Elvis Costello discussed the making of his debut album, My Aim Is True, in a recent episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. The conversation covers the 104-track My Aim Is True — 49th Anniversary Edition boxed set, which includes unheard songs and era-spanning live performances.
Among the highlights is a disc called The Blue Print, which collects songs from before the debut album. Costello said he was learning to write songs to be played with other people, after previously performing with one singing partner in Liverpool or on his own. He said he first came to London in 1973 and later wrote a group of what he loosely called “ragtime” songs that he consciously tried to make sound as if they were “found in a trunk, sometime in 1927.” He said he held them back because “they revealed too much.”
Costello said “Alison” drew on an encounter with a supermarket checkout worker, and that something disappointed in her eyes stayed with him. He also said the song’s hook owes a debt to the Spinners’ “Ghetto Child.” He said Linda Ronstadt’s hit version of the song was not one he initially spoke politely about, and that being chosen alongside the songwriters she recorded was a tremendous compliment.
On the album’s production, Costello said the total recording time was probably not much over 24 hours, and that mixing was straightforward because the record was made on only eight tracks. He said Stiff decided to release the album despite the failure of its first two singles, and that at that point they did not have an American label. He also recalled that the label told him it would change his name, and that promotional photos played up his ordinariness, unfashionable clothes and glasses.
Costello also addressed the punk era, saying the history-book version in which punk swept everything in its path is not true. He said the UK charts of the time were full of disco records, Fleetwood Mac and Rod Stewart, and that he and the Boomtown Rats briefly managed to reach the top 20 while many other strong groups struggled lower down.
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Source: Rolling Stone Music
