Elvis Costello has worked with all-time greats like The Pogues and Paul McCartney, and his work has been covered by everyone from Suede to Status Quo.
But there’s one artist Costello believes would have done his work justice with a “great” send-up of his material. While it does appear to be an unrealised dream that Costello’s work was never covered by the artist in question, it’s not as though the Shipbuilding songwriter is at all displeased it didn’t happen. Speaking about the chance to hear his music through the voice of Frank Sinatra back in 2004, Costello suggested to Elton John that he had been more than blessed by the collaborations that had happened. The veteran songwriter went on to cite his work with McCartney and the late Burt Bacharach as some of his proudest in-studio accomplishments, and while the Sinatra snub doesn’t hurt his career, it would’ve been nice to hear.
He explained: “I have always just done things as they have appealed to me. It’s not like I’ve had a secret list of potential collaborators where I’ve been checking them off — you know, “Oh, goodness! I’ve missed doing something with Frank Sinatra!” Of course it would have been great to hear him sing one of my songs, but the situation never presented itself. For me it’s been more about taking advantage of the opportunities as they’ve come along.”
For Costello, that meant collaborating with everyone who asked when the time was right. He produced essential albums for The Pogues, namely Rum, Sodomy, and The Lash, while co-writing McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt, a return to form for The Beatles member.
Those opportunities were some of the best experiences for Costello, who says he managed to find “much more in common than I might have imagined” with his musical heroes. He said: “I was in the Beatles fan club when I was 9 years old and never had one thought that I would ever sit opposite Paul McCartney and write a song with him, but I got an invitation to do so. I was asked to write a song with Burt Bacharach, which led to our collaboration on Painted From Memory.
“I was a fan of the Brodsky Quartet and Nancy Sinatra; eventually somebody noticed I was coming to a lot of their concerts, so we were introduced, became friends, and found that we had much more in common than I might have imagined. A lot of people don’t let themselves do things because they’re afraid of how it will make them look.”
Costello has collaborated with music legends recently, too, enlisting the help of Bob Dylan guitarist Charlie Sexton on his Radio Soul tour. Costello had been scheduled to open Neil Young and The Chrome Hearts’ European show dates but Young opted to scrap his tour and work on new album, Second Song, instead. It marks another of those great what-if collaborations that could’ve come for Costello and his work.
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