58 • The Sunday Times Magazine
The singer-songwriter on serenading his
neighbours and keeping the Pogues in check
Elvis Costello
A Life in the Day
C
ostello, 67, was born Declan
McManus in London. His
father, Ross, was a successful
singer and trumpeter. Costello’s
debut album, My Aim Is True,
was released in 1977 and he has
since become one of the UK’s
most enduring and versatile
singer-songwriters. He has an
adult son, Matthew, from his
first marriage, and 15-year-old
twins, Dexter and Frank, from
his current marriage to the
Canadian musician Diana Krall.I like to wake up at
6am to the sound of
Graceful Ghost Rag by
William Bolcom. I don’t have a
clock — they tick-tock and keep
me awake, so that wonderful piano
piece is the perfect phone alarm.
We live in New York City during
the winter, then on Vancouver
Island for the summer. I was lucky
to get back to Canada before the
first lockdown in 2020. Playing
on stage [in March] at the
Hammersmith Apollo, it suddenly
dawned on me that things didn’t
look too good. I just made it home.
I don’t eat meat, so breakfast
might be fruit, muesli and coffee.WORDS OF
WISDOMBEST ADVICE
I WAS GIVEN
Just before I recorded
with jazz bassist Ray
Brown, he whispered
into the mike: “Nobody
play any ideas” —
don’t over-conceiveADVICE I’D GIVE
Decide before climbing
the high wall, because
it’s a long way downWHAT I WISH
I’D KNOWN
Life is short and
very preciousThere is often no structure to
my day, especially if I’ve been
performing the night before. I rise
in the afternoon and slob around
in pyjamas. I’m also prone to
waking in the middle of the night
with a song in my head, so I’ve
taught myself to write in the dark
instead of disturbing Diana.
During the morning I like to
work on new songs. I managed to
keep my voice in trim over the past
year by performing in the garden.
That must have freaked out the
neighbours. I don’t have a studio
at home, just a computer. It’s very
easy to bang on about the old days
being better, but I can compose on
a laptop just as easily. Back in the
1970s we were recording albums in
poky London studios using a tape
machine. If I dreamt up a song
then I had to keep humming the
tune until I was close enough to
a guitar to write the chords down.
Thanks to Covid, life hasn’t
been very rock’n’roll lately.
I produced the 1985 album Rum
Sodomy & the Lash for the Pogues
and I used to drink quite
enthusiastically myself, but Shane
[MacGowan] was in a different
league. I was responsible forcoherent versions of those songs,
so each time Shane opened
another bottle in the morning,
I knew I only had a certain amount
of time left.
Diana has an upstairs office
where she likes to work. We meet
in the kitchen at lunchtime and
discuss the day — a hot bowl of
soup is perfect at this time of year.
My life has always been music.
Mum got me hooked on Frank
Sinatra aged two. Dad was a
talented singer with Joe Loss,
performing solo with his orchestra
at the Royal Variety Performance
in 1963. That year he shared the
bill with Burt Bacharach, the
Beatles and Marlene Dietrich.
I played the Royal Variety last year,
mainly because of my dad, who
died ten years ago.
When my parents separated,
Mum and I spent a lot of time
in Liverpool with my gran. It’s
hard to get emotional about
Twickenham, where we lived,
but I had a real connection with
Liverpool. In 1940, aged 12, Mum
was booked on the evacuee ship
SS City of Benares, taking
children from Liverpool to
Canada. My grandfather removed
her name from the passenger list
at the last minute. A few days later
the ship was torpedoed by a
German U-boat while crossing.
Most of the children died.
Often I work on songs into the
early evening. I can be quite selfish
and need to remind myself to
stop. I like to cook fish for supper.
We try to eat as a family and then
watch television. I’ve seen every
Marvel Universe film at least three
times with the boys, so Diana and
I have tried to educate them with
a few classics instead. We almost
got them to watch Casablanca.
Chance has played a big part in
my life, from sending my first
demo tape to Stiff Records in 1976,
to my mum not getting on that
ship. She passed away last January,
which was tough. Despite having
had a stroke, she had determinedly
managed to come and see my
show in Liverpool the year before.
Music is a constant for me.
I really hope things get back to
some sort of normal this year
because performing live is
special. Otherwise the only place
anyone will hear
me wailing is in my
back garden n
Interview by Jeremy Taylor
Elvis Costello & the Imposters’ new
album, The Boy Named If, is out now MARK SALIGER*