Songcraft: Spotlight On Songwriters

We're celebrating our 10th anniversary all year by digging in the vaults to re-present classic episodes with fresh commentary. Today, we're revisiting our 2020 conversation with Elvis Costello. ABOUT ELVIS COSTELLOReleased between 1977 and 1979, Elvis Costello’s first three albums—My Aim is True, This Year’s Model, and Armed Forces—were all included in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. That early period of his recording career yielded now-classic singles such as “Alison,” “Watching the Detectives,” “Pump it Up,” “Radio Radio,” “Oliver’s Army,” “Accidents Will Happen,” and others.Though he established his career as a rock artist and reached commercial heights in the US with the pop hit “Everyday I Write the Book,” Costello’s more than thirty studio albums cover a breathtaking range of stylistic ground, from Almost Blue, his early 1980s album of country covers, to The Juliet Letters, his 1993 collaboration with The Brodsky Quartet, to North, an album of ballads partially insp