Elvis Costello has suggested that his songwriting days may be “gone”, quipping that “nobody cares whether I make another record”.
The British musician, who broke through in 1977 with the album My Aim is True, has released 33 studio albums over the course of his five-decade career.
His latest project is an extensive 104-track re-release of his debut record, with live recordings and early unheard studio recordings from the very start of his career.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Costello (real name Declan MacManus) was asked if he is writing new music.
“No, those days are gone,” he replied. “I kind of have the same freedom now as I had when I started out, [which] is that nobody cares whether I make another record. There are no expectations, there are no assumptions.
“If anybody knows anything about me by now, they notice I rarely do the same thing twice,” he added.
Costello admitted that he was being “slightly facetious” because he didn’t “wanna answer the question”, but said that he was “engaged in a lot of [prose] writing”.
For the new My Aim is True re-release, the 71-year-old contributed 60 pages of liner notes, and previously authored a memoir, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink.
“I wanted to [write the liner notes] ‘cause I figured this is my last word on this, and this is never going to happen again,” he said. “Might as well say this now before somebody else gets to do it for me, if you know what I mean.”
Returning, again, to the possibility of more new music down the “Alison” songwriter alluded to the threat from AI songwriters – and the possible incentive to keep writing.
“As to the future, I don’t know,” he said. “I think we’re in an interesting time, where there’s a sort of rearguard of humans against machines, and I sense that people are not gonna go quietly. So I may be in that company.
“But if you never hear from me no more, there’s an awful lot you still haven’t listened to,” he said.
My Aim Is True (49th Anniversary Edition) is available now.
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