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](http://www.truecrimelibrary.com/trolleyed/images/products/pic3.jpg)
March '05
and they featured the letter -
![Image](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/charleshardin/23February2005.jpg)
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
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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!