Elvis was on BBC Radio 4 `s Today show this
morning - listen to it here -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/
Do it NOW - I don`t think it`ll be `up` once
tomorrow`s show is aired.
Otherwise I`ll be posting a text of it soon.
Elvis on BBC Radio 4 Today show (Wednes.17th)
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Jackson Doofster
- Posts: 531
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:25 pm
- Location: Some far flung Canadian Club
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Jackson Doofster
- Posts: 531
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:25 pm
- Location: Some far flung Canadian Club
Laughing Crow must have had a lie in - lucky bleeder! - `cos he hasn`t posted a script of this. I heard a trailer before I left for work and stuck a tape in the machine. Here`s a transcript -
Show co-presenter , John Humphries -
.....and now it`s 21 minutes to nine. We heard earlir this week about Labour politicians and soin doctors dabbling in rock `n roll. You remember David Hill , Tony Blair`s new communication`s man and his backround. Why are musicians so reluctant to write about politics anymore, you may well ask. In the sixties ans seventies you couldn`t move for protest songs , Hippies writing about Vietnam , Punks later , about the dole , all the rest of it. These days , 9/11, Bush , Blair , terrorism , Al Quaida , even Lord Hutton. Well song writers don`t seem to want to know. Give them time on Lord Hutton , but anyway -
Elvis Costello does have a new album out this week - and there isn`t a political song on it. Mark Coles has been finding out why not .
(Extract played of Tramp The Dirt Down)
`I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign ....`
Mark Coles: Pop and politics - for singer/songwriter Elvis Costello they`ve always gone hand in hand. From his vitriolic anti- Thatcher song Tramp The Dirt Down , back through Oliver`s army , Pills And Soap , even his cover of Robert Wyatt`s Shipbuilding , recorded right at the height of the Falkland`s war .
(Extract from Shipbuilding )
`Is it worth it ....`
M.C. : Costello has alway`s managed to capture the political and social mood of the time in song. So , something of a surprise this week with the world in turmoil to come across a new Elvis Costello album , North , that doesn`t even mention politics. A collection , instead , of simple , straight forward lpve songs , their composer unapologetic.
Elvis Costello : I don`t feel a responsibility to write about the world `cos it`s in such a dreadful state . A lot of people have written a lot of songs in reaction to events in the world in the past couple of years. But for me singing about love is about as good a thing you can do right now. Particularly as it goes from a more descolate place to somewhere , you know, more hopeful.
(Extract from When It Sings)
` All the words you say to me
Have music in them
All the sorrows and the joy like magnatism`
E.C.: I live in the time after Franz Schubert , I live in the time after Rogers and Hart , I live in the time after Joni Mitchell - and it is my responsilbity to write as well as I am able to solve the musical puzzle of craft that comes after inspiration .
( Extract from I`m In The Mood Again)
` Hail to the taxi
They go where I go
Farewell the newspapers that know more than I
know
Flung under a street lamp
Still burning at dawn
I`m in the mood again `
M.C.: Why no political songs , though? Why no songs about Bush or Blair in the same vein that you sang about , say , Margaret Thatcher?
E.C.: You have to do , `cos you really believe you have something to say . The complexity - I mean , when Margaret Thatcher was there it was very easy to sy `Her regieme was heartless entity...and her ideology was in many ways despicible...`at the present time you`re dealing with a class of politicians who are really in the advertising industry. They don`t appear to have any convistions. They have a piety about them. But they have a piety that they wheel out in reaction to outrages and - perpetrated by people with distortions of faith. In the case of the American President they don`t have any sense of history to inform their current actions. Now - I can say all these things but finding a way to sing about it is very difficult. Because you don`t want to be opposing that wretched and cynical and ignorant policy and imply a tacit approval of monstrous crimes and a structure of society that represses womem.
(Extract from Someone Took The Words Away)
`It`s strange to finally find myself tongue-tied..`
E.C. There are some pretty complicated issues in this thing and they`re not easily expressed. You`d maybe need a Grand Opera , or a great , you know , Shakespearean tragedy in scale , and I don`t doubt that there will be some time to say these things in song. But to simply in , like , a knee jerk reaction is very dangerous. I mean , Bruce Springsteen wrote a very passionately felt record about the attacks on the World Trade Centre. Some other songs written at the same time were cheap , exploitative things , which were a disgrace to the memory of the people killed , because they sought to make a maudlin , melodrama of these things and play on people`s weakest instincts - and I just won`t join in.
( Extract from Someone Took The Words Away)
`Someone took the words away...`
M.C.: Rock `n roll has always fought the establishment , in a way -
E.C. : - Yeah -
M.C.: - it seems as if there isn`t an establishment to fight against at the moment.
E.C.: Well , in england you`re living in a one party state , you know. My mother has just tore up her Labour Party card after fifty years because of her disgust at the prosecution of the war in Iraq , among other things , among the complete betrayal of the identity and the ideals of the Labour Party. Again that`s very difficult to describe in song . It doesn`t mean that nobody sing about it. It certainly begs the question about when will be the time and who will be listyening because , you know , people don`t expect commentary in popular music now. One of the depressing things about the younger music scene is the content is so shallow. It`s just - it`s lyrics are just sort socially aspirational expressions. There`s no poetry and there`s no commentary and there`s very little anger . And the anger is unfocussed sort teenage angst. It`s not about anything. - that I can see.
(Lee Konitz`s alto sax solo from `Someone..` has been playing behind Elvis`words and plays up to complete the segment)
J.H. That was Mark Coles - oh , and Elvis Costello as well. It`s quarter to nine.....
Show co-presenter , John Humphries -
.....and now it`s 21 minutes to nine. We heard earlir this week about Labour politicians and soin doctors dabbling in rock `n roll. You remember David Hill , Tony Blair`s new communication`s man and his backround. Why are musicians so reluctant to write about politics anymore, you may well ask. In the sixties ans seventies you couldn`t move for protest songs , Hippies writing about Vietnam , Punks later , about the dole , all the rest of it. These days , 9/11, Bush , Blair , terrorism , Al Quaida , even Lord Hutton. Well song writers don`t seem to want to know. Give them time on Lord Hutton , but anyway -
Elvis Costello does have a new album out this week - and there isn`t a political song on it. Mark Coles has been finding out why not .
(Extract played of Tramp The Dirt Down)
`I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign ....`
Mark Coles: Pop and politics - for singer/songwriter Elvis Costello they`ve always gone hand in hand. From his vitriolic anti- Thatcher song Tramp The Dirt Down , back through Oliver`s army , Pills And Soap , even his cover of Robert Wyatt`s Shipbuilding , recorded right at the height of the Falkland`s war .
(Extract from Shipbuilding )
`Is it worth it ....`
M.C. : Costello has alway`s managed to capture the political and social mood of the time in song. So , something of a surprise this week with the world in turmoil to come across a new Elvis Costello album , North , that doesn`t even mention politics. A collection , instead , of simple , straight forward lpve songs , their composer unapologetic.
Elvis Costello : I don`t feel a responsibility to write about the world `cos it`s in such a dreadful state . A lot of people have written a lot of songs in reaction to events in the world in the past couple of years. But for me singing about love is about as good a thing you can do right now. Particularly as it goes from a more descolate place to somewhere , you know, more hopeful.
(Extract from When It Sings)
` All the words you say to me
Have music in them
All the sorrows and the joy like magnatism`
E.C.: I live in the time after Franz Schubert , I live in the time after Rogers and Hart , I live in the time after Joni Mitchell - and it is my responsilbity to write as well as I am able to solve the musical puzzle of craft that comes after inspiration .
( Extract from I`m In The Mood Again)
` Hail to the taxi
They go where I go
Farewell the newspapers that know more than I
know
Flung under a street lamp
Still burning at dawn
I`m in the mood again `
M.C.: Why no political songs , though? Why no songs about Bush or Blair in the same vein that you sang about , say , Margaret Thatcher?
E.C.: You have to do , `cos you really believe you have something to say . The complexity - I mean , when Margaret Thatcher was there it was very easy to sy `Her regieme was heartless entity...and her ideology was in many ways despicible...`at the present time you`re dealing with a class of politicians who are really in the advertising industry. They don`t appear to have any convistions. They have a piety about them. But they have a piety that they wheel out in reaction to outrages and - perpetrated by people with distortions of faith. In the case of the American President they don`t have any sense of history to inform their current actions. Now - I can say all these things but finding a way to sing about it is very difficult. Because you don`t want to be opposing that wretched and cynical and ignorant policy and imply a tacit approval of monstrous crimes and a structure of society that represses womem.
(Extract from Someone Took The Words Away)
`It`s strange to finally find myself tongue-tied..`
E.C. There are some pretty complicated issues in this thing and they`re not easily expressed. You`d maybe need a Grand Opera , or a great , you know , Shakespearean tragedy in scale , and I don`t doubt that there will be some time to say these things in song. But to simply in , like , a knee jerk reaction is very dangerous. I mean , Bruce Springsteen wrote a very passionately felt record about the attacks on the World Trade Centre. Some other songs written at the same time were cheap , exploitative things , which were a disgrace to the memory of the people killed , because they sought to make a maudlin , melodrama of these things and play on people`s weakest instincts - and I just won`t join in.
( Extract from Someone Took The Words Away)
`Someone took the words away...`
M.C.: Rock `n roll has always fought the establishment , in a way -
E.C. : - Yeah -
M.C.: - it seems as if there isn`t an establishment to fight against at the moment.
E.C.: Well , in england you`re living in a one party state , you know. My mother has just tore up her Labour Party card after fifty years because of her disgust at the prosecution of the war in Iraq , among other things , among the complete betrayal of the identity and the ideals of the Labour Party. Again that`s very difficult to describe in song . It doesn`t mean that nobody sing about it. It certainly begs the question about when will be the time and who will be listyening because , you know , people don`t expect commentary in popular music now. One of the depressing things about the younger music scene is the content is so shallow. It`s just - it`s lyrics are just sort socially aspirational expressions. There`s no poetry and there`s no commentary and there`s very little anger . And the anger is unfocussed sort teenage angst. It`s not about anything. - that I can see.
(Lee Konitz`s alto sax solo from `Someone..` has been playing behind Elvis`words and plays up to complete the segment)
J.H. That was Mark Coles - oh , and Elvis Costello as well. It`s quarter to nine.....
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laughingcrow
- Posts: 2476
- Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2003 8:35 am
Nice one John! I didn't even know it was on... was a lot more intense than the other 'it starts in a desolate place then i find love' interviews this week.
WOW!!! I just saw the elusive Post Master had linked to one of my transcripts on the costellonews site...
well chuffed!
Do you think I can claim for the sore wrists from all that typing?
Aah..the wonders of researching animal behaviour...the lie ins...oh the lies in! More time to listen to North!
WOW!!! I just saw the elusive Post Master had linked to one of my transcripts on the costellonews site...
well chuffed!Do you think I can claim for the sore wrists from all that typing?
Aah..the wonders of researching animal behaviour...the lie ins...oh the lies in! More time to listen to North!
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shabbydoll
- Posts: 105
- Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 1:08 am