Hot Press, February 23, 1989: Difference between revisions
(+detail) |
(+text part 1) |
||
| Line 10: | Line 10: | ||
---- | ---- | ||
{{Bibliography text}} | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
CALL IT coincidence, call it synchronicity. Maybe we should settle for bad planning. I was in Heathrow Airport, waiting to board a delayed Aer Lingus flight from London to Dublin. It was a hastily arranged trip to interview Elvis Costello in the Gresham Hotel. I was skimming through some old Costello articles I had long had on file, not so much in-depth examinations as evasive skirmishes from a time when Elvis spoke to the press infrequently and, it seemed, reluctantly. | |||
"The press were looking for something to crucify me with, and I fed myself to the lions," said the singer in a rare 1982 ''Rolling Stone'' [[Rolling Stone, September 2, 1982|interview]], referring to the petty, drunken argument with Bonnie Bramlett, when Elvis shot his mouth off about black music and then was forced to duck as American journalists returned fire. ELVIS COSTELLO REPENTS said the cover headline over a photo of a completely unpenitent pop-star, gazing suspiciously out through large, black-rimmed spectacles, as if irritated at having to break his self-imposed silence to explain off the unfortunate and unwarranted stigma of racism that was then still damaging his American career. I looked up from the page... and straight into the same face gazing vacantly back at me from across the departure lounge. | |||
The face was a little heavier maybe, slightly bearded, sporting small, rounded, dark glasses and with a black cap pulled low on the forehead as if making a half-hearted attempt at celebrity disguise, but it was him alright. Elvis Costello, in person, his wife Cait sitting to his right, a WEA International rep to his left. Carefully folding my clippings, I ambled over to introduce myself. | |||
Elvis saw me coming. Or rather, he saw someone making a bee-line for him, clutching Costello cut-out pictures. His eyes darted to the left and right, as if seeking a convenient escape route, but he was against the wall and far from any crowd. Realising he was trapped, he slumped in his seat and attempted a weak smile as he accepted my outstretched hand. Cait buried her face in a book, keen to avoid the homily of an ardent fan. | |||
"I'm from Hot Press," I said, "I thought you were supposed to be in Dublin!" "You're the one who's supposed to be in Dublin," countered Elvis, understandably mystified. "What's going on?" asked the bewildered WEA rep. | |||
The flight was announced as we gave our conflicting explanations of the communications complication that led to two people who lived in the same city flying all the way to another country to meet one another. "Bizarre!" laughed Elvis. "Why doesn't anybody ever tell me what's going on?" complained the rep. "Don't worry," says Elvis, "I've got some other things I've got to do over there." "All it takes is a phone call!" muttered the rep, despairingly. "See you in Dublin," smiled Elvis as we boarded. | |||
"Sorry about this," apologised the rep. "Don't worry," I replied, "you've just given me an intro for my article." | |||
Not that Elvis Costello really needs an introduction. Since the days of rock's re-birth in the baptism of fire that was punk rock, he has been a leading figure in the world of contemporary music. Britain's most critically acclaimed songwriter, with a world status and influence that far exceeds his (respectable} sales figures. | |||
From knock-kneed, angry young man snarling that the only human emotions he understood were guilt and revenge, to slightly portly, genial elder-statesman singing "All You Need Is Love" at Live Aid, his career has twisted and turned with more convolutions than his own punning lyrics, following an agenda clear to no one, probably not even himself. He has always seemed as much agent provocateur as pop star, never a pin-up even as a chart-topper, just too viciously anti-establishment to win the respect of the respectable. He is awesomely prolific and while there have been, inevitably, lows as well as highs in his output, the sheer intelligence, melodic invention emotional intensity of his writing and performing invests his least impressive work with redeeming features. Elvis Costello, as he told me himself during our conversation, is not God, but he's a class act, and I'll settle for that. | |||
After a turbulent flight across the Irish sea (when the stewardess kept reminding everyone to keep their seat-bells fastened and star and journalist both considered whether it might have been wiser to have stayed and done the interview in the departure lounge) Elvis offered me a lift into town. The record company limo, with its polished black body and plush, red velvet interior, resembled nothing so much as a mobile brothel. Elvis sprawled on the back seat like a visiting dignitary, holding court as the Irish rep, the International rep and the journalist listened to a round of musical anecdotes. Cait, with the indifferent air of one who has heard it all before, remained buried in her book. | |||
Elvis recounted drinking in a club in Canada where the bar band played a version of his song "Mystery Dance". Much to the local musicians' surprise, Elvis and The Attractions got up on stage to join them but then found they couldn't keep in sync with a version copied direct from the record. "We were stopping and starting in all the wrong places," he laughed. "They were better at being us than we were!" He told how drummer Pete Thomas, formerly a notorious drinker (though now apparently reformed and "playing better than ever") got them a telling off from ''Top Of The Pops''' producer Michael Hurt for miming drum solos on his head during a broadcast of "I Wanna Be Loved". "It's incredible," said Elvis. "They seem to really believe that people that watch ''Top Of The Pops'' think you're playing live. Someone should break it to them!" Although it was a dull, rainy day Elvis' dark glasses remained on throughout the journey, masking a hangover that had followed a night of carousing after a hard week promoting his new album. "I wanted to unwind a bit," he remarked. "I think I unwound a bit too much." | |||
Elvis has long since made his peace with the press and indeed, it seems, with the world. He is affable and easy to talk to, waxing eloquently on a wide range of musical topics. But the sense of privacy that drove him to keep journalists at arms length for so long remains, and he is evasive if the interview strays too far from his work. "I don't really see what this has got to do with music," he said at one point, signalling an end to a conversation about his family background. To be guarded about his private life and persona is, of course, his prerogative; to choose to probe it is mine. When we settled down to talk in a suite at the top of the Gresham, next door to the rooms he occupied for three months in '87, I wanted to try and find out something about who Elvis Costello really is. I think I found out a little, though an hour and a half was too short a time to talk to the only recording artist in the world whose every record I possess. | |||
Revision as of 18:40, 14 June 2013
|
