The Murder That Inspired Elvis Costello

Pretty self-explanatory
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johnfoyle
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The Murder That Inspired Elvis Costello

Post by johnfoyle »

My efforts to find out the the details behind the ' real character'
that inspired Elvis to write Hidden Shame and then TDM having exhausted all 'net related sources I decided to submit the query to the letters page of True Crime magazine.

Their latest issue is out -
http://www.truecrimelibrary.com/trolleyed/index.htm


Image
March '05

and they featured the letter -
Image

The Murder That Inspired Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello tells this story about what partly inspired his latest album, The Delivery Man. " Like a lot of great things in music history, The Delivery Man can be said to have started with the late, great Johnny Cash.
“The Delivery Man is actually a character imported from a song I wrote in about 1986 for Johnny Cash.” Costello explains. “He's based on a real character.

“I read this story in the paper about a man who confessed to murdering his childhood friend thirty years later, having been in prison for a number of other things. I thought this story as very interesting because he’d carried this burden of guilt of this childhood crime. I wrote a fictional version of that story in a song called Hidden Shame, which John recorded.”
Does anyone know the name and circumstances of the
man referred too?
John Foyle,
Dublin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So now I wait for the next issue to see if I get any response!

The magazine was delivered to my shop today. The post followed soon after and included a letter with a London postmark. In it was a cheque for 9 euro for the letter in True Crime. Besides it being unexpected - I hadn't read the bit about them paying for letters - I found myself realising something else significant about it ; it's the first time I've actually received money for something to do with Elvis! Cool!
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bambooneedle
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Post by bambooneedle »

I had wanted to ask EC about it. He came out backstage with that cool monkey walk of his (approximating a swagger but not quite one), looking buzzed juggling our attention, and I suppose that if I had the chance again I'd be more direct. Hopefully, somebody else will ask him......
johnfoyle
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Post by johnfoyle »

I think Elvis might not know more than what he has been saying in quotes like the one above. He read the news story , got the the general idea and made a note of it in his head. Of course , he and we don't really have to know anymore - it's just plain old curiosity !

Similarly he has said he has just as little info. on the story that Daddy , Can I turn This? is based on ; I related that one here -



http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB2 ... t=aeroflot
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pophead2k
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Post by pophead2k »

This is what I love about you John Foyle. Things I would have just thought about doing (i.e. writing the letter) you actually carry through on. Thanks again for your invaluable knowledge and curiosity that helps to make this board such an addictive place.
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Mr. Average
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Post by Mr. Average »

It occurs to me that classic folk singers and writers take liberally from real events that feature injustice, corruption, political transgressions, etc. Literal.

While Elvis certainly has a good portion of his catalog dedicated to songs like this: Big Sisters Clothes, Tramp the Dirt Down, there are more where he takes a sliver of a story and molds it around a more creative core. Thus, his songs at first blush appear to be anchored in some deep dark truthful source, and one expects it to unravel as the song progresses to reveal the full-blown story, with conclusions. Not so often the case with Elvi.

He starts with some incontrovertible fact drawn from the news, or science, or the industry, or the process, or whatever, and then cacoons it in creative discourse that leads to multile interpretations. Seldom do I hear a single-faceted interpretation of the meaning of a more challenging Elvis song. Clearly done by design...and a big part of the allure, for me.

I like filling in the blanks with my own backfill stories. To me, Beyond Belief speaks to me about alcoholism...very loudly, I might add. Most others say that it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with alcohol and its abuse, but it hits me on that level. I think that Elvis would be just as pleased to know that his song greatly influenced another even if the interpretation was not spot-on.

Or maybe he see's me as an idiot. Either way, I still love his music and the way it toys with easy interp.
"The smarter mysteries are hidden in the light" - Jean Giono (1895-1970)
bobster
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Post by bobster »

[Major Spoiler Alert! ...but only if you've never seen the movie "Psycho"...is that anyone? Also contains one pretty gruesome/revolting idea...I mean really. No kidding.]

Creative people frequently get a germ of an idea from a story in a newspaper, magazines, etc -- and then completely "forgot" it and come up with something new that was, quite literally, "inspired by a real event" but which actually has little to do with it -- the incident was only a jumping off place and nothing more -- though sometimes there are odd coincidences.

One famous example is that when horror writer Robert Bloch read a very short, very sketchy story about the capture of serial killer Ed Gein, it became the germ of the idea for the novel "Psycho" (which, of course, became the basis for the Hitchcock movie, screenplay by Joe Stefano of "The Outer Limits").

Anyhow, it was Bloch who came up with the idea of making Norman Bates a tranvestite. What he later realized was that Ed Gein, the "real" Norman Bates," also was a tranvestite of sorts, in that he wore the skin of his female victims.
Last edited by bobster on Thu Feb 24, 2005 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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El Vez
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Post by El Vez »

bobster wrote:[Major Spoiler Alert! ...but only if you've never seen the movie "Psycho"...is that anyone? Also contains one pretty gruesome/revolting idea...I mean really. No kidding.]

Creative people frequently get a germ of an idea from a story in a newspaper, magazines, etc -- and then completely "forgot" it and come up with something new that was, quite literally, "inspired by a real event" but which actually has little to do with it -- the incident was only a jumping off place and nothing more -- though sometimes there are odd coincidences.

One famous example is that when horror writer Robert Bloch read a very short, very sketchy story about the capture of serial killer Ed Gein, it became the germ of the idea for the novel "Psycho" (which, of course, became the basis for the Hitchcock movie, screenplay by Joe Stefano of "The Outer Limits").

Anyhow, it was Bloch who came up with the idea of making Norman Bates a tranvestite. What he had realized was that Ed Gein, the "real" Norman Bates," also was a tranvestite of sorts, in that he wore the skin of his female victims.
Which reminds me that I've been meaning to ask you if you know if there's a first rate book on Gein or not. I've read the dodgy Anthony Schecter treatment (that man should be fined for excessive use of the word "unspeakable) which gave some interesting details when it wasn't bogged down with the low rent Weird Tales stuff.
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Post by martinfoyle »

This may help.
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El Vez
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Post by El Vez »

Thanks! I occassionally like to check out the true crime stuff (Schecter wrote a book on W.H. Holmes, America's first serial killer, that's a much better read than his Gein book) but so much of it is lurid tabloid. Granted, part of its appeal to me *is* the lurid tabloid quality but you do wish better writers tackled this stuff more often. Of course there's always Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song which just goes on and on and on. Endless fucking book.
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Post by bobster »

I haven't read too many true crime books all the way through -- and I'm not sure I haven't said this before somewhere -- but if you've never read "In Cold Blood", you really owe it to yourself. There's a reason it's considered a classic of the genre, and it does have a modicum of blood and guts. (The movie, however, didn't really work for me.)
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Post by Boy With A Problem »

One really wierd thing about the movie was that Robert Blake played Perry Smith and Perry Smith's favorite film was Treasure of the Sierra Madre - a flim in which Robert Blake appears....and later on in life Robert Blake stands trial for murder.
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Post by bambooneedle »

In Cold Blood is my favourite book.
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Post by SweetPear »

In Cold Blood is one of my favorite stories also. Great book and surrounding circumstances [with Capote and Blake, etc.].
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SweetPear
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Post by SweetPear »

Mr Average~
I think EC would be delighted that you make your own personal interpretations of his songs. When grilled about their meaning, he replies over and over how essential it is for the listener to bring his personal circumstances to the song to create its "meaning".

I believe he'd be quite pleased to hear you say that. :D
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johnfoyle
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Post by johnfoyle »

The new issue of True Crime is out ; alas , no one has sent in an answer to my query.

The mystery remains.....
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mimimartini
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Post by mimimartini »

It's just cool that you even sent the letter. This thread is amazing...it goes from EC to true crime to books.....

WOW this board is great!

Also magazines are created well in advance of the contents, they may address your letter in 2 or 3 issues from now maybe even more than that.

Keep hope alive! 8)
johnfoyle
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Post by johnfoyle »

You thought I'd forgotten this ..........however re-reading this got me thinking of it again -

http://web.archive.org/web/200403131748 ... 73lin.html

Elvis Costello
on
BESPOKE SONGS, LOST DOGS,
DETOURS & RENDEZVOUS ( 1998)

( extract)



"HIDDEN SHAME" -- Johnny Cash


I came to meet Johnny Cash in an unusual way. My friend and producer Nick Lowe became his son-in-law when he married Carlene Carter. One of my more unexpected recollections from the late '70s is of visiting Nick and C.C.'s house in west London and finding Johnny Cash and June Carter taking tea in the front room. Later there were informal sessions in Nick's home studio and rumours that some patrons of nearby hard-drinking establishments had sworn to the path of temperance after hallucinating Johnny Cash walking down the Shepherd's Bush Road.

In the late '80s Johnny recorded a fine version of my song "The Big Light." One evening I went along to sing it with him at the Royal Albert Hall. Big John's introduction to "Peace In The Valley" that night proposed that a man may make a prison in his own head stronger than any physical cage. It put me in mind of a true story that I had just read in the newspaper about an unusual murder confession. A man, already in jail for another crime, had suddenly admitted pushing his childhood friend off a cliff because he had "looked at him in a funny way." He had lived with his secret for more than 30 years. Johnny reports this and much more exactly as I hoped and imagined he would.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One evening I went along to sing it with him at the Royal Albert Hall.
A Costello gigography -

http://www.elviscostello.info/gigography/all_85-89.php

- places this evening in May 1989. It would, therefore, be reasonable to assume that the 'paper story appeared around then, April/May 1989. Putting combinations of words from the story into 'net searches has still not pointed me to details of the original tale. Print sources are the next option. I don't have many 'true crime' books so , next time I'm in a bookshop or library I'll be looking at stuff from that time period. Elvis most probably saw the story in a Irish newspaper so I may even try and get some time and look through 'papers in the National Library.

If anyone here wants to get involved , great! Thumb through your volumes of '1001 Grisliest Murders' and see if you can find the story. The narrowing down of the probable time period - early 1989 - should help.
Last edited by johnfoyle on Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
johnfoyle
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Re: The Murder That Inspired Elvis Costello

Post by johnfoyle »

What with Hidden Shame being on the new album, it's time to revive this thread.

Elvis talks about it , yet again, in the new Acoustic Guitar interview -

http://www.acousticguitar.com/article/d ... leid=24996

“Hidden Shame”
isn’t my experience, but it is a true story. It’s based on a story I read about a man who had spent year after year in prison for petty crimes, and when he was a relatively mature man he confessed to this childhood murder. He murdered a friend of his when he was a child, but he carried it with him all his life.



In the past few years I've spooled through months of Irish newspapers from early 1989 and not happened on the story. The curious thing is that I have a slight memory of reading it at the time . I can even remember the circumstance , the canteen of a department store I was working in , in Enniscorthy , Co. Wexford. I seem to remember it was one of those stories on the foreign news pages , something along the line of 'here a story about a crazy American' or suchlike.

Maybe some newer members of this forum has access to newspaper archives from the time and will be able to give it a go .
johnfoyle
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Re: The Murder That Inspired Elvis Costello

Post by johnfoyle »

Elvis remembers afew more details -


http://www.emusic.com/features/spotligh ... elvis.html

June'09


Elvis :


In the late '70s, Nick Lowe married June's daughter Carlene — so he actually married into the Carter-Cash family. When we went to Nashville to record Almost Blue, John and June were kind enough to invite us to their house at the end of the recording to celebrate. It was an extraordinary, intimidating experience. I never have forgotten the generosity. And then Johnny picked up a song I did on King of America called "The Big Lie," and recorded a version of that. I got word a little later that he was looking for song and I sent him, "Hidden Shame" which was a story-song about a man who had a huge rap sheet of petty crimes that had kept him in jail for most of his life. But he'd never really done anything grievous. After 30 years in and out of jail he basically confessed to murdering his friend as a child. Something about this man who had lived a life of petty crime carrying around this burden of guilt just said to me, "John would be the person to sing this." And it's taken me until this time to get out of the shadow of his recording of it.

So, to recap, a newspaper story from c. April/May 1989 , most likely U.S. in source. If anyone here has the time maybe they'd have a look at archives from the time.
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Re: The Murder That Inspired Elvis Costello

Post by johnfoyle »

On a whim, I revive this thread. Perhaps a newer member of this forum may have some information or know how to go about checking it out further. Any ideas anyone?
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Re: The Murder That Inspired Elvis Costello

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

'Fraid not, but I like the fact that the thread's been revived in time for its 8th birthday!
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Re: The Murder That Inspired Elvis Costello

Post by Jocko Wainwright »

I'm one of those true crime freaks, so I'll keep an eye out. An initial search of the usual sources didn't turn up anything.
johnfoyle
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Re: The Murder That Inspired Elvis Costello

Post by johnfoyle »

Thanks!
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