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.
Red Cotton
Elvis Costello Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
That I dyed red
That I dyed red
I'm putting scraps in cheap tin lockets
What time erases and memory mocks
I'll send them over the ocean foam
Right into those gentle European homes
Over the waves the Royal Navy rules
To go and plunder the Kingdom of Benin
Where certain history ends and shame begins
Dahomey traders paid in powder and shot
Line up their prisoners and they sell them in lots
They packed them tight inside those coffin ships
And took them to the brand new world of auction blocks and whips
So I'm cutting up her pure white dress
That I dyed red
That I dyed red
I'm putting scraps in cheap tin lockets
What time erases and memory mocks
I'll send them over the ocean foam
Right into those gentle European homes
White is the sheet on your fine linen bed
The blood stained red on each cotton thread
The merchants gather at St. George's Hall
To unveil the kneeling slave who is carved upon the wall
So picture the scene on the old Salt House docks
Where they loaded the iron shackles and locks
Between a sandstone crocodile, a barrel and a bale
You will see the nameless faces they were offering for sale
So, I sing the praises of God's glory
As a blue cetacean floats in the basement
An elephant on the second story
They queue all day to see him
In my American Museum
But the Lord will judge us, with fire and thunder
As man continues with all his blunders
It's only money
It's only numbers
Maybe it is time to put aside these fictitious wonders
And man is feeble
Man is puny
And if it should divide the Union
There is no man who should own another
When he can't even recognize his sister and his brother
The song "Red Cotton" by Elvis Costello is a powerful commentary on the horrors of slavery in the 17th and 18th centuries. The first verse describes the singer cutting up a white dress and dying it red, before putting scraps of it into cheap tin lockets to send back to Europe. This serves as a symbolic representation of the violence and bloodshed that went into creating the cotton textiles that Europe relied on in this era. The second verse is a direct reference to the slave trade, with Costello painting a vivid picture of the "Blessing" slave ship leaving Liverpool and the cruel treatment of slaves when they reached their destination. The third verse is a reflection on the ongoing effects of slavery, with the singer suggesting that only when people stop being willing to profit from others' suffering can the cycle be broken.
Throughout the song, Costello draws attention to the blind eye that the people of Europe turned to the atrocities of slavery, and the ongoing consequences of this complicity. He uses imagery to evoke both the beauty and horror of this history, from the pure white dress stained red to the "nameless faces" of those sold into slavery. Through these powerful metaphors, Costello shows how an entire civilization turned a blind eye to the brutality they were perpetuating.
Line by Line Meaning
I'm cutting up her pure white dress
I am tearing apart her innocent and unblemished white dress
That I dyed red
I stained it red to represent the blood of African slaves
I'm putting scraps in cheap tin lockets
I am placing remnants in inexpensive metal containers
What time erases and memory mocks
The things that time forgets and people belittle
I'll send them over the ocean foam
I will transport them across the sea's spray
Right into those gentle European homes
Straight into the welcoming European households
The slave ship "Blessing" slipped from Liverpool
The slave vessel 'Blessing' departed from Liverpool
Over the waves the Royal Navy rules
The Royal Navy controlled the seas
To go and plunder the Kingdom of Benin
To raid the Kingdom of Benin
Where certain history ends and shame begins
Where an unfortunate past concludes and a disgraceful phase begins
Dahomey traders paid in powder and shot
The Dahomey traders were compensated in arms and ammo
Line up their prisoners and they sell them in lots
They align their captives and market them in groups
They packed them tight inside those coffin ships
They squeezed them into those cramped caskets of a ship
And took them to the brand new world of auction blocks and whips
And brought them to the recently discovered land of selling stages and whips
White is the sheet on your fine linen bed
Your luxurious bedclothes have pristine white linens
The blood stained red on each cotton thread
But the cotton used in it is red-dyed from human blood
The merchants gather at St. George's Hall
The merchants assemble at St. George's Hall
To unveil the kneeling slave who is carved upon the wall
To expose the enslaved person who is carved onto the wall
So picture the scene on the old Salt House docks
Imagine the scenery at the ancient Salt House wharves
Where they loaded the iron shackles and locks
Where they loaded the iron restraints and padlocks
Between a sandstone crocodile, a barrel and a bale
Amid a sandstone reptile, a barrel, and a packaging of goods
You will see the nameless faces they were offering for sale
You will see the anonymous faces they were attempting to sell
So, I sing the praises of God's glory
Therefore, I express the admiration of God's majesty
As a blue cetacean floats in the basement
While a blue whale rests at the bottom level
An elephant on the second story
An elephant on the second floor
They queue all day to see him
People wait in line all day to see the creature
In my American Museum
In my museum in the United States
But the Lord will judge us, with fire and thunder
But the Lord will judge us with elements of chaos
As man continues with all his blunders
As humans persist in all their mistakes
It's only money
It's just money
It's only numbers
They're just numbers
Maybe it is time to put aside these fictitious wonders
Perhaps it's time to discard these fabricated marvels
And man is feeble
And humanity is frail
Man is puny
Humanity is insignificant
And if it should divide the Union
And if this should divide the country
There is no man who should own another
There isn't a person who can own another person
When he can't even recognize his sister and his brother
Especially since they can't even recognize their own siblings
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: ELVIS COSTELLO
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind