Cynicism can outlast a march or a slogan... and a song won’t fix that unfortunately
Singer-songwriter Elvis Costello tells JOE NERSSESSIAN about rejecting nostalgia, his plans for a musical and why you won’t catch him writing protest songs
ELVIS COSTELLO does not have a relationship with nostalgia. The rock and roll star – who turns 64 in August – has now been performing for more than four decades and boasts an impressive back catalogue that he regularly explores in live performance.
But just because he still sings those tracks, it doesn’t give him any sentimental affection for the past.
Or so he argues down the phone from New York City.
“I’m aware of other people’s nostalgia about particular songs but that doesn’t influence the way I perform even those same songs,” he continues, adamantly. “If I performed a song, my view would be different to theirs, that’s ok isn’t it?”
Providing examples, he references last year’s anniversary tour of his 1982 album Imperial Bedroom, in which he opted to mix up the order and change the arrangement.
“People are inclined to make a big deal about decades aren’t they?” he says with a sigh.
“We haven’t so much. Last year we made a gag, 35th year since we released Imperial Bedroom. It was a satirical spin to it because obviously if we’d been doing it in a very straight faced way we would have done it on a decade anniversary and we didn’t.”
There’s a similar response to a question about his 40-year career.
“I guess it is if you tell me it is. I don’t count things like that,” he says.
“I’m not saying I’m not playing the songs from the past, we do play them. The puzzle of all of this, the puzzle of time is for it to be something which propels you forwards rather than something that holds you back.” Born Declan Patrick MacManus in Paddington, London, on August 25, 1954, he became Elvis Costello in 1977 – the same year Elvis Presley died. As a teenager he moved to Liverpool with his mother before returning to the capital a few years later where he eventually exploded into the scene as a brash singer-songwriter.
His last solo album came in 2010 and he considered writing a new one a “fool’s errand” before deciding he wanted to see what a record would sound like from Elvis Costello and The Imposters in 2018. “I wanted a picture of this group, and songs that I came up with, once you’ve got a simple idea like that it’s not hard to do.” As someone whose early music targeted British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, former prime minister Margaret Thatcher and the British Army’s role in Northern Ireland, it may be that Elvis was inspired to write a new album by the global political upheaval of the last two years. Not so, he says. “The truth of it is I wouldn’t want to waste my breath,” he says at an agonising pace, to hit the point home.
“It’s satirist sort of territory where we are right now. What would be the song we could sing about that really? It’s so transparent, there’s no poetry in it.
“And the whole process is mediocrity... why would I want to be that close to mediocrity?
“There are other songs to sing about the way people are which outlast the immediacies of that nature, that’s what I want to do.”
An example of the legacy of such a story, he says, is A Face In The Crowd, a planned stage musical based on Budd Schulberg’s story. It was originally published as Your Arkansas Traveler and adapted into the 1957 film A Face In The Crowd, written by Schulberg, directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Andy Griffith.
The tale follows American singer Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, who rises through local radio to become a national television celebrity thanks to his wise-cracking salesman-like aura.
Eventually, however, he becomes more of a megalomaniac and tries not just to influence government policy but dictate it.
Elvis has already written 18 tracks for the musical, on which work had begun the spring before Donald Trump declared his candidacy for US president. Ever since, he says, people have mentioned it as some sort of parallel.
“The truth of it is that Schulberg was an extremely smart writer about human nature,” he says.
“If he were to be alive today he would probably include social media along with television and radio in this story – the ability to shape opinion but similarly create monsters.”
Referring back to his apprehension of protest songs, Elvis agrees they may lend power to people but says movements such as Time’s Up require vigilance and continued effort to really leave their mark.
“It’s not assuming once you’ve got your badge on that it’s taken care of because it’s not. It’s vigilance, it’s always the way.
“The cynical forces that arrange against vested interest will wait out the gesture (of ) a march or a slogan – when that becomes old news, cynicism can outlast it,” he adds.
“A song won’t fix that unfortunately. You can sing it and feel good about yourself but you have to do it every day.”
Elvis remains a busy man. He has 11-year-old twin sons, Dexter and Frank, with third wife Diana Krall, who he married at the home of Elton John in 2003.
Would he ever follow in the footsteps of Sir Elton, who recently announced his retirement from touring to spend more time with his own children? “I reconsidered my priorities about 10 years ago when I stopped neurotically looking for the next record contract to follow the last one,” he says. “I knew I had to devote so much time to the road work because I could see the way the business was going. “Beyond the new album there’s A Face In The Crowd, after I finish in the studio I go back into workshop on that. None of that sounds like anybody that’s looking to put their feet up.”
■ Elvis Costello And The Imposters tour the UK and Ireland in June and July including dates in Nottingham, Dublin, Cardiff and Manchester.