Born Declan Patrick MacManus, Elvis Costello was raised in London
and Liverpool, grandson of a trumpet player on the White Star
Line and son of a jazz musician who became a successful radio
dance-band vocalist. Costello went into the family business and
before he was twenty-four took the popular music world by storm.
Costello continues to add to one of the most intriguing and
extensive songbooks of our day. His performances have taken him
from strumming a cardboard guitar in his parents’ front room to
fronting a rock and roll band on our television screens and
performing in the world’s greatest concert halls in a wild
variety of company. Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink describes
how Costello’s career has endured for almost four decades through
a combination of dumb luck and animal cunning, even managing the
occasional absurd episode of pop stardom.
This memoir, written entirely by Costello, offers his unique view
of his unlikely and sometimes comical rise to international
success, with diversions through the previously undocumented
emotional foundations of some of his best-known songs and the
hits of tomorrow. It features many stories and observations about
his renowned cowriters and co-conspirators, though Costello also
pauses along the way for considerations of the less appealing
side of fame.
Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink provides readers with a
master’s catalogue of a lifetime of great music. Costello reveals
the process behind writing and legendary albums like My
Is True, This Year’s Model, Armed Forces, Almost Blue,
Imperial Bedroom, and King of America. He tells the detailed
stories, experiences, and emotions behind such beloved songs as
“Alison,” “Accidents Will Happen,” “Watching the Detectives,”
“Oliver’s Army,” “Welcome to the Working Week,” “Radio Radio,”
“Shipbuilding,” and “Veronica,” the last of which is one of a
number of songs revealed to connect to the lives of the previous
generations of his family.
Costello recounts his collaborations with George Jones, Chet
Baker, and T Burnett, and writes about Allen Toussaint's
inspiring return to work after the disasters following Hurricane
Katrina. He describes writing songs with Paul McCartney, the
Brodsky Quartet, Burt Bacharach, and The Roots during moments of
intense personal crisis and profound sorrow. He shares curious
experiences in the company of The Clash, Tony Bennett, The
Specials, Van Morrison, and Aretha Franklin; writing songs for
Solomon Burke and Johnny Cash; and touring with Bob Dylan; along
with his appreciation of the records of Frank Sinatra, David
Bowie, David Ackles, and almost everything on the Tamla Motown
label.
Costello chronicles his musical apprenticeship, a child's view of
his her Ross MacManus' career on radio and in the dancehall;
his own initial almost comical steps in folk clubs and cellar
dive before his first sessions for Stiff Record, the formation of
the Attractions, and his frenetic and ultimately notorious third
U.S. tour. He takes readers behind the scenes of Top of the Pops
and Saturday Night Live, and his own show, Spectacle, on which he
hosted artists such as Lou Reed, Elton John, Levon Helm, Jesse
Winchester, Bruce Springsteen, and President Bill Clinton.
The idiosyncratic memoir of a singular man, Unfaithful Music &
Disappearing Ink is destined to be a classic.