Born in St Mary's Hospital, Paddington in London, Costello is the son of trumpeter, vocalist and band-leader Ronald (“Ross”) MacManus and record store manager Lillian Costello. His family had roots in Merseyside and he moved to Birkenhead at age 16, with his mother, when his parents separated. While he is better known as 'Elvis Costello', a stage name referring to the legendary Elvis Presley suggested by Stiff Records manager Jake Riviera, he has used many other aliases, including 'The Imposter' and 'Napoleon Dynamite'.
In the early 1970s Costello was a participant in London's pub rock scene with the group Flip City. Then in 1977 along with fellow Pub-Rockers Nick Lowe and Ian Dury he made his first releases on the independent label Stiff, tailoring his work towards the burgeoning punk, power pop, and new wave scenes. From 1980's Armed Forces onwards, however, other influences including soul, country, 1960s pop, and classical music began to re-emerge, and he soon became established as a unique and original voice. His output has been wildly diverse: one critic has written that "Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can reinvent the past in his own image".
His prolific and varied 30-year career has been marked by two constants: sharp songwriting and musical restlessness. The latter has seen him dabble in almost every musical form, from country to jazz to orchestral. This stems from the fact that, at heart, Costello is a fan. His desire to work with his musical heroes has attracted collaborators as diverse as Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney, Anne Sofie von Otter, Allen Toussaint, Aimee Mann, Bill Frisell, and Brian Eno.
But his most successful partners were his long-term band The Attractions. They comprised Steve Nieve (keyboards), Pete Thomas (drums) and Bruce Thomas (bass). Between 1978 and 1983, this outfit produced a peerless series of albums: This Year's Model; Armed Forces; Get Happy!!; Almost Blue; Trust; Imperial Bedroom and Punch the Clock.
These recordings drew on styles spanning soul, country and western and commercial pop. It was only with 1984's Goodbye Cruel World that Costello started to stumble. An album he concedes was one of his worst, it ushered in a period which produced interesting music but lacked the consistent quality of his halcyon days. Interestingly, although he enlisted the other Elvis's band for King of America in 1986, it was a reunion with The Attractions and former producer Nick Lowe that produced his best album of the late 1980s in the form of the scabrous Blood and Chocolate.
The following albums, Spike and Mighty Like a Rose were uncompromising and difficult solo works, as was the string quartet collaboration The Juliet Letters in 1993. It was only reconvening the Attractions for Brutal Youth the following year that gave his fans another glimpse of what first attracted them to him: punchy, angry pop songs, tightly played by an impeccably taut ensemble.
Since then, Costello has become a career dilettante, true to his inner musical quest, but never again returning to heights he scaled in the early 1980s. Maybe the best work of this latter period was 1998's Painted from Memory. This joint effort with Burt Bacharach matched restrained writing from Costello with stately Bacharach arrangements.
Subsequent career nadirs such as the tune-free North (2003), and instrumental orchestral works such as Il Sogno (2004) led many long-term admirers to conclude that Costello had retained his integrity at the expense of his real musical strengths. However, he has given occasional evidence of his former fire. The ballsy bar-room atmosphere of the collaborative The Delivery Man (2004), suggests that he is still capable of giving his fans what they want, in between his more esoteric experiments.
Elvis is married to jazz vocalist Diana Krall and they have twin sons.
*Upon the film's release, it was noted that the name "Napoleon Dynamite" had originally been used by musician Elvis Costello, most visibly on his 1986 album Blood and Chocolate, although he had used the pseudonym on a single B-side as early as 1982. Filmmaker Jared Hess claims that he was not aware of Costello's use of the name until two days before the end of shooting, when he was informed by a teenage extra. He later said, "Had I known that name was used by anybody else prior to shooting the whole film, it definitely would have been changed ... I listen to hip-hop, dude. It's a pretty embarrassing coincidence." Hess claims that "Napoleon Dynamite" was the name of a man he met around the year 2000 on the streets of Cicero, Illinois while doing missionary work for the Mormon Church.
Costello believes that Hess stole the name: "The guy just denies completely that I made the name up... but I invented it. Maybe somebody told him the name and he truly feels that he came about it by chance. But it's two words that you're never going to hear together." To date, Costello has taken no legal action against the film.
Elvis Costello and Elton John to Make a Television 'Spectacle'
Two of the most respected musicians in the world will collaborate on an extraordinary new television series.
"Spectacle: Elvis Costello with..." is hosted by its namesake and produced in conjunction with Sir Elton John's Rocket Pictures. Elton John will be one of the program's Executive Producers.
The series begain airing in 2008 on CTV in Canada, Channel 4 in the UK and Sundance Channel in the US. FremantleMedia Enterprises, will handle sales of the show to the rest of the world.
Conceived to provide a forum for in-depth discussion and performance with the most interesting and influential artists and personalities of our time, the show fuses the best of talk and music television.
"Spectacle: Elvis Costello with..." is an unpredictable and unprecedented television experience. The series of 13 one-hour programs features everything from intimate one-on-ones with legendary performers and notable newcomers to thematic panel discussions, with a variety of performance elements including unique collaborations, acoustic and impromptu "illustrative" demonstrations of the creative process, and some original interpretations of others' songs by Costello.
Crawling To The USA
Elvis Costello Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And slide inside the telephone wire that runs under the briny
Till I found there is a way of crawling to the U.S.A.
You had better not go too far
There's one way out, there's only one way
Leave your mother and your father
Crawling to the U.S.A.
Saw it late one night on a secret channel
It's farther on along the tunnel
It's way beyond the final station
That's the one they never mention
You had better not go too far
There's one way out, there's only one way
Leave your mother and your father
Crawling to the U.S.A.
You don't have to pay them that much
You had better bring your lunch
It's undercover, around the houses
Up your skirt and down your trousers
You had better not go too far
There's one way out, there's only one way
Leave your mother and your father
Crawling to the U.S.A.
She said, "I catch you taking liberties and they do not impress me
Attach me to your credit card and then you can undress me
Everybody is on their knees except the Russians and the Chinese
You had better not go too far
There's one way out, there's only one way
Leave your mother and your father
Crawling to the U.S.A.
The song "Crawling To The USA" by Elvis Costello is a somewhat cryptic commentary on the lengths people will go to gain access to America, either physically or metaphorically. The opening lines of the song suggest a desire to escape and disappear, with the singer hoping to shrivel down and slip into a telephone wire that runs under the sea. This desire to escape is tied to America and the idea that the country holds the promise of a better life.
However, the singer's dreams of crawling to the USA are quickly tempered by warnings that going too far could be dangerous. The verse "You had better not go too far / There's one way out, there's only one way / Leave your mother and your father / Crawling to the U.S.A." suggests that the possibility of going too far and losing everything in the process is a real risk. The idea of leaving behind one's family and home to crawl towards America is not to be taken lightly.
Later, the song suggests that this journey might not be as straightforward or legitimate as the singer may have initially thought. The verse "It's undercover, around the houses / Up your skirt and down your trousers" hints at a more clandestine and possibly illegal route to reaching America. The final verse touches on themes of power dynamics and sex, in particular with the line "Attach me to your credit card and then you can undress me", which suggests a transactional relationship between the singer and the person they are addressing.
Overall, "Crawling To The USA" is a complex and layered commentary on immigration, power and desire. It suggests that the idea of America as a land of opportunity is still alive and well, but also warns of the dangers and risks that come with pursuing that dream.
Line by Line Meaning
I thought I would go to the sea and shrink down very tiny
I had a wild idea of becoming tiny and slipping through the telephone wire that's under the sea
And slide inside the telephone wire that runs under the briny
I imagined myself shrinking, and sliding through the telephone wire that runs under the saltwater
Till I found there is a way of crawling to the U.S.A.
Until I discovered that there's a way of reaching the U.S.A by crawling
You had better not go too far
Be careful not to go too far
There's one way out, there's only one way
There's only one way to leave
Leave your mother and your father
You need to part ways with your parents
Crawling to the U.S.A.
Heading to the U.S.A by crawling
Saw it late one night on a secret channel
One night, I saw it on a secret channel
It's farther on along the tunnel
It's way ahead in the tunnel
It's way beyond the final station
It's well beyond the last station
That's the one they never mention
It's the one nobody talks about
You don't have to pay them that much
You don't need to pay a lot of money
You had better bring your lunch
You should bring food along
It's undercover, around the houses
It's discreet and circuitous
Up your skirt and down your trousers
It's secretive, and you might have to hide things in your clothes
She said, 'I catch you taking liberties and they do not impress me
She warned me against taking advantage of her, and it didn't impress her
Attach me to your credit card and then you can undress me'
She suggested paying with a credit card and then being intimate
Everybody is on their knees except the Russians and the Chinese
Everyone is subservient except Russians and Chinese
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: ELVIS COSTELLO
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind