Recommendations of the Editorial team
The best songwriters of all time (24): Elvis Costello
After Elvis Costello made his debut in 1977 as a rambunctious, loose-mouthed punk rocker (“I’ve always written songs with a lot of words”), he said in 2008: “I like the effect of having a multitude of images rushing past your mind’s eye.”
He blossomed into the prototype of the substantial songwriter, whose enormous spectrum also addressed traditional American sensibilities. After the masterful soul and R&B bonanza “Get Happy!” The country detour “Almost Blue” followed in 1980, as well as “Imperial Bedroom,” a nod to the musical legacy of Tin Pan Alley.
“Beyond Belief”:
The best songwriters of all time (24): Elvis Costello
Classic Costello songs – “Beyond Belief”, “Radio, Radio”, “New Lace Sleeves”, “Watching The Detectives” or “Oliver’s Army” – impress with an imaginative density and subtle wordplay, for which the Beatles were obviously also the inspiration.
His ability to embrace completely different styles led to fruitful collaborations with Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, his wife, jazz singer Diane Krall, and hip-hop troupe The Roots.
“Which doesn’t mean the songs fly into my mouth like doves,” he told Rolling Stone in 2004. “There were times when I was desperate for words. When I talked about a house in ‘The House Is Empty Now’ (on Painted From Memory), I meant this one.” And pointed his finger to his head.
ROLLING STONE editor Arne Willander on Costello:
The career of Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus is the gifted outsider and record collector’s revenge on the guys who rented rock’n’roll and didn’t want to let him play. He was born in London on August 25, 1954, the son of singer and trumpeter Ross McManus, who performed with the Joe Loss Orchestra, which was popular in England in the 1950s and 1960s.
As a child, Declan listened to and studied his parents’ albums: Frank Sinatra and Wes Montgomery, Tony Bennett and Dean Martin, Hoagy Carmichael and Ella Fitzgerald, Hank Williams and Jim Reeves, jazz, vaudeville and pop records. Then he discovered the Beatles and American soul music; At 16 he wrote his first songs. Maybe we wouldn’t know him today if he had continued playing epigonal folk songs with the bands Flip City and Rusty. The only known work Declan did was punching punch cards.