Rock MusicEvery five years or so a poor sap of a music journalist draws the short straw of rock music biography: the life, times and music of Elvis Costello/Declan MacManus.
I know this to be true because I belong to the endangered species of music journalists who have attempted to wrap up the life, times and music of Costello in a reasonably compact 300 pages. About half a dozen of us have tried to come up with opinions and theories about what makes the man tick, and each time, I'd venture, we have failed. Costello the man, the character, the songwriter, as we have sequentially discovered, is like one of those multi-part Russian dolls: no sooner do you open one than you find another - smaller and similar yet different; the same face stares back at you, silently but defiantly willing you to continue, safe in the knowledge that you'll be as flummoxed as you were when you started.
The latest victim is Graeme Thomson, a freelance writer who (like each of Costello's previous biographers) didn't interview Costello specifically for the book, has little material on those personally close to Costello (notably his first wife, Mary, his son Matthew, his previous partner, Cáit O'Riordan, his long-term musical associate Steve Nieve and latterly his current wife, Diana Krall) and doesn't quote from Costello's eminently quotable published songs.
The restrictions are such that some people might wonder why on earth a biographer would ever want to embark on what is clearly a fool's journey as much as a waste of time and effort. Money, of course, is one of the reasons; another, I'd warrant, is the genuine feeling that there is something new or different to say about Costello and his music. Ultimately, however, the screeching sound of old ground being raked over and over again is deafening.
Yet despite these drawbacks, Thomson has produced the best Costello biography to date. For starters, he has talked to more people. Former band mates in Costello's early band, Flip City, former band members of The Attractions (particularly bass player Bruce Thomas, who makes no bones about his dislike of the man he calls the "barking cabbage"), a few record producers and a handful of musicians help plug the gaps previous biographers (including this one) had left gaping wide. While it's true that these plugs have little impact beyond the remit of either the committed Costello fan or the casual observer eager for an update on rock's most rounded Renaissance Man, at least they're thorough and quite complete.
The book isn't a hagiography, either. If you want character-staining gossip it is here: his relationship with his first wife and his subsequent paramour, model Bebe Buell ("He would wake me up . . . and accuse me of dreaming about somebody else," she says).
Then there's his eventual split in the mid-1990s from manager Jake Riviera (as far as Riviera is concerned, claims record producer Roger Bechirian, "Elvis's ego is so enormous that he needs a truck to drive behind him to carry it").
So it's all good stuff, then? Well, no, not really. Thomson's approach is strictly, perhaps inevitably, linear, which means once the early and far more interesting part of MacManus/ Costello's life is dispensed with (the struggle, the doubt, the paranoia, the artist with the personality of a hangover), the book turns into a tour/album/ tour travelogue. The writing also lacks any real insight into the music, which, when it comes down to it, is still the place where the core of Costello's multi-faceted personality lies.
Complicated Shadows, then, neither defines nor alters the perception of Elvis Costello as being anything other than a prickly, exceptionally talented musician who compulsively keeps himself busy and who, in all likelihood, means less and less to more and more people as he gets older.
Now in his 50s - and with a profile that is arguably more niche than mainstream - it seems that as a biographical subject Costello will continue to elude the type of writer he blatantly has so little time for (except when he has to promote each new record release, that is). Such a sore of relished superiority will undoubtedly continue to fester until he himself puts pen to paper, which, judging by his prolific work rate, won't be anytime soon. Roll on yet another well-intentioned, well-written but ultimately unfulfilling biog come 2010, then.
Tony Clayton-Lea writes on rock/pop music for The Irish Times. He is also editor of Cara, the inflight magazine of Aer Lingus
Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello By Graeme Thomson Canongate Books, 342pp. £16.99
