Richard Crouse - Elvis Is King: Costellos My Aim Is True

TRY ANOTHER GREAT READ FROM ECW PRESS...

RAISING HELL: KEN RUSSELL AND THE UNMAKING OF THE DEVILS (9781770902817) How did a movie by one of the most famous filmmakers in the world end up banned, censored, and shelved? Made by the English Federico Fellini, Ken Russell, The Devils is so contentious that even decades after its 1971 release, Warner Brothers keeps its most incendiary scene under lock and key.
Featuring an exclusive interview with recently deceased director Ken Russell and new interviews with cast, crew, and historians, Raising Hell examines this beautifully blasphemous movie about an oversexed priest and a group of sexually repressed nuns in 17th century France. From the films inception through its headline-making production and controversial reception, Richard Crouse explores what it is about Russells rarely seen cult classic that makes it a cinematic treasure.

ECW digital titles are available online wherever ebooks are sold. Visit ecwpress.com for more details.

About the Author

Richard Crouse is the regular film critic for CTVs Canada AM, CTVs 24-hour News Channel, and CP24. His syndicated Saturday afternoon radio show, Entertainment Extra, originates on NewsTalk 1010. He is also the author of six books on pop culture history including Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils and The 100 Best Movies Youve Never Seen, and writes two weekly columns for Metro newspaper. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.

the pop classics series

#1 It Doesnt Suck.
Showgirls

#2 Raise Some Shell.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

#3 Wrapped in Plastic.
Twin Peaks

#4 Elvis Is King.
Costellos My Aim Is True

elvis is king.

costellos

my aim is true

richard crouse

ecwpress

To Andrea,
still, you are the only one.

Introduction

Liverpool, Nova Scotia, is the hub of the Lighthouse Routes scenic drive along the provinces South Shore. Blessed by Mother Nature, its picturesque, bookended by beautiful beaches, parks, and forests. As the home of the third oldest lighthouse in the province, its also rich in history but not exactly the center of the pop culture universe.

Even less so in the 1970s when, as a music and movie obsessed kid, I went to Emaneaus Pharmacy every week to pick up magazines like Hit Parader and Rona Barretts Hollywood. Perhaps because I grew up in a renovated vaudeville theater (its true!) I was deeply interested in a world that seemed very far away, and those weekly and monthly magazines were my only connection to music and movie stars.

Liverpool wasnt on the flight plan for the people I saw in those pages.

Sure, there were rumors that James Taylor and Carly Simon had a beach house nearby, but nobody ever saw them at Wongs Restaurant, the only eatery in town. And Walter Pidgeon was thought to have come to visit an old friend, but the Mrs. Miniver star, who was born in 1897, wasnt quite cool enough to be on my list of must-meets or even must-get-a-glimpse-ofs.

Those magazines were my only source. The local movie theater a gigantic renoed opera house was months behind in getting the new releases, and local department stores like Steadmans and Metropolitan (known locally as the Metoplitan because of the blown-out r and o bulbs on the sign that was never repaired) didnt carry the LPs I was reading about. On paper, I read about The Ramones, Television, the Sex Pistols, learning everything there was to know about the brash new music coming out of New York and London Johnny Rotten said fuck on national television! before I had ever heard a note of their music. Somehow, though, I knew I would love it.

One singer grabbed my attention above all others. Elvis Costello.

Maybe it was the glasses. I wore specs at a time when no rock star had eyewear unless they were impossibly cool Ray-Bans to shade delicate, hungover eyes from the public glare.

Maybe it was the name. To me, Elvis Presley was the irrelevant Vegas act my Aunt Jackie listened to, but I liked the a) ambition or b) possible foolhardiness of taking the name of the King of Rock and Roll.

Most of all, I loved his story.

Like me, he was raised in Liverpool OK, it was Liverpool, England, but we both grew up on the banks of a river called Mersey, just in different countries.

I dug that he recorded his first album in just 24 hours while playing hooky from his day job as an IBM 360 computer operator in a vanity factory. How cool was it that he got arrested after strapping an amplifier to his back and busking for CBS executives on a busy London street?

In 1978, I asked my brother, Gary, who had wised up and moved out of Liverpool, to hunt down an LP called My Aim Is True by this guy named Elvis Costello. Gary knew his way around a record store and on his next visit home brought a stack of records, the likes of which would never find their way to the racks at Steadmans. Leave Home by The Ramones. Low by David Bowie. Marquee Moon by Television and Little Queen by Heart. He missed the mark on that last one, but on top of the pile was the record I had read so much about.

Framed by a checkerboard pattern with inlaid lettering that reads Elvis Is King was a garish, yellow-tinted photo of a knock-kneed, bespectacled rock star in waiting. His dark rims Buddy Holly was the last of the greats to wear horn-rims framed intense-looking eyes.

Discarding the cellophane, I threw the record on my cheap Lenco turntable. Heres where the story gets hazy. I remember the opening line of Welcome to the Working Week, and although I didnt have a clue what rhythmically admired meant, I understood I would never have to listen to the corporate rock of the Little River Band or Pablo Cruise ever again.

Finally someone was making music that spoke to me. Even if I didnt get the lyrics we didnt hear a lot about the former leader of the British Union of Fascists Oswald Mosley in my Liverpool I understood the passion. I got the anger. It also had a good beat and you could dance to it.

I listened to side one through to the needle hitting the smooth space before the paper label. Welcome to the Working Week, Miracle Man, No Dancing, Blame It on Cain, Alison, Sneaky Feelings, and Watching the Detectives. Nineteen minutes and 20 seconds of something Id never heard before.

Flip. Side two. (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes, Less Than Zero, Mystery Dance, Pay It Back, Im Not Angry, and Waiting for the End of the World. Sixteen minutes and 33 seconds.

Just under 40 minutes of pop-punk songs that changed everything for me. I flipped that record over, and over, and over until I knew the words to all the songs. From that moment on, I would never again listen to music that didnt speak directly to me. It turned me into an exacting and probably sometimes insufferable music fan no longer sated by the sugary sounds that spilled out of my radio.

To me, this was art. The slick sounds of REO Speedwagon, Air Supply, et al. may have been more ear-friendly, but this was visceral. I heard the snarl in Elviss voice, the cynicism dripping off every line, and, for me, that was the noise that art made. It was liberation from my small town.

Lines like about women filing their nails and dragging the lake had no connection to my life, but the delivery system Elviss raw energy and anger spoke to me in a way nothing had before. The music came lunging at me like a drunk with a broken bottle. I have never forgotten it.