I suppose there's also the danger of accumulating lots of fragments. We
did a McCartney interview and he was saying that he's trying to stop
recording ideas on his phone, just because there's so many that he’ll never
get to.
Yeah, but the thing is with him is that he has this amazing melodic gift.
When we worked together, I came with some songs prepared, he came with
some songs prepared and we wrote a couple, to get a rhythm of how we
would work together.
You’ve got to think that, although I've had experiences with songs emerging
very quickly, when you're working with him, you're dealing with somebody
who just recognises melody really quickly, so there probably is a point where
you have to stop so you can get the sense and value of it.
Can we ask you about Every Day I Write The Book and Oliver’s Army?
We were thinking they're two examples of the way in which you’ve also got
that ability to make a really good pop song.
Well, Every Day I Write The Book is an exercise in writing a pop song, that’s
a rare example of me trying to write to a known formula. It’s funny how over
the years other people have found more feeling in the song than I intended.
I always thought it was a trifle, you know what I mean. I thought, I like these,
I’ll write one of these, I could write, like, a Merseybeat song.
The first version of Every Day I Write The Book sounded like it should have
been played by The Merseybeats or The Big Three or something, it was like
straightforward, straight beat. It ended up being a lovely record, you know.
Oliver’s Army is another example of taking a serious topic and giving it a
kind of upbeat pop mood?
Well, that’s a little different, because the lyric was written after the first time
I went to Belfast, so bear in mind, my family’s from the north of Ireland, my
Dad’s family is from Dungannon, so it was shocking to me to go to Belfast for
the first time and see lads who are no older than me, lads I could have gone to
school with, carrying a machine gun. At best, they're supposed to be keeping
the peace, at worst, they're not.
The whole lyric was written on the plane back. It wasn’t like, oh, this is about
Belfast and explains Belfast, this is like, this is what my Granddad did, this
is what both my Granddads did, they were put in the army to do somebody
else’s dirty work, that’s what the song is about.
You couldn’t possibly plan a song like that it in advance, you'd have to just
say, one thing led to another. I had no idea, for example, that music for
Shipbuilding was going to be something that I would sing for the rest of my
career. I just felt, that’s a piece of music.
Elvis Costello plays the Eventim Olympia in Liverpool on the 28th
February 2020. His new album ‘Look Now’ is available now.
24 wirrallife.com