Just seen the following on John E's site
BBC1 TV, Jeremy Vine Meets… - Interview
Scheduled for BBC1 TV in the UK next month Jeremy Vine Meets... Elvis Costello on Friday May 14 from 9 to 9.30pm.
Official press info says: In the last of the series. Jeremy meets his personal hero, Elvis Costello. Elvis reaffirms his hatred for Margaret Thatcher and stands by his song Tramp the Dirt Down. He also explains why he thinks Kylie Minogue is great and record industry moguls are simply "greedy".
Unlike most pop stars, Elvis talks of his ambition to be "not famous". He says that he always wanted to be a hidden person, whose songs would be appreciated. Jeremy asks whether this shy star is now retiring - happy to enjoy celebrity status at last.
The programme is the fifth of five Jeremy Vine Meets... shows that week. The others are: Sir Bob Geldof (May 10), Lionel Richie (May 11), Sting (May 12) and Debbie Harry (May 13). All at 9pm.
Jeremy Vine Interview
Jeremy Vine Interview
It was as much of the alphabet as I knew how to use.
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Boy With A Problem
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There's a Radio Times interview this week to advertise the programme. "Television... is run by morons" is EC's quote on the front cover.
http://www.radiotimes.com/content/featu ... magbig.jpg
http://www.radiotimes.com/content/featu ... magbig.jpg
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No Elvis/Vine Interview Scheduled on BBC1
Got the new radio times with the Elvis interview in it BUT looking thru the actual listings pages and the programme's not in it...I'm in Scotland and sometimes the BBC shows programmes at different times from the rest of Uk..but there's no listing for it in the Enlgish listings either..very strange!!!!
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Radio Times ( London) 8-14 May 2004
To promote the Jeremy Vine TV interview with
the BBC next week , this TV listings mag. has an
interview/feature. It clearly dates from last year ,
August I guess.
-----------------------------------------------------
The raging process.
Andrew Duncan meets Elvis Costello
His music may have mellowed, but the singer -
don't call him ` rock legend `, for pity's sake -
certainly hasn't.
As so often, the image is contradicted by reality.
Admittedly Elvis Costello is prolix, agonising over
three words when one will do, and there’s a
justifiable smidgen of irritability at lazy questions.
But the man with a soft voice, sitting in a London
hotel wearing nerdish horn rims and a three-piece
suit— even though its uncomfortably hot outside— is
far removed from the angry rocker who (according to
his song Tramp the Dirt Down) wanted to live long
enough to dance on Margaret Thatcher’s grave.
Costello’s reputation as a monosyllabic poseur makes
him unnerving, and he can be truculent. He’s a 'bit of a
workaholic, edgy, and lacking manufactured pop star
charisma, but good for him. We need an antidote to the
bland.
But hang on.... his latest incarnation is as a love
balladeer much to the annoyance of some fans,
bewildered by the twists and turns of his pleasingly
eclectic career.
To date Costello’s made more than 20 albums,
collaborated with Burt Bacharach, mezzo-soprano Anne
Sofie von Otter and The Brodsky Quartet, written an
Italian ballet based on Midsummer Night’s Dream, and
music for Alan Bleasdale's TV opuses Jake’s Progress
and GRH. He even acted as a magician in Bleasdale’s
film, No Surrender.
‘There’s talk about me doing more substantial acting.
I enjoy working with Alan. I’m not sure television is
worthy of him. It's run by morons, and those making
creative decisions are mediocre, their aspirations
constrained by the business environment. I watched The
Great War on DVD. I’d seen it first as a child, and
was shocked at how much more it assumes on the part of
the audience than anything done today”.
Costello’s often angry lyrics were softened in last
year’s album, North, which metamorphoses from his
second divorce (You Left Me in the Dark) to falling in
love with his third wife, acclaimed Canadian singer
Diana Krall (I’m In The Mood Again), whom he met when
they co-presented the Song of the Year award at the
2002 Grammys. They married at Elton John’s Windsor
home last Christmas.
Predictably North has been on a seesaw of reviews —
from brilliant to ”pompous. Pretentious, soporific”.
The lyrics are clearly personal. “lt doesn't matter if
people become morbidly curious that it’s
autobiographical. If you write something direct and
open, you’re inviting listeners to say, ‘Is that you?’
I say, ‘No. I see you in it.’ Songwriters become
identified with their words. Bob Dylan and Joni
Mitchell opened the way for a lot of boring lyricists
to burden us with their less interesting lives.
“People ask why I go in different directions. Why not?
As far as I know we only get one life, and when
opportunities come your way, the only reason not to do
them is if you’re defending a brand, which is a
wretched way to think about music.
“But it’s not for me to judge singers who are more
pragmatic — or cynical, depending on how generous
you’re feeling. The record industry has given me a lot
of money not to play the game. It’s been a huge con
all these years, wasting vast amounts of their money,”
he jokes, but adds more seriously, “I’ve spent my time
making records I like, and some they didn’t like at
all.
“Rock ‘n’ roll has become oddly conservative, although
I’ve had a problem about how financially crooked the
whole game is. A lot of it is falling apart through
its own greed and stupidity."
Some of his lyrics are hectoring, expressing deeply
felt views, but he says, “I haven’t written any
political songs. I’ve written as an emotional response
to events, so they're called political because
they’re not about love.
“You can have it both ways — serious intent and
popularity. It doesn’t all have to be insubstantial.
There’s a small rearguard action from smart people who
understand that art needn't be forbidding, and realise
some listeners want to spend time with a record that
isn’t completely disposable.” For the past 13 years
Costello has lived mostly in Dublin, “But I don’t
consider myself based anywhere. When I'm in England I
find the obsession with a handful of invented
celebrities is weird, amid dreamy. But it will pass,
like everything else.”
Time, perhaps, to have a go at him. Last year he
and his band, the Attractions, were inducted into the
Rock ‘n ’ Roll Hall of Fame (which honours legendary
performers ”), an honour he dismissed as ‘crap” a
few years earlier. “So many friends were really
excited,” he explains now. “I’ve been churlish about
accolades, so I thought, ‘It’s only a party. Go and
see for yourself’ My first instinct was right. It’s
ghastly. Those running it, who are on the business
side of music, spoke so much self—important hot air I
nearly walked out. I thought, ‘Please don’t tell me
these people think I’m good.’ Awards are a joke, but
I’m not sure who on. Nobel invented dynamite and now
has a peace prize. Is he trying to get in good with
God?” And as for being called a rock ‘n’ roll legend;
now he’s in his 50th year, he becomes almost
apoplectic. “I don’t see myself like that. I’d never
use ‘rock’ in a description of myself, or ‘legend’ — a
word promoters use to sell a few tickets for someone
who’s not so good as he thinks he is.”
Alter his initial success Costello joined another hall
of fame — the pop excess brigade. “I went slightly off
the rails, and didn’t make a big success of my
personal life. I had a fair go at the rock ‘n’ roll
lifestyle — it suits the younger man. Some of it was
fun, and some caused a lot of pain. Bad behaviour
is not necessary for pop Success. Some of my first
lyrics were written by a relatively puritanical young
man who thought, ‘I’ll try this temptation.’ You go
mad for a couple of years, and then deal with the
guilty side and try to regain tenderness, trust, and
a belief in something other than waking with a
headache. You start to look outwards and use some of
the skills you’ve almost accidentally accrued.”
He said he was motivated by revenge and anger.
‘There’s an element of truth, as well as exaggeration.
It’s obvious to anyone who listened that there were
many more emotions being expressed, but that first
image is potent. It made better copy, and I can’t be
blamed for that. It was journalists and advertising
men collaborating in myth making.
"Attitudes you pretend to have at 23 stay with
you. When you’re starting you like to come in hot and
determined, flatten everything around you while you
learn who you are and what you’re going to do. Then it
goes wrong, and from that you accumulate knowledge,
not necessarily wisdom. I never attached myself to any
gang or movement. Obviously I’m not an opera singer.
I’m in pop, but that’s a dirty word now, meaning
contrived and manufactured music. Everyone is just
trying to do their job — that’s what I say.”
In 1979 — when he was drunk and trying to goad
rock star Stephen Stills during a bar-room brawl — he
described singer Ray Charles as an ‘ ignorant blind
nigger”. The comment — for which Costello later
apologised — could have ruined his career. “Is this a
skeleton I hear? I spend a lot of time explaining the
effect even 25 years later, It’s complex. I’d like you
to read an essay I wrote about Get Happy!!, the album
that came out after that event [“it was the product of
crazed indulgence, the exact opposite of my true
beliefs”]. In the larger scale of transgressions there
are much more wicked things we can all say we did. I
did worse, hut I’m not telling you what.”
I wonder if he was a bit up himself “What a
charming expression,” he mutters. “I think everyone
is. But the most idiotic criticism of anyone creative
is that it’s self-indulgent. What in the world is
creativity supposed to be? It can be useless and
boring, but to criticise it for being self-indulgent
is missing the point entirely.”
What next? “I don’t have ambitions as such. Never had.
I didn’t go for fame. I’d rather the songs were
better known than me. It worked out that I’m a little
hit known in a lot of places, rather than so
uncontrollably known my life is bent out of shape. I
have friends like that, and I’m not sure that even all
their rewards are worth it. I’m big and ugly, so
people don’t confront me.”
------------------------------------------------------
This side feature also appears -
Who is Elvis?
Real name
Declan Patrick Aloysius McManus, Renamed by manager
in I977
—Costello is his great-grandmother's maiden name, and
Elvis to annoy people.
Born
25 August 1954, in Paddington, London, Family moved to
Birkenhead. Married (I) Mary Burgoyne, November 1974.
One son: Matthew, 29, musician; (2) CaitO’Riordan, the
Pogues’ bassist, May 1986; (3) Canadian jazz singer
Diana Krall, December 2003.
Family
Grandfather was a travelling musician. Father Ross
was a singer (he sang the R Whites’ “Secret Lemonade
drinker ”TV advert). Mother sold records. Younger
brothers have a band.
Before fame
Left school at I8, worked in a bank, and then
computer programmer for Elizabeth Arden.
First success aged 22 in l977 with debut album My Aim
Is True.
and Jeremy adds this comment -
ELVIS COSTELLO (Friday)
One of my big heros.I’ve seen him l6 times in concert
and I think he’s the most important UK songwriter
since Lennon and McCartney. For me, This Years Model
is the greatest rock ‘n’ roll album of the second half
of the 20th century , so I was nervous about meeting
him. The impression I got, though, was of a bright
bloke who thinks about what he’s writing and who
welcomes the chance to talk about it at length.
Place In rock history
Up there with the greats; the problem for his fans is
that he's moved so fast in so many different
directions that he’s been quite difficult to follow.
To promote the Jeremy Vine TV interview with
the BBC next week , this TV listings mag. has an
interview/feature. It clearly dates from last year ,
August I guess.
-----------------------------------------------------
The raging process.
Andrew Duncan meets Elvis Costello
His music may have mellowed, but the singer -
don't call him ` rock legend `, for pity's sake -
certainly hasn't.
As so often, the image is contradicted by reality.
Admittedly Elvis Costello is prolix, agonising over
three words when one will do, and there’s a
justifiable smidgen of irritability at lazy questions.
But the man with a soft voice, sitting in a London
hotel wearing nerdish horn rims and a three-piece
suit— even though its uncomfortably hot outside— is
far removed from the angry rocker who (according to
his song Tramp the Dirt Down) wanted to live long
enough to dance on Margaret Thatcher’s grave.
Costello’s reputation as a monosyllabic poseur makes
him unnerving, and he can be truculent. He’s a 'bit of a
workaholic, edgy, and lacking manufactured pop star
charisma, but good for him. We need an antidote to the
bland.
But hang on.... his latest incarnation is as a love
balladeer much to the annoyance of some fans,
bewildered by the twists and turns of his pleasingly
eclectic career.
To date Costello’s made more than 20 albums,
collaborated with Burt Bacharach, mezzo-soprano Anne
Sofie von Otter and The Brodsky Quartet, written an
Italian ballet based on Midsummer Night’s Dream, and
music for Alan Bleasdale's TV opuses Jake’s Progress
and GRH. He even acted as a magician in Bleasdale’s
film, No Surrender.
‘There’s talk about me doing more substantial acting.
I enjoy working with Alan. I’m not sure television is
worthy of him. It's run by morons, and those making
creative decisions are mediocre, their aspirations
constrained by the business environment. I watched The
Great War on DVD. I’d seen it first as a child, and
was shocked at how much more it assumes on the part of
the audience than anything done today”.
Costello’s often angry lyrics were softened in last
year’s album, North, which metamorphoses from his
second divorce (You Left Me in the Dark) to falling in
love with his third wife, acclaimed Canadian singer
Diana Krall (I’m In The Mood Again), whom he met when
they co-presented the Song of the Year award at the
2002 Grammys. They married at Elton John’s Windsor
home last Christmas.
Predictably North has been on a seesaw of reviews —
from brilliant to ”pompous. Pretentious, soporific”.
The lyrics are clearly personal. “lt doesn't matter if
people become morbidly curious that it’s
autobiographical. If you write something direct and
open, you’re inviting listeners to say, ‘Is that you?’
I say, ‘No. I see you in it.’ Songwriters become
identified with their words. Bob Dylan and Joni
Mitchell opened the way for a lot of boring lyricists
to burden us with their less interesting lives.
“People ask why I go in different directions. Why not?
As far as I know we only get one life, and when
opportunities come your way, the only reason not to do
them is if you’re defending a brand, which is a
wretched way to think about music.
“But it’s not for me to judge singers who are more
pragmatic — or cynical, depending on how generous
you’re feeling. The record industry has given me a lot
of money not to play the game. It’s been a huge con
all these years, wasting vast amounts of their money,”
he jokes, but adds more seriously, “I’ve spent my time
making records I like, and some they didn’t like at
all.
“Rock ‘n’ roll has become oddly conservative, although
I’ve had a problem about how financially crooked the
whole game is. A lot of it is falling apart through
its own greed and stupidity."
Some of his lyrics are hectoring, expressing deeply
felt views, but he says, “I haven’t written any
political songs. I’ve written as an emotional response
to events, so they're called political because
they’re not about love.
“You can have it both ways — serious intent and
popularity. It doesn’t all have to be insubstantial.
There’s a small rearguard action from smart people who
understand that art needn't be forbidding, and realise
some listeners want to spend time with a record that
isn’t completely disposable.” For the past 13 years
Costello has lived mostly in Dublin, “But I don’t
consider myself based anywhere. When I'm in England I
find the obsession with a handful of invented
celebrities is weird, amid dreamy. But it will pass,
like everything else.”
Time, perhaps, to have a go at him. Last year he
and his band, the Attractions, were inducted into the
Rock ‘n ’ Roll Hall of Fame (which honours legendary
performers ”), an honour he dismissed as ‘crap” a
few years earlier. “So many friends were really
excited,” he explains now. “I’ve been churlish about
accolades, so I thought, ‘It’s only a party. Go and
see for yourself’ My first instinct was right. It’s
ghastly. Those running it, who are on the business
side of music, spoke so much self—important hot air I
nearly walked out. I thought, ‘Please don’t tell me
these people think I’m good.’ Awards are a joke, but
I’m not sure who on. Nobel invented dynamite and now
has a peace prize. Is he trying to get in good with
God?” And as for being called a rock ‘n’ roll legend;
now he’s in his 50th year, he becomes almost
apoplectic. “I don’t see myself like that. I’d never
use ‘rock’ in a description of myself, or ‘legend’ — a
word promoters use to sell a few tickets for someone
who’s not so good as he thinks he is.”
Alter his initial success Costello joined another hall
of fame — the pop excess brigade. “I went slightly off
the rails, and didn’t make a big success of my
personal life. I had a fair go at the rock ‘n’ roll
lifestyle — it suits the younger man. Some of it was
fun, and some caused a lot of pain. Bad behaviour
is not necessary for pop Success. Some of my first
lyrics were written by a relatively puritanical young
man who thought, ‘I’ll try this temptation.’ You go
mad for a couple of years, and then deal with the
guilty side and try to regain tenderness, trust, and
a belief in something other than waking with a
headache. You start to look outwards and use some of
the skills you’ve almost accidentally accrued.”
He said he was motivated by revenge and anger.
‘There’s an element of truth, as well as exaggeration.
It’s obvious to anyone who listened that there were
many more emotions being expressed, but that first
image is potent. It made better copy, and I can’t be
blamed for that. It was journalists and advertising
men collaborating in myth making.
"Attitudes you pretend to have at 23 stay with
you. When you’re starting you like to come in hot and
determined, flatten everything around you while you
learn who you are and what you’re going to do. Then it
goes wrong, and from that you accumulate knowledge,
not necessarily wisdom. I never attached myself to any
gang or movement. Obviously I’m not an opera singer.
I’m in pop, but that’s a dirty word now, meaning
contrived and manufactured music. Everyone is just
trying to do their job — that’s what I say.”
In 1979 — when he was drunk and trying to goad
rock star Stephen Stills during a bar-room brawl — he
described singer Ray Charles as an ‘ ignorant blind
nigger”. The comment — for which Costello later
apologised — could have ruined his career. “Is this a
skeleton I hear? I spend a lot of time explaining the
effect even 25 years later, It’s complex. I’d like you
to read an essay I wrote about Get Happy!!, the album
that came out after that event [“it was the product of
crazed indulgence, the exact opposite of my true
beliefs”]. In the larger scale of transgressions there
are much more wicked things we can all say we did. I
did worse, hut I’m not telling you what.”
I wonder if he was a bit up himself “What a
charming expression,” he mutters. “I think everyone
is. But the most idiotic criticism of anyone creative
is that it’s self-indulgent. What in the world is
creativity supposed to be? It can be useless and
boring, but to criticise it for being self-indulgent
is missing the point entirely.”
What next? “I don’t have ambitions as such. Never had.
I didn’t go for fame. I’d rather the songs were
better known than me. It worked out that I’m a little
hit known in a lot of places, rather than so
uncontrollably known my life is bent out of shape. I
have friends like that, and I’m not sure that even all
their rewards are worth it. I’m big and ugly, so
people don’t confront me.”
------------------------------------------------------
This side feature also appears -
Who is Elvis?
Real name
Declan Patrick Aloysius McManus, Renamed by manager
in I977
—Costello is his great-grandmother's maiden name, and
Elvis to annoy people.
Born
25 August 1954, in Paddington, London, Family moved to
Birkenhead. Married (I) Mary Burgoyne, November 1974.
One son: Matthew, 29, musician; (2) CaitO’Riordan, the
Pogues’ bassist, May 1986; (3) Canadian jazz singer
Diana Krall, December 2003.
Family
Grandfather was a travelling musician. Father Ross
was a singer (he sang the R Whites’ “Secret Lemonade
drinker ”TV advert). Mother sold records. Younger
brothers have a band.
Before fame
Left school at I8, worked in a bank, and then
computer programmer for Elizabeth Arden.
First success aged 22 in l977 with debut album My Aim
Is True.
and Jeremy adds this comment -
ELVIS COSTELLO (Friday)
One of my big heros.I’ve seen him l6 times in concert
and I think he’s the most important UK songwriter
since Lennon and McCartney. For me, This Years Model
is the greatest rock ‘n’ roll album of the second half
of the 20th century , so I was nervous about meeting
him. The impression I got, though, was of a bright
bloke who thinks about what he’s writing and who
welcomes the chance to talk about it at length.
Place In rock history
Up there with the greats; the problem for his fans is
that he's moved so fast in so many different
directions that he’s been quite difficult to follow.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv_and_radio/ ... 39,00.html
Neil Crossley
Friday May 14, 2004
The Guardian
Jeremy Vine Meets ...
9am, BBC1
In the last of this series, Jeremy Vine interviews Elvis Costello: a curious event, as Vine confesses to being a huge fan and is clearly quite in awe of the bespectacled one. "I wrote you a letter in 1985 saying 'I love your music, can we meet for a cup of tea?'," gushes Vine to a rather startled Costello, "but I never got a reply". Fortunately, Vine manages to snap back into journalistic mode and quiz Costello about subjects such as his loathing of the record industry and Margaret Thatcher, about whom he wrote Tramp the Dirt Down. "I'm actually trying to imagine you going to her grave and tramping the dirt down," says Vine. "I wouldn't waste the shoes," says Costello.
Neil Crossley
Friday May 14, 2004
The Guardian
Jeremy Vine Meets ...
9am, BBC1
In the last of this series, Jeremy Vine interviews Elvis Costello: a curious event, as Vine confesses to being a huge fan and is clearly quite in awe of the bespectacled one. "I wrote you a letter in 1985 saying 'I love your music, can we meet for a cup of tea?'," gushes Vine to a rather startled Costello, "but I never got a reply". Fortunately, Vine manages to snap back into journalistic mode and quiz Costello about subjects such as his loathing of the record industry and Margaret Thatcher, about whom he wrote Tramp the Dirt Down. "I'm actually trying to imagine you going to her grave and tramping the dirt down," says Vine. "I wouldn't waste the shoes," says Costello.
That was great. I used it as an incentive to get out of bed (on a week off). Asked a couple of things I've always wanted to ask, particularly how he reconciles the EC who does chat shows and The Simpsons with the serious EC.
And Vine is such a fan, it's hilarious. Has anyone else here written EC a letter?
DrJ
And Vine is such a fan, it's hilarious. Has anyone else here written EC a letter?
DrJ
Tlentifini Maarhaysu
-
martinfoyle
- Posts: 2502
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 5:24 pm
- Location: Dublin, Ireland
- Contact:
While nothing new to anyone who read/saw the interviews from around the time of the taping, probably August or September 2003, it was a refeshingly enthusiastic interview from a serious fan as well as a good journalist. Vine seems to have realised he was coming off as rather nerdish at the start, and got more incisive as the show went on. Elvis looked rather jaded and overweight in his itinerant-at-a-weddng suit, I believe he looks a lot better these days. It would be nice to think that this might spur some extra sales for North, somehow I doubt it.
Last edited by martinfoyle on Fri May 14, 2004 10:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
Itinerant at a wedding suit. That's funny. As an extention of how he looked, I'd avoid perspex chairs if I were EC (in fact, note to self: avoid perspex chairs)
What's fun about EC is how fast he moves, the interview is already out of date. North? Been there, done that. Interestingly he explained how the album is about moving from a desolate place to somewhere... oh, never mind.
Where was he being interviewed? I missed the very start.
What's fun about EC is how fast he moves, the interview is already out of date. North? Been there, done that. Interestingly he explained how the album is about moving from a desolate place to somewhere... oh, never mind.
Where was he being interviewed? I missed the very start.
Tlentifini Maarhaysu
-
Otis Westinghouse
- Posts: 8856
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
- Location: The theatre of dreams
DrJ asked
Elvis seemed a touch embarrassed when Jeremy said he had not received a reply to either letter and said something about how they probably didn't find their way to him. Elvis didn't sound very convincing at this point. I suspect he doesn't reply to any correspondence. Does anyone know differently?
Wouldn't he just love his own TV music programme - he seemed envious of those '70s stars and Jools Holland.
At the end of the interview E said to J "see you next week" so I suspect the interview was recorded the week before the Café de Paris, Sold on Song recording at which JV was present.
I haven't but wanted to last year when he talking about not having fans and not coming back to perform in the UK. I wouldn't know where to send the letter to though.Has anyone else here written EC a letter?
Elvis seemed a touch embarrassed when Jeremy said he had not received a reply to either letter and said something about how they probably didn't find their way to him. Elvis didn't sound very convincing at this point. I suspect he doesn't reply to any correspondence. Does anyone know differently?
Wouldn't he just love his own TV music programme - he seemed envious of those '70s stars and Jools Holland.
At the end of the interview E said to J "see you next week" so I suspect the interview was recorded the week before the Café de Paris, Sold on Song recording at which JV was present.
It was as much of the alphabet as I knew how to use.
http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=592282004
After 20 years, it's time to let the bitterness go,
Elvis
BRIAN MORTON ON CULTURE
I SAW ELVIS Costello on television the other morning,
being interviewed by the very serious Jeremy Vine.
After a wobbly live version - not so much unplugged as
battery-powered - Vine asked him if he still meant
what he said in Tramp the Dirt Down. In case you don’t
know the song, it’s a solemn promise to dance on
Margaret Thatcher’s grave, rendered all the more
vitriolic by having the Chieftains fluting and
whistling away in the background as if Costello were
singing the praises of some dark-haired girl called
Kathleen.
Costello confirmed that he did, indeed, mean every
word. The punctilious Vine remonstrated. Surely Mrs T
is now just a poor old widow wummin who doesn’t get
out much and doesn’t know her supply-side from her
trickle-down any more? Costello was sternly unmoved,
astonishing Vine with a comparison between Mrs
Thatcher and Martin Bormann, who was also probably
confused and dribbly "near the end". As well as being
historically inaccurate - Bormann is alive and well
and working as a traffic warden not far from here -
this smells like overcooking, as if Costello is
determined to prove himself unsoftened by marriage to
that blonde piece everything mistakes for a jazz
singer ... whoops! I’m "doing a Costello".
Invective is beautiful when it is improvised,
acid-intense and of the moment. Still banging away
with the same insults 20 years later runs the risk of
sounding merely sullen. Having said that, Tramp the
Dirt Down doesn’t run any risk of becoming cosified
with the passage of time. When the specific targets of
satires like Gulliver’s Travels and Animal Farm faded
into forgetfulness, both notoriously became childish
fables with vaguer and more universal themes.
By the same token, the haunting opening to the
Costello song - the newspaper picture from the
political campaign of a woman kissing a child "who was
obviously in pain" - has a nightmarish intensity and
ambiguity that goes beyond its original occasion and
moment. Why is that child crying? Because of the pain
or because of the kiss? Was the kiss intended to
comfort or was it merely a photo-opportunity? Is there
a touch of Oedipal rage behind the politics?
At the end of that part of the interview, Costello was
reduced to saying Vine was giving a different stress
to the lyrics. Not quite "You’re twisting my words!" -
more "It doesn’t sound quite like that when I sing
it". And of course it didn’t. Costello was part of a
generation that brought political invective back into
pop and gave the tarnished idea of the "protest song"
(always an uneasy concept) a new currency.
The argument is that protest has now all been
channelled into hip-hop and rap, but even a cursory
listen to the most inflammatory rap records of the
last ten years suggests that protest is merely the
armature on which the music’s rhythmic and vocal
innovations are hung. So what has happened to the
protest song that they had to wheel out Costello’s
Shipbuilding for Iraq? Without a task force and cold
Atlantic grey, it didn’t have quite the right theme
and tonality. Is purple flour the only way we have
left of registering anger? Have we lost the means to
channel it into metaphor and imagery, or is it simply
that, carefully stickered rap apart, the industry
can’t be fussed with music that has agenda?
There’s a hefty contradiction at the heart of my
argument, but this is one cake I’m determined to have
and to eat: great invective is of its moment; great
invective is universal. For reasons best known to
myself, I played all my Phil Ochs records the other
day: Here’s to the State of Mississippi, The War is
Over, Outside of a Small Circle of Friends, the
haunting There But For Fortune. Ochs committed suicide
in 1976, so these are old campaigns and old wars. The
songs would sound dated if they hadn’t evolved into
something else larger and more capacious than their
original intent.
When Mrs Thatcher - who has somewhat haunted this
month’s columns - does eventually go, I hope Costello
finds other ways of expressing his rage. Tramp the
Dirt Down has already moved to a different plane. It
deserves to be more than a petulant stamp of the foot.
After 20 years, it's time to let the bitterness go,
Elvis
BRIAN MORTON ON CULTURE
I SAW ELVIS Costello on television the other morning,
being interviewed by the very serious Jeremy Vine.
After a wobbly live version - not so much unplugged as
battery-powered - Vine asked him if he still meant
what he said in Tramp the Dirt Down. In case you don’t
know the song, it’s a solemn promise to dance on
Margaret Thatcher’s grave, rendered all the more
vitriolic by having the Chieftains fluting and
whistling away in the background as if Costello were
singing the praises of some dark-haired girl called
Kathleen.
Costello confirmed that he did, indeed, mean every
word. The punctilious Vine remonstrated. Surely Mrs T
is now just a poor old widow wummin who doesn’t get
out much and doesn’t know her supply-side from her
trickle-down any more? Costello was sternly unmoved,
astonishing Vine with a comparison between Mrs
Thatcher and Martin Bormann, who was also probably
confused and dribbly "near the end". As well as being
historically inaccurate - Bormann is alive and well
and working as a traffic warden not far from here -
this smells like overcooking, as if Costello is
determined to prove himself unsoftened by marriage to
that blonde piece everything mistakes for a jazz
singer ... whoops! I’m "doing a Costello".
Invective is beautiful when it is improvised,
acid-intense and of the moment. Still banging away
with the same insults 20 years later runs the risk of
sounding merely sullen. Having said that, Tramp the
Dirt Down doesn’t run any risk of becoming cosified
with the passage of time. When the specific targets of
satires like Gulliver’s Travels and Animal Farm faded
into forgetfulness, both notoriously became childish
fables with vaguer and more universal themes.
By the same token, the haunting opening to the
Costello song - the newspaper picture from the
political campaign of a woman kissing a child "who was
obviously in pain" - has a nightmarish intensity and
ambiguity that goes beyond its original occasion and
moment. Why is that child crying? Because of the pain
or because of the kiss? Was the kiss intended to
comfort or was it merely a photo-opportunity? Is there
a touch of Oedipal rage behind the politics?
At the end of that part of the interview, Costello was
reduced to saying Vine was giving a different stress
to the lyrics. Not quite "You’re twisting my words!" -
more "It doesn’t sound quite like that when I sing
it". And of course it didn’t. Costello was part of a
generation that brought political invective back into
pop and gave the tarnished idea of the "protest song"
(always an uneasy concept) a new currency.
The argument is that protest has now all been
channelled into hip-hop and rap, but even a cursory
listen to the most inflammatory rap records of the
last ten years suggests that protest is merely the
armature on which the music’s rhythmic and vocal
innovations are hung. So what has happened to the
protest song that they had to wheel out Costello’s
Shipbuilding for Iraq? Without a task force and cold
Atlantic grey, it didn’t have quite the right theme
and tonality. Is purple flour the only way we have
left of registering anger? Have we lost the means to
channel it into metaphor and imagery, or is it simply
that, carefully stickered rap apart, the industry
can’t be fussed with music that has agenda?
There’s a hefty contradiction at the heart of my
argument, but this is one cake I’m determined to have
and to eat: great invective is of its moment; great
invective is universal. For reasons best known to
myself, I played all my Phil Ochs records the other
day: Here’s to the State of Mississippi, The War is
Over, Outside of a Small Circle of Friends, the
haunting There But For Fortune. Ochs committed suicide
in 1976, so these are old campaigns and old wars. The
songs would sound dated if they hadn’t evolved into
something else larger and more capacious than their
original intent.
When Mrs Thatcher - who has somewhat haunted this
month’s columns - does eventually go, I hope Costello
finds other ways of expressing his rage. Tramp the
Dirt Down has already moved to a different plane. It
deserves to be more than a petulant stamp of the foot.
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