In honor of Elvis Costello

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

I was reminded of this seeing clips of Costello playing for H Clinton's birthday. (The Clintons associating themselves with Elvs Costllo is pretty radical... he's no moderate, as this song reminds us.)

I would have never understood this Elvis Costello song if it weren't for my father telling us stories of growing up in the depression.

During the winter his mother would send the kids out scrounging for coal that fell off freight cars going into the rail yards. My father, being a clever boy, figured out how to put a piece of metal on the tracks that would give the cars a little 'bump' as they passed over... just enough to jostle some extra coal off the open-air coal cars. This form of "train robbery" represented a treasure to them.

Some things never change.

Coal Train Robberies

Yesterday's coal train came to rest in the bitter cutting
And as the signals took an age to change it was easy pickings
So you go to the movies where they smash it up
You want to feel your heart pumping it makes you feel good
All through the karaoke girls were squealing the hits
As another mercedes-benz gets blown to bits

While all the time in the camptown theatres of piccadilly
They're going to throw a black-face minstrel show for the barefoot children
That they're always selling
They'll say "it's quaint" as the guilty ones faint and claim they ain't underneath this paint
We interrupt these liberal saints with their whips and watermelon

Reports are coming in of a coal-train robbery
It's like another world, or it had better be

So we return to whitewashed pout of his committed lips
Since he was declared the long lost fountain
Of youth that drips and drips and drips
They'll be sending him round from door to door,
To sell you back what's already yours
"so many good deeds, so little time"
Say the advertising agency swine
When man has destroyed what he thinks he owns
I hope no living thing cries over his bones

If you don't believe that i'm going for good
You can count the days i'm gone and chop up
The chairs for firewood

Reports are coming in of a coal-train robbery
It's like another world, or it had better be

[acmavm]

1. Saw Elvis Costello last night with Bob Dylan and Amos Lee. He was

talking about Ah-nold, seeing him in a restaurant in California. He was worried that he might come over to speak to him. He was laughing and saying that Ah-nold can never be POTUS, but that his son's (Costello's) could some day.

[FredScuttle]

2. Speaking of controversial singers appearing with presidential candidates

Dare I bring up this shitstorm?

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1741676&displaytype=printable

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Elvis Costello hasn't been controversial since 1977...

:shrug:

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. Not here, maybe...

For instance, releasing the single "Pills and Soap" on election day, "Rock agaist Racism," some of his Irish occupation ssongs...

If not "controversial," highly political. Among the more consistantly political UK acts of the 1980s.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. What a childish controversy monger

It was a drunken argument with someone who insisted that everything Costello did was a Ray Charles rip-off, and was clearly ironic in nature, offered to offend and dismiss the white guy he was arguing with.

One might as well cite the lyric "Only takes one itchy trigger, one more widow, one less white nigger" from Oliver's Army, leaving aside the fact that Oliver's Army is one of the all-time great anti-imperialist songs. Since Costello has revered Ray Charles since he was a boy, and has been an outspoken enemy of racism in the UK throughout his career it's not a very explanatory anecdote.

It reminds me of George Allen trying to paint Jim Webb as a pornographer.

But thanks for sharing.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. Paul McCartney Said Elvis Costello Was The Greatest Collaborator Since John

It's no coincidence that "Flowers In The Dirt" was McCartney's best cd in the past twenty years...

[FredScuttle]

15. He was arguing with Bonnie Bramlett, who decked him after he called Ray Charles a "nigger"

Good for her.

[alteredstate]

16. Elvis Costello is a racist?

and he performed at Hillary's birthday party?

[FredScuttle]

21. I was being (somewhat) facetious

The incident happened 30 years ago and Costello has apologized for it a number of times. I don't think he's a racist but it was a singularly idiotic choice of words by Elvis in a heated argument.

[alteredstate]

19. Found this at "The Elvis Costello Home Page" website

It's from New Musical Express. Here's an excerpt:

Elvis makes racism remarks


COSTELLO SAYS SORRY T0 THE HAND THAT FEEDS HIM


"ELVIS COSTELLO And The Attractions' American tour has been blazing its way across America amidst media controversy and public delirium reminiscent of the Stones' '72 tour and early mop-top visits. Costello himself has been verbally outrageous in public several times and is now counting the cost accordingly.

The first incident occurred in St. Louis last week where – after CBS had arranged for a prominent local radio station to sponsor his show there – Costello severely bad-mouthed the station at the introduction to 'Radio Radio', resulting in all his music immediately being removed from their playlist.

But what must be seen as Elvis one big mistake took place only a few days later in Columbus, Ohio, where Costello and bassist Bruce Thomas were involved in a barroom brawl with Steve Stills, Bonnie Bramlett and their band.

Initially a heated conversation broke out when members of the Stills entourage started accusing Costello of stealing his licks from Ray Charles, James Brown and other seminal black artists. Elvis' retort soon became abusive, and developed into a venomous diatribe about blacks in general. Thomas chipped in "Fuck off steel nose" to Stills, and the whole thing degenerated into an O.K. Corral situation, with the two Englishmen coming off worse through sheer weight of numbers.

nme.790407p12_small.gif (7258 bytes)The implications of this affair became apparent the next day when every muck-raking newspaper on the East Coast ran a story branding Costello as a "racialist". From that point Costello started receiving abusive phone calls and death threats at an alarming rate.

By the time the tour reached New York last Friday these anonymous promises of Costello's impending downfall numbered over 150.

With gigs at the Capitol in New Jersey and Palladium in downtown New York ahead (neither venue known for the gentility of its audience) a hurried press conference was called at the CBS offices, which drew over 50 journalists at less than an hour's notice.

Elvis was anxious to set the record straight. He apologised about making racist remarks and put it down to having been wound up by the Stills crowd, who incidentally were responsible for leaking the story to the press.

"Well, you know how it is," he said. "One day I love America, the next day I hate it.".............


NORMAN BAKER

http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/n/nme.790407p11.html

[AtomicKitten]

4. I'm a big fan of Elvis Costello.

And he is nothing short of brilliant in person.

Yes, I am insanely jealous he played Clinton's birthday bash. :)

[Ishoutandscream2]

8. I was moved when I visited his grave at Graceland

It reminds me of one of his great hits - "Thanks, for the memories."

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. You're thinking of "White Christmas"

I think "Thanks, for the memories" was the Rolling Stones.

[Berry Cool]

10. Warning! Warning!

If you want to troll like that around here, you need to get an official DU Trolling License.

I heard Skinner offers discounts to those who are nice to him.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. Who would I be trolling for, Bing Crosby?

[Ishoutandscream2]

12. Wait a minute.

Crosby recorded Sympathy for the Devil. Wait, he's that large guy who played with the Byrds. You know, that Ken Hitchcock movie. You know, about hockey.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. Bing Crosby, Beverly Sills, Ogden Nash and Henny Youngman...

Takes me back to the Summer of love... 1953.

[underpants]

13. *sniff* poor guy never did figure out who was on first

:cry:

[alteredstate]

17. Yikes!!!

Was he actually onstage with Hillary?

[phen43]

18. heartwarming

and to think I was once an Elvis Costello fan

[jefferson_dem]

20. Elvis Costello helped make me the political person I am.

Seriously. In 1989, I purchased Costello's "Spike" cd. Track 2 is one of those transformative numbers. It's called "Let Him Dangle" and is about the tragic injustice that was the hanging of Derek Bentley. Seek it out if you can.

Elvis is the Man! Good for Hillary.