Online Exclusive: Tour Talk

Elvis Costello

Touring with: Alain Toussaint
Tour starts: June 20th in Oakland, CA

"Central to our repertoire will be "River in Reverse." Alain [Toussaint] has also arranged nine of my songs from my catalog. We're going to have quite a lineup. I don't want to give the game away -- put it this way, they range from quite well-known to songs we've never performed, or I don't recall performing them. He's taken songs I've done right back to the beginning of my career, up to the last 2-3 years. We figured we'd keep consistent to that because a brand-new view of a song can make it shine.

I pick songs that were closer to my heart, even if you might call them obscure to a lot of people's ears -- because then they're brand-new to people. Not all of the songs are sorrowful or accusatory. Some of them are just joyful. Maybe some nights we'll play as duo, some nights as full band. Likewise if we do a song of mine like "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," obviously that won't be too much of a surprise. Allen worked on that back on Spike in 1988. He's rewritten it -- I'm sure it'll have some of the same sounds as the original, but he'll probably bring a few new aspects of the arrangement."

STEVE KNOPPER

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