Elvis Costello has just released a new album, Look Now, his first collection of original material for some few years now. William Dart examines the treasure.
Photo: Concord Records
Over his 41-year recording career, Elvis Costello has always taken the whole craft of songwriting very seriously.
He can even relate to the traditions of centuries ago without sacrificing his individuality, as he did with his song "Put Away Forbidden Playthings", commissioned for the bicentenary of the English composer Henry Purcell's death and recorded by countertenor Michael Chance and the viol consort Fretwork.
Costello is eminently aware of tone. Every word has intent, ever musical note is precisely placed. And because of this, there can be a sense of savage but under-the-surface irony; an unease that is one of the staples of his style.
When he published his 674-page career story three years ago, with the title Unfaithful Music, there was almost an overflow of fascinating detail about the care taken with his songcraft. He confessed to staying away from any instruments when a tune was forming in his head, in case the guitar or piano might intrude and unnecessarily colour the final result.
There’s often a feeling in these pages of Costello reining himself in.
The song "Indoor Fireworks", from 1985’s King of America was intended to be as plain and bleak as a Hank Williams number. But somehow he couldn’t help himself from echoing the cream in Buddy De Sylva and Lew Brown’s coffee, with an image of being the gin in his vermouth. And right at the end of the chorus, he can’t resist slipping in the title of a Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach evergreen.
In 1998, came an unexpected but welcomed songwriting partnership with the veteran Burt Bacharach.
They'd worked on Alison Anders’ movie Grace of My Heart two years previously, which was the first time that we heard the power ballad to end all power ballads, "God Give Me Strength".
In the film, it was an audition piece, with piano, for a shuffling and awkward Ileana Douglas (lip-synching to a vocal by Kristen Vigard); two years later, on Costello and Bacharach’s Painted from Memory CD, drastically pulled back in tempo, it soars to heaven in an arrangement that does full justice to the Golden Gate spans of its melody.
Elvis Costello’s new album, Look Now, opens with a joyous splash of pop, and why shouldn't it – it's a reunion with his old backing group, The Imposters. And Steve Nieve’s piano casts octaves into the sky in this number. Costello told us earlier this year that he was hoping to combine the scope of his 1982 Imperial Bedroom album with the beauty and emotion of his project with Burt Bacharach.
The song "Under Lime" is definitely one of the bedroom numbers and, like much in the album, hearkens back to Costello’s own musical past. We’ve already met its main character, Jimmy, eight years ago, standing in the rain. Now doing the nostalgia rounds on the tele, there’s something going on in the green, or should that be lime room.
Clocks are ticking away and inspire a delightful excursion into a George Martin orchestra land. Later, they bring on what could only be described as a bit of a Swingle Singers frenzy. It’s irresistible.
The new Elvis Costello album, Look Now, is also an excuse for a number of comings-together. He joins up with, of all people, Carole King, in the song "Burnt Sugar is so bitter". And, just in case you don’t believe it, the brass charts certainly bring out the bitter with caustic crunchy clashes.
It was the new Burt Bacharach collaborations that initially caught my ear and, while there’s nothing in the league of the best numbers from Painted from Memory, it’s interesting to see Costello taking the woman’s role in two of the three numbers.
The first, titled "Don’t Look Now", comes with the bonus of his 89-year-old colleague at the Steinway and, even if it doesn’t have the beguiling curves of classic Bacharach, it’s a deceptive slow-burner and I’m curious to see whether the song might be picked up by any women singers.
If you obtain Look Now as a hold-in-the-hand purchase, it comes with a bonus EP of four songs. They’re all Costello originals, and three of them are triple-time waltzes. I’m sure you’ll enjoy Steve Nieve channeling a boulevard accordion on his Otello organ for the ballad, "Adieu Paris".
The last waltz may already have come your way on the soundtrack to Paul McGuigan’s recent film, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, based on the last days of Hollywood actor Gloria Grahame.
For Costello, the whole movie project brought to mind how we tend to keep people contained in the place that we know them best. For him, Gloria Grahame had always been very much the star of so many classic film noirs of the 50s.
The slow and poised 3/4 of his theme song, "You shouldn’t look at me that way", catches that period, as well as nodding to Burt Bacharach as an unmistakable musical influence. It’s significant that Costello’s own arrangement for piano and a small instrumental band, includes Bacharach’s favourite flugel horn.
This year’s Academy Award for best movie song went to a rather ordinary piece of writing from the kiddie comic feature Coco, the work of Kristen Anderson and Robert Lopez, who made his name with the scores for The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q. Unarguable credentials you might think, but Elvis Costello does remind us that movies can be for grown-ups too.
Listen to these songs and others by clicking on the 'Listen' button above.
Music Details
'Song title' (Composer) – Performers
Album title
(Label)
'Put Away Forbidden Playthings: Part I' (Costello) – Fretwork
Sit Fast
(Virgin)
'Put Away Forbidden Playthings: Part II' (Costello' (Michael Chance, Fretwork
Sit Fast
(Virgin)
'Put Away Forbidden Playthings' (Costello' (Elvis Costello, Metropole Orkest
My Flame Burns Blue
(DG)
'Alison' (Costello) – Linda Ronstadt
Living in the USA
(Asylum)
'Indoor Fireworks' (Costello) – Elvis Costello
King of America
(Demon)
'Almost Blue' (Costello) – Elvis Costello
Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz Hour: Elvis Costello
(NPR)
'God Give Me Strength' (Costello/Bacharach) – Elvis Costello, Burt Bacharach
Painted from Memory
(Mercury)
'Under Lime' (Costello) – Elvis Costello and the Imposters
Look Now
(Concord)
'Don’t Look Now' (Costello, Bacharach) – Elvis Costello and the Imposters
Look Now
(Concord)
'Mr and Mrs Hush' (Costello) – Elvis Costello and the Imposters
Look Now
(Concord)
'You shouldn’t look at me that way' (Costello) – Elvis Costello and the Imposters
Look Now
(Concord)
