Elvis Costello on the best Beatles songs ever made
For years, Elvis Costello has been searching for the next great song. Although he may have had his string of hits as a new wave superstar in the late 1970s, Costello never forgot the importance of a great song throughout his career, combining the sarcastic lyricism of Bob Dylan with the nervy energy of punk rock during his prime. For anyone interested in writing great songs, Costello knows that everything goes back to The Beatles.
When first getting his bearings in the rock community, Costello believed that The Beatles were the litmus test of what every great rock band should be. Since rock before them had been everyone from Chuck Berry to Little Richard, the thought of having a four-piece rock outfit with four separate superstars seemed like a pipe dream.
No Beatles album ever sounded the same, and when picking his choices for favourite Beatles songs for Vanity Fair, Costello ran the gamut of everything the band had ever done. There were some classics included, to be sure, but some of the greatest pieces were as far-ranging as their pop rock period in moptops to the psychedelic period with drooping moustaches.
It may have seemed too good to be true then, but no artist gets to be that way without having great songs. Whether it was covering old American tunes or their originals, the beginning of the Fab Four’s career already saw them going miles ahead of their competition, with Costello singling out their version of ‘You Really Got a Hold On Me’ by Smokey Robinson and ‘Things We Said Today’ from A Hard Day’s Night.
The Beatles were never meant to stay in one lane throughout their career, though, and ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’ showed them absorbing the lyricism and folkie twang of Dylan as well. Whereas most bands today would try for different styles and fall flat on their face half the time, Costello marvelled at how well they churned out pop classics, from ‘Girl’ on Rubber Soul to ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ from Revolver.
Then again, a special mention should be made to George Martin. Operating as the fifth member of the band whenever they went into the studio, Martin was the one who helped tie everything together just right, turning a simple Paul McCartney melody into the haunting string section in ‘Eleanor Rigby’ or somehow finding a way to turn two completely different into a masterpiece on ‘A Day in the Life’.
Since Costello was born from the same generation that idolised punk rock, hearing his favourite act intentionally mess with their audience was also wildly exciting. Compared to the other bands that were dipping their toes into dirty sounds like The Rolling Stones, no one was hearing songs like ‘Paperback Writer’, which felt like the British Invasion had finally been dipped in a vat of acid.
Of course, Costello has admitted that it’s nearly impossible to pick a favourite song, considering The Beatles turned the album into an art form. Instead of just a collection of singles, the Fab Four knew that there was something better out there than the model Elvis Presley had taken, where you would duck into a studio and squeeze three good songs and nine miles’ worth of filler and calling it a day.
For listeners like Costello, these were revolutionary, telling Rolling Stone, “These records were events, not just a notice for an advanced notice of an album release. If I had to pick a favorite song from those albums, it would be ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ … no, ‘Girl’ … no, ‘For No One’ … and so on, and so on…”
Even though Costello would have probably been more than satisfied being a fan of the group’s music for the rest of his life, he got one thing every artist dreams of – a co-writing credit with Paul McCartney. When working on Flowers in the Dirt, McCartney tapped Costello to work with him on many of the tracks, which he compared to the same sensation he had working with John Lennon for the first time. When working in the mould of a Beatle, Costello didn’t have to jog his memory of their tunes. Because if you’ve been a student of songwriting, The Beatles are baked into your bones.