From the Archive: Elvis Costello Talks with David Remnick

Summary

The New Yorker Radio Hour: Elvis Costello Talks with David Remnick

Episode Release Date: December 18, 2024

In this captivating episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour, host David Remnick engages in an in-depth conversation with the renowned musician Elvis Costello. Recorded outside Costello's Vancouver home, the interview delves into Costello's illustrious career, his latest musical endeavors, reflections on his family's musical legacy, and his perspectives on the intersection of music and politics.

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1. Career Longevity and Evolution

David Remnick opens the discussion by highlighting Costello's enduring presence in the music industry, noting, “there are careers that are 40, 50 years long. Elvis Costello has been on the scene since the mid-70s, a leader of the new wave, but since then he's led a vital and brilliant career of experiment and variation.” This sets the stage for exploring how Costello has navigated the evolving landscape of music over decades.

Elvis Costello reflects on the shifts in the music industry, stating at [02:26], “about 2010 I told people I was going to concentrate on live performance. I think that was coming to terms with the fact that the model that we had lived by for the previous years was no longer in existence.” He elaborates on moving away from the traditional record-and-tour model, emphasizing a focus on live performances and personal artistic growth.

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2. The Creation of "hey Clockface"

Costello discusses his latest album, hey Clockface, describing its genesis during the pre-pandemic period. At [04:04], he shares the spontaneity involved in its creation: “I went in there with the songs in my head rather than in any kind of demo form. I knew the nature of those particular songs. They needed to be brought to life in a moment and not worked at.”

He credits modern digital editing technology for enabling the album's vibrant sound, countering the notion that technology detracts from musical feeling: “I would disagree that you can't get music of feeling and drive out of this technology.”

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3. Live Performances and the Touring Experience

The conversation shifts to Costello's experiences on tour. At [06:03], he recounts the intense atmosphere of performing live, especially during the challenging times of the pandemic. “I knew in my heart it probably, there probably wasn't going to be another show on that tour,” he admits, highlighting the emotional toll and the difficult decisions artists had to make during uncertain times.

Costello emphasizes the importance of his crew and band, acknowledging their pivotal role in delivering memorable performances despite external pressures: “I just had to admit that I'm putting my crew most of all. My crew, really, because they do all the close handling work.”

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4. Reflections on Music Authenticity and Rock and Roll

Remnick brings up a profile by Nick Pamgarten, discussing the concept of artists adopting characters to perform. At [13:18], Costello challenges the notion that rock and roll is inherently more authentic than other show business genres: “I don't really hold to that. Now, we, all those of us of a certain age, remember you. We're about the same age as a certain kind of figure who exploded onto the music scene and... projected a certain character.”

He disputes the stereotype of rock music as “juvenile, delinquent music,” explaining his musical upbringing influenced by jazz and big band standards rather than rock and roll, which he found “crude.”

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5. Family and Musical Heritage

A significant portion of the interview delves into Costello's familial ties to music. He shares anecdotes about his father, a trumpet player and singer, and their collaborative experiences. At [16:07], Costello nostalgically recalls his first paid recording session singing backup for his father’s track, “Secret Lemonade Drinker,” highlighting the early influence of his father’s musical career.

He reflects on the diverse musical environment his parents fostered, blending jazz with commercial dance music, which shaped his eclectic taste and approach to music: “You would hear these very bizarre versions of, you know, the Four Tops... my dad was about 35 when he was doing this. It seemed really weird, but that was the way I saw music.”

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6. New Project: "50 Songs for 50 Days"

Costello introduces his latest initiative, 50 Songs for 50 Days, a collection predominantly featuring political themes. At [18:13], he explains his intent to provide a nuanced perspective on political issues without adhering to simplistic slogans: “I try to always look for the angle that somebody else isn't covering because there's other people doing the other thing really well.”

He likens the project to an art installation, aiming to evoke a range of emotions—console, amuse, or irritate—without prescribing a specific reaction. This approach underscores his belief in music's role as a reflective and provocative medium: “The simplest thing to say about it is the things that we are so rightly enraged about... are almost like a madness of passion. It's all happened before and here are the songs to prove it.”

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7. Personal Reflections and Future Endeavors

Towards the end of the conversation, Costello shares personal insights about balancing his career with family life. At [08:49], he speaks fondly of the uninterrupted time spent with his 13-year-old sons, a rarity since their early years: “We are sharing every day. It's beautiful.”

He remains optimistic about future projects, leaving plans open-ended: “There is a wishful pencil mark in the diary of next year and we'll see where we are when we get there.”

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8. Concluding Thoughts

David Remnick and Elvis Costello wrap up the interview with mutual appreciation. Costello expresses gratitude for the ongoing dialogue and the pleasure it brings him: “You give me so, so many years and so much pleasure and so, so many varieties.”

Remnick highlights Costello's new album hey Clockface and concludes the episode, leaving listeners with a sense of admiration for Costello's enduring artistry and thoughtful engagement with contemporary issues.

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Notable Quotes:

• Elvis Costello at [02:26]: “about 2010 I told people I was going to concentrate on live performance. I think that was coming to terms with the fact that the model that we had lived by for the previous years was no longer in existence.”

• Elvis Costello at [03:40]: “You know what? I'm completely... at ease with the balance between the old and the new.”

• Elvis Costello at [18:13]: “I try to always look for the angle that somebody else isn't covering because there's other people doing the other thing really well.”

• Elvis Costello at [20:30]: “we are so rightly enraged about, we see as unjust, we see dividing us... these are the songs to prove it.”

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This episode offers a profound glimpse into Elvis Costello's artistic journey, his adaptability in a changing music landscape, and his unwavering commitment to meaningful musical expression. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to his work, this conversation provides valuable insights into the mind of one of music's most enduring figures.

Transcript

[WNYC Studios]

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[Elvis Costello]

Listener Supported WNYC Studios.

[David Remnick]

This is the.

[WNYC Studios]

New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[David Remnick]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. When rock and roll emerged in the days of Little Richard and Chuck Berry, Elvis and the Beatles, no one thought about long careers, the way a musician's work might evolve over time. But that was then. Now there are careers that are 40, 50 years long. Elvis Costell has been on the scene since the mid-70s, a leader of the new wave, but since then he's led a vital and brilliant career of experiment and variation. And I've been following it all along.

[Elvis Costello]

Tell me, how does it feel in the Hour of Deception, in the Moment of Pretend?

[David Remnick]

Costello's newest album, hey Clock Face, is out this month, and it was largely recorded before the pandemic. I spoke with him as he sat outside his house near the harbor in Vancouver, British Columbia, which is why you might even hear a foghorn in the background. I wonder how you approach new music like that. If you feel that a new album must have either a new sound, a new thematic approach, how do you approach that idea of a new record?

[Elvis Costello]

Well, about 2010 I told people I was going to concentrate on live performance. I think that was coming to terms with the fact that the model that we had lived by for the previous years was no longer in existence. That was you made a record and then you went out on the road and you played the music of that album folded into your general repertoire. That sometime around then, maybe it was the way the record world itself was changing, that stopped happening. And so I put my work into first, the revival of the Spectacular Spinning Songbook. Cause it put all of my songs in play and left them to the. You know, left them to chance, literally. Then I was completing this book I'd been working on for a long time. I started to feel as if everything was about using what you had and adding into it and you could change the focus. You were no longer worried about, oh, I gotta play the hit single, you know.

[David Remnick]

Although, on the other hand, even the. Even the casual Elvis Costello listener, not the committed fan, has 34 albums that you can sample and move around in.

[Elvis Costello]

You know what? I'm completely. I'm completely at ease with the balance between the old and the new. There's another way of looking at streaming is it's radio with all the unpleasant talking taken out, you know, and it's not.

[David Remnick]

Don't put me out of business.

[Elvis Costello]

And it's not an advertising man's idea of what the playlist should be. It's the listener's idea of what the playlist should be in the most cases.

[David Remnick]

Well, when you've recorded a new album and you talk about the story of an album, how do you view the story of. Hey, Clockface, Hey, Clock Face? The title track is, you know, is Deriving from. That's Waller. It's Deriving. You're nobody's nostalgist, but you're drawing on a musical history. You're writing about time, which seems to be a big theme in this record.

[Elvis Costello]

Well, let me start at the top. I mean, it was distinctly an outlandish adventure. One cannot imagine now. It began with me leaving early for a tour in Britain and getting on a plane and flying, you know. Do you remember that? Flying to. Flying to Helsinki somewhere where I literally don't know anybody. They don't know me so well. I found a little studio there that intrigued me. I went in there with the songs in my head rather than in any kind of demo form. I knew the nature of those particular songs. They needed to be brought to life in a moment and not worked at. I couldn't rehearse them with my band. I just had to start playing. And that approach freed me. Like, they literally came into existence in the moment I made them. And I had a young engineer who was very, very adept at the modern era of digital editing, which allowed me to do things that, you know, would have been impossible. So I. I would disagree that you can't get music of feeling and drive out of this technology. I went from there after three days to Paris. And here's another unimaginable scene for you. 30 people gathered in an apartment in Paris celebrating Steve Naive, my piano player. Of 43 years, you know, my colleague, my friend, celebrating both his birthday and receiving his French passport. A group of people kissing each other and eating cake off each other's plate, raising their glasses and singular. Marcellus. I mean, cat. Can you imagine the danger we were in?

[David Remnick]

You know, is the idea to get the existing music that's in your head down on wax, as it were, or is the idea.

[Elvis Costello]

I still think of it that way.

[David Remnick]

Give them an idea and then go from there?

[Elvis Costello]

No, I mean, I knew how these songs should feel and obviously I had no way of knowing that combination of instrumentalists would be quite as vivid as the recordings from Paris turned out to be. We then went and did a tour of England, you know, with the Impostors. We opened up in Liverpool in the dance hall where my mother used to dance when she was a young woman in the late 40s. She was at the gig. She's 92.

Eight clock face, keep your fingers on the dial. You stole those precious moments and the kisses from her smiles. And now I'm living in these aisles away. We were wild.

I'm not wasting any more time. And then, you know, the second week of the tour, you start to see those empty seats when we know that every ticket in the house is sold. And it was by the time we played London. I just had to admit that I'm putting my crew most of all. My crew, really, because they do all the close handling work. My crew, my band and the audience in some kind of harm's way.

[David Remnick]

This must be killing you. This must be killing you and your wife who are performing musicians who, who, who bring so much joy to people who are in the seats hearing things live. Well, you know, I, I sitting on your porch.

[Elvis Costello]

We came into the wings at the Hammersmith Apollo and I knew, I knew in my heart. I hadn't told anybody, but I knew in my heart it probably, there probably wasn't going to be another show on that tour. I, I, I, I slept on that feeling and made the decision the next day because the Canadian border was about to be shut. And I knew I had to get home to my family. But, you know, I came into the wings, I said, okay, guys, you know, we better make this one count. We're going to end with peace, love and understanding, as we often do. But let's play Hurry Down Doomsday, the Bugs Are Taking over, which we hardly.

Ever play, the man in the Carpenter.

And, you know, I could see people in the front row going, oh, yeah, you think you're very funny, don't you? You know, but they, they knew why we were doing it because at that point we were chasing, trying to chase away shadows, you know, A week later the prime minister was in the icu. So it didn't sound so comical then, you know, but nobody knew.

[David Remnick]

How do you feel about. How do you envision the future? When do you think that you're back? I mean, you don't have any more of a beat on the news than anybody else, but for music it's got to be different.

[Elvis Costello]

I suddenly realized that, that I hadn't spent, you know, this now at this point I've, I've never spent this amount of uninterrupted time with my 13, 13 year old sons since they were 3 months old. We are sharing every day. It's beautiful. We, you know, I can't complain about that. But you know, our work, our livelihood does require us to go and play shows. So there is a wishful pencil mark in the diary of next year and we'll see where we are when we get there.

I've been left in the dark Shining light right in my eyes you'll never meet me Talk alibis I must.

[David Remnick]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

[Elvis Costello]

With more to come I won't place the blame I can't say a name.

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[Planet Money]

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[Elvis Costello]

Garbage in New York, that was like a controlled substance.

[Planet Money]

We show you how money influences everything.

[Jesse Szewczyk]

Tell me what you like by telling me how you spend your money.

[Planet Money]

And we dig until we get answers.

[Elvis Costello]

I had a bad feeling you're gonna bring that up.

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Planet Money finds out. All you have to do is listen. The Planet Money podcast from npr.

[David Remnick]

Ellis Some years ago, Nick Pamgarten spent a lot of time with you for a profile in the New Yorker.

[Elvis Costello]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

And the subject came up of character, a character that the musician might play, especially in his or her youth. And you said this. Even people who take. Even people who we take to be the real deal did it. They made up a character for themselves, and you had to have an act. There's some artistry attributed to rock and roll, where it's supposed to be more authentic than show business. I don't really hold to that. Now, we, all those of us of a certain age, remember you. We're about the same age as a. As a certain kind of figure who exploded onto the music scene and both visually as well as musically, and projected a certain character, a certain temperament, as well as the music itself. How do you view that now?

[Elvis Costello]

Well, I was 22 when I made my first record, you know, so if there hadn't been some changes made by now, there would be something badly wrong. You know, you also never ask a doctor, like, if you have something wrong with you, and you go, doctor, I got this problem with my hip. Like, before you put that. Before you operate on me, can I just ask you how you felt about your vocation in medicine when you were a medical student, whoever asked that of a doctor, they never ask it. They only ask it of artists somehow. Because there's this implication that you've betrayed some sacred trust. You know, things you say in interviews when you're 23 are not catechism that you have to repeat for the rest of your life. There's some things more often said to get somebody off your back. I've never had a master plan, but I think we've.

[David Remnick]

When I was a little kid, rock and roll was a new thing. There was no such thing as long careers.

[Elvis Costello]

No. Well, it was. It was supposed to be this juvenile, delinquent music. And frankly, I didn't know anything about rock and roll when I was a kid. I. Because my parents listened to Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Sinatra and EL Fitzgerald and Nat Cole and Stan Kenton and heaven knows what else. You know, Duke Ellington, they didn. About rock and roll. That was. That was kind of crude. And I. I'm kind of with him on some of that. With. Apart from Little Richard.

[David Remnick]

Now, your father was a singer. He was a trumpet player. And we've got a track from the group that he played with Joe Lawson, the Orchestra. And let's listen to him singing at last in 1969.

[Elvis Costello]

Wow.

At last My love has come along My lonely days are over and life is like a song.

You know, my dad started out here. My mother ran clubs in that same, you know, almost evangelical way when there's a new style of music arriving from overseas on records which were very scarce and expensive and difficult to. To get. My father went and mother wereworth went to London in the early 50s. And my dad played around the jazz scene. And guess when I came along, he did what a lot of jazz musicians realize is necessary. He got a job that paid better as a singer. So then he was in a commercial dance band. And that's how he came to sing this song associated with Glenn Miller. Not that when he's singing At Last there. It has no reference to Etta James. That was a cover. That is a note for note transcription of the Glenn Miller recording of that last.

[David Remnick]

Well, we also dug up one of the earliest recordings of you where you're singing backup vocals for your dad. It's the theme music for a soda company, but I think it's called Secret Lemonade Drinker.

[Elvis Costello]

It's wonderful. Yeah, yeah. We're doing the background voices on it. It was my first. It's my first paid recording session.

Yeah, I'm a secret lemonade drinker.

Always.

I'm gonna try to keep it up. It's one of those nights. Always, always, always Lemonade. I'm a secret lemonade drinker. Always, always. Oh, ice lemonade.

[David Remnick]

That's not bad at all.

[Elvis Costello]

Well, here's the weird thing, isn't it, about the Elvis name is my dad is affecting this Elvis inflection.

[David Remnick]

Exactly.

[Elvis Costello]

He's a very good mimic and he could do comic mimicry like that. And that's why I had such a rich record collection. Because every week he would get given a stack of Hit Parade singles. Because this dance band just played the. The Hit Parade. It's hard for Americans to understand, but we didn't have the 24 hour pop radio that you all had. And everything was decoded through a series of other interpretations. So you would hear these very bizarre versions of, you know, the Four Tops or the who played by a Glenn Miller style swing band with a guy who was, you know, a really elderly guy who was like 35. You know, my dad was about 35 when he was doing this. You know, it seemed really weird, but that was the way I saw music. First I would go to the dance hall with him on a Saturday afternoon. I'd go to the radio broadcast when school schedule would allow it, which was get there at 8 in the morning and watch a bunch of musicians smoke cigarettes and scratch themselves until it was time to go on the BBC and play an hour long show with guest singers. And those guest singers could be anybody from the Hollies to Engelbert Humperdinck. But it was, it was a glimpse and it took away some of the mystique. But it also, it made me realize this strange exchange between the mundanity of the workaday job and the magic when the light went on.

[David Remnick]

Elvis, you've done a new project called 50 Songs for 50 Days. And these are political songs, a lot of them. What role does music play in politics for you?

[Elvis Costello]

I never think of it as political in the sense because I don't have a manifesto and I don't have a slogan other than I might have the title of the song. But I try to avoid the simplistic slogan nature you know, of in songs. I try to always look for the angle that somebody else isn't covering because there's other people doing the other thing really well. It's the same with the Heartfelt Love Song, you know, the Heartfelt Love Song is something that other people can carry off from the get go. I always thought, well, maybe that's not my job. I don't have the Matinee idol looks to carry off that, so maybe I'll go the other way. And that's what I did. And with this, I think of it like, like an installation. That's the way I referred to it. Like an, like you would do an art installation. It's not supposed to do anything other. I said in the note that I put up with it, you know, console, amuse or irritate. I'll take any of those reactions. But the simplest thing to say about it is the things that we are so rightly enraged about, we see as unjust, we see dividing us, we see summoning up almost like a madness of passion. It's all happened before and here are the songs to prove it. Most of those examples of a lot of the same issues. Did you honestly think you'd be talking to. I don't know. You know, I didn't think I'd be talking with my 13 year old sons about a lynching in 2020. Those are the same things that I was hearing reported on the news at their age in England, that very BBC, you know, terrible sort of outrageous happened in Mississippi today, you know, and so I never thought I'd be any of that. But it isn't even sadly about that one event or what transpired since. It's what, how do you get there and how do you keep getting there? And that's where songs come in because they remind you we keep getting there, you know. And on this, say this new record, there's a song called we're all Cowards. Now the name of the song is not you're all Cowards. Now, the name of the song is we. I'm including myself in that because, you know, it takes, let's face it, it takes a lot more courage to love than it does to hate. It just does.

[David Remnick]

Elvis Costello, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking.

[Elvis Costello]

It has been a pleasure talking with you, David, as always. You stay well and have good heart.

[David Remnick]

You too. You too. And you give me so, so many years and so much pleasure and so, so many varieties. I just can't begin to tell you. Thank you.

[Elvis Costello]

Thank you.

[David Remnick]

Elvis Costello. His new record hey Clock Face is out this month. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks so much for joining us today. See you next time.

[WNYC Studios]

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