Elvis Costello Returns With ‘Hey Clockface’ Today

Elvis Costello is back today (October 30th) with his 31st studio set, titled, Hey Clockface. The album, which was produced by Sebastian Krys, is the followup to Elvis Costello & The Imposters' 2019 Purse EP and 2018's Grammy Award-winning Look Now album. The new collection, which was recorded in Helsinki, Paris, and Manhattan, features collaborations with Attractions/Imposters keyboardist Steve Nieve, Michael Leonhart, Bill Frisell, and Nels Cline.

Costello said in the new album's announcement:

I wanted the record to be vivid, whether the songs demanded playing that was loud and jagged or intimate and beautiful. . . I sang live on the studio floor, directing from the vocal booth. We cut nine songs in two days. We spoke very little. Almost everything the musicians played was a spontaneous response to the song I was singing. I’d had a dream of recording in Paris like this, one day.

Elvis Costello told us that without a doubt his best songs — both in the past and present — still seem to come out of thin air: “I think you have to accept the spontaneous element in it that you can't really provide for — you can't really predict. If you knew when it was going to come up on you, you'd do it all day long. You can church out the hits. But that isn't the way it works. You don't know when you'll be moved to write a song. I mean you can force yourself to write music, but I don't know that it would be the most thrilling stuff.”

The tracklisting to Elvis Costello's 2020 album, Hey Clockface is:

“Revolution #49”
“No Flag”
“They're Not Laughing At Me Now”
“Newspaper Pane”
“I Do (Zula's Song)”
“We Are All Cowards Now”
“Hey Clockface / How Can You Face Me?”
“The Whirlwind”
“Hetty O'Hara Confidential”
“The Last Confession Of Vivian Whip”
“What Is It That I Need That I Don't Already Have?”
“Radio Is Everything”
“I Can't Say Her Name”
“Byline”