…
Antoine De Caunes: There’s this guy who’s always speaking about you, Elvis Costello.
Bob Dylan: Elvis Costello, he’s pretty good.
Antoine De Caunes: You like his lyrics?
Bob Dylan: Yeah, I like “Everyday I Write the Book.”
…
-Antoine De Caunes Interview, Stade De L’Ouest, Nice, France (June 1984)
Happy Birthday Elvis Costello – born 25 August 1954.
Continue reading Elvis Costello Sings Bob Dylan – Happy Birthday Elvis Costello
They say ev’rything can be replaced
Yet ev’ry distance is not near
So I remember ev’ry face
Of ev’ry man who put me here
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released
Continue reading March 31: Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello I Shall Be Released, London, 1995
They say ev’rything can be replaced
Yet ev’ry distance is not near
So I remember ev’ry face
Of ev’ry man who put me here
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released
Continue reading March 31: Bob Dylan & Elvis Costello: I Shall Be Released, London – 1995 (video)
Elvis Costello once did a three-night solo acoustic support opening for Bob Dylan in March 1995 at Brixton Academy, London, England. And there is a quite good bootleg from those sets. Elvis is clearly a Dylan fan and has played his songs on several occasions.
He is also part of that new project; Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, T Bone Burnett and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James is working on unfinished “Dylan album”. The collective are composing music to Dylan’s original lyrics, written around the time of his late-60s Basement Tapes. It is kind of in the same vein as Billy Bragg and Wilco’s Mermaid Avenue albums.
Egil posted a very fine version where he sings with Dylan himself some time ago.
Let us see how Elvis Costello interprets Dylan.
We are starting with a beautiful take from the TV-show, Spectacle.
Elvis Costello – I Threw It All Away (2010):
Continue reading Elvis Costello plays Bob Dylan – Happy Birthday Mr. Costello
“Mystery Train” is one of Presley’s most haunting songs, a stark blues number that sounds ancient but was actually first cut only two years before by Memphis blues singer Junior Parker. Presley recorded it with the groove from the flip side of the same Parker single, “Love My Baby,” and Sun producer Phillips’ taut, rubbery echo effect made guitarist Scotty Moore’s every note sound doubled. Presley added a final verse — “Train . . . took my baby, but it never will again” — capped by a celebratory falsetto whoop that transformed a pastoral about death into a song about the power to overcome it.
~rollingstone.comTrain arrive, sixteen coaches long
Train arrive, sixteen coaches long
Well that long black train got my baby and goneTrain train, comin’ ’round, ’round the bend
Train train, comin’ ’round the bend
Well it took my baby, but it never will again (no, not again)Train train, comin’ down, down the line
Train train, comin’ down the line
Well it’s bringin’ my baby, ’cause she’s mine all, all mine
(She’s mine, all, all mine)
Continue reading July 11: Elvis recorded Mystery Train in 1955