How Elvis Costello helped Paul McCartney make a ‘dark’ album

An album which saw music legends Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello work together led to a “dark” album from The Beatles member.

Though his best-known works following The Beatles’ split are his pop efforts with Wings and his equally light solo career, there was a point in time when McCartney pursued a much darker sound. Pump It Up hitmaker Costello was seemingly responsible for this change, working with McCartney on an album which would redefine the Maxwell’s Silver Hammer songwriter. The pair would begin writing together in 1987, and their efforts led to 1989’s Flowers in the Dirt. The album is seen as a refreshing moment for McCartney, who had struggled to make much of worth in the 1980s outside of the occasionally catchy pop song.

Getting to grips with McCartney as an artist at the time meant finding the “dark moments” within. Costello managed to get the best out of his writing partner, and the pair worked on what would effectively become a follow-up to Eleanor Rigby.

Costello shared: “He’s thought to be Mr. Sunny, but he’s got his dark moments, and I like that and really encouraged it.” The Man Out of Time songwriter would reflect further on his work with McCartney in his memoir, Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink. Costello was initially suspicious of working with McCartney because of the Wings frontman’s collaborations with Michael Jackson.

Costello wrote: “When I’d got the call to say Paul wanted me to write some songs with him for his next record, I didn’t know what to expect. But as his last co-written hit had been with Michael Jackson, I wondered whether I should be taking some dancing lessons.

“I’d brought an early draft of Veronica that you would have recognised, but we immediately got to work putting a better flow into the chorus and shifting the bridge into making that part of the song seem more like a dream.”

Costello says the song was inspired by his grandmother’s Alzheimer’s, and says the “terrifying moments of lucidity” featured throughout are reflections on her final years. The veteran performer added her “Catholic confirmation name” was also used as the songs title.

He wrote: “All the words I’d already written were about my paternal grandmother, Molly, or more formally, Mabel Josephine Jackson. In fact, her Catholic confirmation name, Veronica, provided the very title of the song.”

The song featured on Costello’s 1989 album, Spike, and provided the star a much-needed number one in the US. Veronica made it to number one on the Billboard 200 Alternative chart. It was much the same success for McCartney, too, whose Flowers in the Dirt release was prompted by underwhelming record sales for Press to Play.

He brought in not just Costello but Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour too. McCartney and Costello’s working relationship was “not entirely harmonious” according to Mark Lewisohn, but the pair got the job done on an album which would further cement McCartney as one of the all-time greats.