Elvis Costello Updates Web Site, Talks "Momofuku"

In a post on his newly revamped Web site, Elvis Costello confirmed his new album is named after the Momofuku Ando, the inventor of the Cup Noodle. "Like so many things in this world of wonders, all we had to do to make this record was add water," he writes. The singer/songwriter also confirms that though the album will be available only as a double vinyl today, other mediums will follow. "You may prefer other, more portable, less scratchable, editions that will soon become available for your convenience," Costello says. "But this is how it sounds the best: with a needle in a groove, the way the Supreme Being intended it to be." Costello also gives an in-depth track-by-track on Momofuku, including stories behind collaborations with Roseanne Cash, Johnathan Rice and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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