Elvis Costello - Every Day I write The Book. Top Of The Pops 1983

nice quality video recorded live from Top Of The Pops 1983. Declan Patrick MacManus (born 25 August 1954), known by the stage name Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader than that of most popular songs. His music has drawn on many diverse genres; one critic described him as a "pop encyclopedia," able to "reinvent the past in his own image".

Costello's first single for Stiff was "Less Than Zero," released on 25 March 1977. Two months later, his debut album, My Aim Is True (1977), was released to moderate commercial success (No. 14 in the UK and, later, Top 40 in the US) with Costello appearing on the cover in what became his trademark oversize glasses, bearing some resemblance to Buddy Holly. Stiff's records were initially distributed only in the UK, which meant that Costello's first album and singles were initially available in the US as imports only. In an attempt to change this, Costello was arrested for busking outside a London convention of CBS Records executives, protesting that no US record company had yet seen fit to release Costello records in the United States. Costello signed to CBS's Columbia Records label in the US a few months later.

Costello's backing on the debut album was provided by American West Coast band Clover, a country outfit living in England whose members would later go on to join Huey Lewis and the News and The Doobie Brothers. Later in 1977, Costello formed his own permanent backing band, The Attractions, consisting of Steve Nieve (born Steve Nason; piano), Bruce Thomas (bass guitar), and Pete Thomas (drums; unrelated to Bruce Thomas). He released his first major hit single, "Watching the Detectives," which was recorded with Nieve and the pair of Steve Goulding (drums) and Andrew Bodnar (bass), both members of Graham Parker's backing band The Rumour (whom he had used to audition for The Attractions).

In 2000, Costello appeared at the Town Hall Theatre, New York, in Steve Nieve's opera Welcome to the Voice, alongside Ron Sexsmith and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants.In 2001, Costello was artist in residence at UCLA and wrote the music for a new ballet. He produced and appeared on an album of pop songs for opera singer, Anne Sofie von Otter. He released the album When I Was Cruel in 2002 on Island Records, and toured with a new band, the Imposters (essentially the Attractions but with a different bass player, Davey Faragher, formerly of Cracker). He appeared as himself in the How I Spent My Strummer Vacation episode of The Simpsons. On 23 February 2003, Costello, along with Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, and Dave Grohl performed a version of The Clash's "London Calling" at the 45th Grammy Awards ceremony, in honour of Clash frontman Joe Strummer, who had died the previous December. In March, Elvis Costello & The Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He announced his engagement in May to Canadian jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall who he had seen in concert and then met backstage at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. That September, he released North, an album of piano-based ballads concerning the breakdown of his former marriage, and his falling in love with Krall. Also that year, Costello made an appearance in the television show Frasier as a folk singer in the Cafe Nervosa, sending Frasier and Niles on a search for a new coffee bar.

The song Scarlet Tide (co-written by Costello and T-Bone Burnett and used in the film Cold Mountain) was nominated for a 2004 Academy Award; he performed it at the awards ceremony with Alison Krauss, who sang the song on the official soundtrack. Costello co-wrote many songs on Krall's 2004 CD, The Girl in the Other Room, the first of hers to feature several original compositions. In July 2004 Costello's first full-scale orchestral work, Il Sogno, was performed in New York. The work, a ballet after Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, was commissioned by Italian dance troupe Aterballeto, and received critical acclaim from the classical music critics. Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the recording was released on CD in September by Deutsche Grammophon. Costello released the album The Delivery Man, recorded in Oxford, Mississippi, and released on Lost Highway Records, which was hailed as one of his best albums.

In July 2008, Costello (as Declan McManus) was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Liverpool. Please visit my other Channel. Keep Rockin!.
http://www.youtube.com/user/squizzy104?feature=mhum#p/u/3/se0F7dEZ-zs

Category:

Music

Tags:

• elvis costello
• elvis
• every day i write the book
• top of the pops 1983

[memorylane1980s]

I'm stayin outa this!! :p

[Dactuck]

Every Day. Who writes the book?

[pocketsssJuri]

lip sync?

[auggdogrules]

elvis is king !

[audible67]

Live? I think not.

[NB1972]

@memorylane1980s Haha! Great to see this performance by the way.

[NB1972]

@Glamking1 Well I've never heard Lloyd Cole cover it!