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Elvis Costello — just mention the name and music writers knock over chairs to get to their word processors. And no wonder. He's got everything we pant to write about: lyrics you need a Cliff's Notes to translate, a personality nobody can predict; a certain danger.
He’s small, with a Napoleonic bad attitude to match. And he’s been practicing – Costello has been seriously honked off in public for 13 years now.
And hey, is this guy versatile or what? Just slap your eyes on Elvis’ new look. Is it Deadhead Elvis? Or Elvis Gibbons, ready to get down and boogie ZZ Top style?
Whatever, it’s a 180-degree turn from the literate king of the British punks, the wired-up, short-cropped, knock-kneed guy on the cover of his explosive 1977 debut, My Aim Is True.
After all, long hair, the Grateful Dead, funky hats – that kind of thing, was supposed to be swept away with the new order of music in the late ‘70s, when the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten snarled that the hippie dinosaur bands were history.
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