True Stories

Thirty years after the release of My Aim Is True, ELVIS COSTELLO is set to revisit his classic debut. TERRY STAUNTON looks back at the beginnings of a remarkable career...

The nervous-looking youth in the National Health specs was loitering by the bar of the Vine pub, just along the road from the famed Cavern Club in Liverpool’s Mathew Street, occasionally stealing a glance at the long-haired musicians gathered round a small table. He’d been to see them play countless times, but had yet to pluck up the courage to approach any of them.

It was one of the musos, leader of pub rock figureheads Brinsley Schwarz, who made the first move. “Somebody pointed out that the guy we saw at all the gigs was over by the bar, and I just thought it was time I went and said hello to him,” remembers Nick Lowe. “I asked him if he wanted a pint, although to this day he claims that he bought me a drink. We chatted for a while, and that was about it. I didn’t see him again for a couple of years until he walked into the Stiff Records office with a demo tape.”

The youth was Declan MacManus, soon to be Elvis Costello, and the tape contained the seeds of what was to become his first album. My Aim Is True, released 30 years ago in July, set Costello on one of the most prolific, varied and lauded career paths of any singer-songwriter. A restless, fearless and fiercely intelligent individual, his place at rock’s top table has long been assured, courtesy of two dozen further …

by Terry Staunton
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