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Elvis Costello Turns 70: His 70 Best Songs, Ranked
As Elvis Costello turns 70, Variety offers a list of the singer-songwriter's 70 best, most powerful songs, from 'Alison' up through his latest album.
In knocking upper-crust debutantes, he had the righteous anger to put down the “socialite sisters with their continental fingers that have never seen working blisters,” but also the self-awareness to add, as a confession: “Oh I know they’ve got their problems / I wish I was one of them.” As one of the standouts of the “Trust” album, this was particularly a showcase for the skills of Steve Nieve, who proved once and for all that he was not just a Vox man, nor one who would use piano just for ironic mirth, but one of rock’s most lyrically expressive keyboardists ever. Costello (who has been known to occasionally go on Twitter and not treat fools gladly) rips into commenters who would never say things to a person’s face, or gossip-spreaders, spitting out verbiage like: “You sit in judgment and bitch / Well, baby, that’s rich / You’re nothing but a snitch.” This renewed anger becomes him, and the tracks absolutely soars on his righteous grievance. Costello and Burt Bacharach were initially put together by filmmaker Allison (no relation) Anders for the purpose of finding a signature song for her movie “Grace of My Heart,” as part of a whole plan to pair younger singer-songwriters with some of the great tunesmiths from the ’60s era in which the film was mostly set.
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