Let Us All Talk

Hi everyone! 

I’m zeroing in on 20 editions of this newsletter since the start of the year, so I thought I’d take a second for what some might call “housekeeping” and what I would call “a potentially random brain dump.” I will entice you to read with the promise of a choice EC video near the end…

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who subscribes and reads. This is incredibly fun for me and I’m glad others are checking it out. 

While my primary goal for this shebang will continue to be exploring the songs of Elvis Costello, there are other fun EC topics that keep coming up, and that are suggested by friends and readers. So I’ll be sprinkling those in over the next few weeks! 

The first of these features will kick off Tuesday, and will be a three-part exploration of the simple question: Why Elvis Costello? 

Part personal essay, part statement of purpose, my hope is that I can provide an “on ramp” to folks who might be interested in checking out the newsletter, but are casual fans of EC, or not yet fans at all. Not necessarily instant conversion, but a way to pique curiosity for Mr. Eamon Singer and his little hands of concrete. Ultimately it will live on my “About” page or something, but first I’ll be sharing it here. 

Another upcoming feature is something I’m going to call Inspired, and it was, um, inspired by one of my music Substacker pals, Brad Kyle, who writes about his music industry experiences as a DJ and label exec in Front Row & Backstage (a terrific read!). 

Brad sent this video of Elvis talking about David Bowie, which is a great way to spend two minutes of your time. 

 In it, EC mentions in passing how parts of Armed Forces were inspired by ABBA. On its face, that may seem a ludicrous concept, but there are a few interesting observations about how the two artists connect. Hence, Inspired. We’ll start with ABBA and occasionally check out other artists who have either inspired Elvis, or been inspired by him. You can expect that first edition of Inspired on Wednesday, February 23. 

Finally, did I say thank you? THANK YOU. 

Drop a note in the comments below and let me know what you think. How are you finding the experience so far? Are there any areas of Elvis Costello’s music and career you’d like to hear more about? Does Elvis really write a book everyday, and if so, where can you read it? 

Until next time, good night and god bless.