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One thing about having a health scare in public: You get to hear from everyone. "I was very touched by some of the things that people wrote and the calls I got," says Costello in the wake of his announcement this past July of a cancerous malignancy that was thankfully, as he wrote on his website, "defeated by a single surgery." From far-flung friends to perfect strangers, the well-wishes poured in for the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer. "I was just in Liverpool last week, and people would stop me and ask me, so, you know, you've got to be thankful for that."
In addition to his good health, Costello's fans can be thankful for Look Now, a superlative 12-track collection largely written by himself with key assists on three songs from Burt Bacharach and one from Carole King. Not too shabby, doll.
"How lucky am I to have, 'Here's a song I wrote with Carole King'?" Costello asks rhetorically. "Not to mention the fact that Burt and I have written something like 25 songs together over the last 10 or 12 years:'
Not all of those compositions were originally intended for a Costello album but instead two separate musical projects that the pair were commissioned to write scores for, including one based on their joint 1998 album, Painted From Memory. "When that didn't come to fruition — and I realized that we would maybe wait a long time for the fashions of Broadway to change to the kind of slow, intense melancholy that's in a lot of these songs — [I thought] maybe I should frame some of these compositions with some other tunes of my own, and bring them out into the light where people can hear what we'd written;' says the 64-year-old Brit. "I think these songs that Burt wrote the music for are as beautiful as anything he's written."
From his timeless pop-rock hits like "Alison," "Pump It Up," and "Veronica" to classical explorations with the Brodsky Quartet to Wise Up Ghost, his 2013 collaboration with the Roots, Costello has traveled many different musical roads. But he's pleased that his current journey led him back to the Imposters. Costello calls the monstrously talented trio — keyboardist Steve Nieve, drummer Pete Thomas, and bassist Davey Faragher — "my best pals in music."
Speaking of old friends, he is aware of the recent interview in which Paul McCartney said that he had envisioned Costello as a voice in his head scolding him for using Auto-Tune. "That's one of the greatest things. Can you imagine my shock?" says Costello with a laugh. "I never quite get over that I know Paul. Because he's Paul, and yet he's so very kind. And to always kind of be remembering me fondly as that contrarian voice in his head, it's nice to be remembered that way. And to go back to your very first question: Yes, of course it was very, very reassuring to know that people were concerned that I was okay, but, you know, you will see a few remarks from people going, 'I never liked him anyway.' And it's good to think Paul McCartney still thinks I might be disapproving of the idea that he had Auto-Tune on his record." But would Costello be? He says with another laugh of the Beatle, "He can do what the hell he wants!"
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