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When it emerged before the 1983 British General Election that Lord Cecil Parkinson, then a government minister, disowned his secretary/mistress and their handicapped child, Elvis Costello switched on his word processor and tapped out a song. He got his record company to rush-release it.
The result, "Pills & Soap," included many famous references to the ills of Thatcherism.
Some folk have all the luck
And all we get are pictures of Lord and Lady Muck
They come from lovely people with a hard line in hypocrisy
There are ashtrays of emotion for the fag ends of the aristocracy.
Costello raged, as Cecil Parkinson's ears stung.
The son of singer and bandleader Ross MacManus, the great man was born Declan MacManus in August 25, 1954 in Paddington, London.
A self-taught songwriter, he first performed in public in 1969. In 1974, he skedaddled to London and became front man for a country-rock group called Flip City. Eager to get a record deal, young Elvis strapped amp on his back and played in front of the Hilton, Park Lane on July 26, 1977 in London, where a CBS Records annual international convention was taking place. According to legend, he was arrested for blocking the footpath, and had to have someone pay the five pound fine, as he was somewhat skint.
An erstwhile computer programmer, Elvis survived punk and outgrew his musical generation. His first album in 1979, My Aim Is True, was voted Album of the Year by Rolling Stone. "Watching the Detectives," his first single, featured vitriolic verses about wife-beating over a simple reggae beat.
He was no ordinary songwriter: a testament to this was that, over the years, everyone from Chet Baker to Johnny Cash to Roy Orbison to Roger McGuinn and George Jones have covered his material. (He co-wrote an album with Paul McCartney called Flowers In The Dirt in the mid-Eighties; he wrote and sang with Roger McGuinn for his 1991 comeback album entitled Back To Rio.)
His lyrics have always been deeply felt. When in 1986 his marriage broke up he recorded King of America with the Confederates. The track "They'll Never Take Her Love From Me" was brutal in its honesty. He later married Caitlin O'Riordan, former bassist with the Pogues. The pair live happily outside Dublin. You see Elvis every so often in town — turning up to do impromptu surprise guests slots with visiting Bird men. I only meet him once. In 1985, outside the Trinity Ball, I was editing a fanzine, and approached him as he got out of a taxi en route to see the Pogues perform later, much later, that night. "Oi! Elvis! Can I have an interview?" "No. Fuck off!" This was, doubtless, a joke.
His famous wit is much misunderstood, to say nothing of his ability to wind up the world. Or Stephen Stills at any rate. In 1979, or thereabouts, a well-oiled Elvis and his band the Attractions was in the bar of the Holiday Inn in Columbus, Ohio.
Stephen Stills and his band were also present. Costello made a remark about the icon from Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash having a "steel nose" — a reference to Stills's one-time cocaine habit — and a row had soon erupted.
The drunken experience with Stephen Stills didn't put Elvis off American music. In 1981, he recorded his sublime country album, Almost Blue, in Nashville. The title track inspired by Chet Baker's classic "The Thrill Is Gone," the album was one of his best ever, including the stunning reading of George Jones' "Good Year For The Roses."
Our man Costello is, plain and simple, a god. So who cares if it rains cats and dogs in Kilkenny today, it will be joy either way to watch Elvis (and our other man, Robert Zimmerman) perform in the open air.
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