpretations of your songs are magnificent.

COSTELLO When you went from songwriting to singing, you were reclaiming songs that made their name played by other people.

KING Look, if you’re following Aretha Franklin [on “Natural Woman”] it’s like … I wasn’t going to try to compete with her vocally because that would be silly. What I did was just present the song I had written.

In a way, Carole, that makes you an unlikely collaborator with Elvis. Your songs are unfussy, and his are ornate, especially lyrically.

COSTELLO That’s probably because I thought of myself as a writer before I thought of myself as a musician. I knew I was some kind of writer from when I was 8 or 9. I didn’t know I was a musician until I was 17.

KING Your lyrics aren’t linear, but you get all the emotional components of what’s going on. There’s a freedom to it, even though you might not be able to draw a line from Point A to Point B.

COSTELLO That’s why you listen to the song more than once.

KING Well, I go directly from Point A to Point B, and they listen too!

Elvis, you’re known for full-album collaborations with everyone from Paul McCartney to the Roots. Carole, you’ve teamed with artists from Paul Westerberg to Mariah Carey. Why do you enjoy the collaborative process?

COSTELLO It’s the speed with which it’s done. When I did the songs with Paul McCartney, it was like a tennis match. Reaching across the table, I’ve got this line. I’ve got that line. And then the song was done.

Carole, what do you look for in a collaborator?

KING You trust that the person is coming from the same place — i.e. let’s write something creative that comes to a conclusion we both want. Most of the people who I collaborate with rise to that occasion.

What’s the core of your contribution to the writing?

KING I’m very chord oriented. I have been informed in that by Richard Rodgers — the way he wrote melodies that are deceptively simple.
[Both Costello and King spontaneously break into the same Rodgers’s song, “If I Loved You.”]

COSTELLO That could be one of your tunes!

KING I hear that, yeah.

COSTELLO People also hear that gospel thing in your songs because of “Natural Woman.”

KING That’s an influence too. It’s all down to writing the chords. Sometimes I wander off melodically. I’m wondering, “How the hell do I get from here to there?” To me, bringing it all back home is the magic of writing. When you have a collaborator, you share that joy. It’s so much richer than what you can write on your own.
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertai ... fda054b905

Review: Elvis Costello views misery on sumptuous ‘Look Now’

By Pablo Gorondi | AP October 9 at 3:10 PM

Like in “Anna Karenina,” the characters in “Look Now,” Elvis Costello’s sumptuous new album with The Imposters, are each unhappy in their own way.

A woman who laments her deteriorated marriage while doing some renovations around the house (”Stripping Paper”); a dilapidated music-hall singer whose return to showbiz may be brief (”Under Lime”); a daughter pondering her dad’s infidelity (”Photographs Can Lie”); someone grieving the end of the British empire (”I Let the Sun Go Down”) and so on.

What make it easy to be sympathetic with even the most pitiable of those in these very human songs are Costello’s elegant melodies and arrangements, which result in a kind of silkier, even more debonair version of “Imperial Bedroom,” his 1982 album produced by recently departed Beatles recording engineer Geoff Emerick.

Costello’s guitars are mostly in a supporting role. Horns, woodwinds and strings — as well as some of the liveliest backing vocals on an EC album since Afrodiziak lit up “Punch the Clock” — plus the deft hands of The Imposters and Argentine-born co-producer Sebastian Krys, turn “Look Now” into one of his most sonically gratifying records.

Burt Bacharach composed some of the music and Costello also dusted off “Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter,” another tale of domestic gloom, written years ago with Carole King. But there are several others, including “Why Won’t Heaven Help Me” and “Stripping Paper,” which show how deeply those 1960s sounds, from pop to soul, influenced Costello and how expertly he applies them in his own superlative songwriting, which “Look Now” has plenty of.

Costello said he recorded the lead vocals as he was recovering from a cancer scare and it made him feel invigorated instead of depressed. The power of his voice here, including that characteristic long-wave vibrato, confirms his mood.

Those in Costello’s songs may be mostly miserable, but “Look Now” will make its listeners very happy indeed.
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

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Crikey! First listen, 'Burnt Sugar' is a far cry from the haunting, tormented torch ballad feel of the live recording I know. Oh well, will give it some more listens!
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

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And No Coffee Table wrote:Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter:

Kitten Kuroi:
"New Elvis Costello track with my vocals on it! Briana Lee & Davey Faragher are singing work me, too and I can really hear all our distinctive voices on it. I remember coming up with a cool idea in the studio by accident, EC was inspired by it and we recorded a hybrid version of his idea and my idea!!"
Hawksmoor
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

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Neil. wrote:Crikey! First listen, 'Burnt Sugar' is a far cry from the haunting, tormented torch ballad feel of the live recording I know. Oh well, will give it some more listens!
Wow. It is fantastic. This and 'Under Lime' are really firing me up for the LP.
bronxapostle
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by bronxapostle »

Neil. wrote:Crikey! First listen, 'Burnt Sugar' is a far cry from the haunting, tormented torch ballad feel of the live recording I know. Oh well, will give it some more listens!
Sounds like we have flipped sentiments now on this track Neil. :lol: :lol: This one i do like quite a bit upon first listen. Oddly, i do not recall it from 1999, other than the title. Surely i have a show from LONELY WORLD in house with it. I was lucky enough to get to six shows from May to October and Elvis sure did unleash MANY NEW GREAT SONGS FOR US including THIS one that year. Naturally, it had to be less Latin/jazz tinged in the duo configuration. I really dig the 1983 approach on this one with classic EC snarl. A+++ here, best one of the four for me, thus far.
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by Neil. »

bronxapostle wrote:Sounds like we have flipped sentiments now on this track Neil.
Ha ha - indeed, Bronx! Second listen, the faster version loses a lot of the lyrics for me, and I really miss the dramatic finale of the "Look at her now - my, how things have changed; my how things have changed" - the vicious smugness of the gossiping neighbours, with thundering piano dramatic rumbles from Steve. Now it's a fadeout that is something else entirely.

But that's how it goes - it's often best not to get used to a live early version. I've never heard the live version of 'Suspect My Tears', so I totally love the new studio version, as I'm not comparing it to anything.

Bring on the album! Not long now...
bronxapostle
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Re: Look Now: new album announced!

Post by bronxapostle »

Fun laughing about it with you Neil. Inversely, i saw SUSPECT a couple times that way in 1999. But, throughout the years, i wanna estimate i have seen at least FIFTY songs IF NOT MORE, for my first hearing, LIVE AND NEW in concert. I then adapt to the way they turn out in the studio pretty well, i guess, embracing their genesis. Now, ocd ba has to compile a new list, SONGS HEARD FIRST TIME LIVE IN PERSON ANYWHERE FROM ONE YEAR TO NINETEEN YEARS OF THEIR INEVITABLE (HOPEFUL) RELEASE!!! :lol: still waiting for some....FAR FROM THE PRIZE, anyone???

P.S. quick count, about 90 songs i have seen LIVE before they were ever released!!!
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