{"id":608,"date":"2015-10-14T14:02:19","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T14:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/?p=608"},"modified":"2017-02-09T15:38:40","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T15:38:40","slug":"elvis-costello-unfaithful-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"Elvis Costello – Unfaithful Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Driving to a meeting yesterday, I heard an interview with Elvis Costello, talking about his new memoir, Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink. \u00a0It was fantastic. I’m a huge fan of autobiographies and I’m looking forward to reading this one. \u00a0So far, the reviews have been very good. \u00a0Geoff Edgars from the Washington Post said that he liked it more than Bob Dylan and Keith Richards autobiographies. \u00a0\"ElvisBook\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is an part of the book that talks about his famous song “Alison”, which is one of my favorites, and probably one of his most talked about songs….<\/p>\n

“When it came time to write and then sing \u201cAlison,\u201d I knew that I\u2019d never create a beautiful sound, as I was very obviously a mere mortal, unlike Marvin Gaye or Al Green or Philippe Wynne of The Detroit Spinners, \u00a0as we knew them in England. But it was the Spinners\u2019 recording of the Linda Creed\u2013Thom Bell song \u201cGhetto Child\u201d that gave me the musical idea for the chorus of \u201cAlison.\u201d I broke up the line \u201cI know this world is killing you\u201d in the same staccato fashion as the \u201cLife ain\u2019t so easy when you\u2019re a …\u201d that precedes that title refrain of the Spinners\u2019 hit.<\/p>\n

Other than this, the emotional cues were pretty disguised.<\/p>\n

The other song that was playing in my head when I wrote \u201cAlison\u201d was \u201cThe Wind Cries Mary\u201d by Jimi Hendrix. It had been playing in there for a long time.<\/p>\n

I believed that “Alison” was a work of fiction, taking the sad face of a beautiful girl glimpsed by chance and imagining her life unraveling before her.<\/p>\n

It was a premonition, my fear that I would not be faithful or that my disbelief in happy endings would lead me to jill the love that I had longed for.<\/p>\n

I have no explanation for why I was able to stand outside reality and imagine such a scene as described in the song and to look so far into the future, or what in the world would make me want this terrible prediction to come true or become untrue.<\/p>\n

The name that I chose was almost incidental.<\/p>\n

I knew it couldn’t be a name of a glamorous, sophisticated woman, like Grace or Sophia, or a poetic heroine, like Eloise or Penelope. I needed a name that sounded like a girl anyone might know, and “Alison” fitted the tune.<\/p>\n

There was never any violence intended in the refrain, just culpability. \u201cThis world\u201d that was \u201ckilling\u201d the heroine embraced all the circumstances I\u2019d imagined for that nameless girl, a deadening of dreams through betrayal into bitterness. That the singer was the one doing the damage was as much as I could admit.<\/p>\n

I look at all the words in the refrain and I still find it remarkable that many people have failed to understand what is being sung after a thousand or more repetitions. Of all the strange slights and underserved accolades attached to my name over the years, \u201cmisogynist\u201d \u00a0is the one term that I find most bewildering.”<\/p>\n

-Elvis Costello, from his new book Unfaithful Music….<\/p>\n

Enjoy the book, but, if you can, buy if from a local bookstore. \u00a0My favorite is Book Outlet at 69 Lafayette Road, North Hampton, NH. \u00a0Their phone number is 603-964-2002.<\/p>\n

Matt Becker Portsmouth, NH<\/p>\n

Live from Matt’s House<\/p>\n

Matt Becker Morgan Stanley<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Driving to a meeting yesterday, I heard an interview with Elvis Costello, talking about his new memoir, Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink. \u00a0It was fantastic. I’m a huge fan of autobiographies and I’m looking forward to reading this one. \u00a0So … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.matthewbeckerportsmouthnh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}