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Speaker 1: Pushkin. In nineteen eighty four, Elvis Costello released his ninth album,

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Speaker 1: Goodbye Cruel World. I bought it the week it came out,

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Speaker 1: because I bought every Elvis Costello album back then the

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Speaker 1: week it came out. There's a theory in psychology the

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Speaker 1: music you listen to at ages nineteen and twenty is

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Speaker 1: the music that imprints itself most deeply on your consciousness.

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Speaker 1: If you make a list of your favorite songs, you'll

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Speaker 1: see what I mean. Anyway, I was twenty in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty four, so I remember Goodbye Cruel World. I listened

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Speaker 1: to it right away. And this episode is about one

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Speaker 1: song on that album. It's called the Deportees Club. I

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Speaker 1: still have it on vinyl. It goes like this, Oh God,

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Speaker 1: it's awful. My name is Malcolm Blavo. Welcome to Revisionist History,

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Speaker 1: my podcast about things forgotten or misunderstood. This week, I

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Speaker 1: want to go back to Elvis Costello in nineteen eighty four.

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Speaker 1: I should say you don't have to know anything about

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Speaker 1: Elvis Costello or even like his music to be interested

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Speaker 1: in this story. I'm not talking about Deportees Club as

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Speaker 1: a song, but as a symbol. I'm interested in understanding

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Speaker 1: how creativity works, and I've chosen Depotees Club as my

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Speaker 1: case study for the purely arbitrary reason that I'm obsessed

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Speaker 1: with it and maybe, hopefully you will be two once

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Speaker 1: you're finished. Depote's Club is the second to last song

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Speaker 1: on the B side of Goodbye World. The album cover

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Speaker 1: is a picture of a little mountaintop with two trees

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Speaker 1: on it, with Costello and his band members in various

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Speaker 1: strange poses. It's all very eighties. The record was produced

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Speaker 1: by two legends of the British music scene at the time,

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Speaker 1: Clive Langer and Alan win Stanley. You've probably heard some

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Speaker 1: of their work. They did records with Madness, Lloyd Cole,

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Speaker 1: David Bowie, virtually all of the great English new wave

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Speaker 1: hit songs of the nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: Clive Langer and Allan Winstanley were the guys behind the curtain.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever heard come On Eileen

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Speaker 1: by Dexy's Midnight Runners. Come On Eileen. Oh, I swear

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Speaker 1: what he means at this moment you mean everything.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: I'm a terrible singer, but maybe you could make that

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Speaker 1: out that song. Langer and win Stanley Clive Langer knows

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Speaker 1: Elvis Costello. Of course they would bump into each other

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Speaker 1: in the way that people in a small world always

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Speaker 1: bump into each other, and new wave music in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties was a small world. At one point, Langer

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Speaker 1: has his own band and he was doing a show

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Speaker 1: in a riverboat on the river Mersey. Costello calls him

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Speaker 1: up and.

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Speaker 3: He said, oh, I'll come up and play a few

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Speaker 3: songs before you go on.

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Speaker 1: That's Langer. We met at a pub on Lawston Road

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Speaker 1: in Hackney in North London. He's slightly spidery, with close

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Speaker 1: cropped white hair and oversized glasses and the kind of

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Speaker 1: graciousness that only the English seemed to possess. An absolutely

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Speaker 1: delightful person. My father is English and all older, charming

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Speaker 1: Englishman remind me of my father.

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Speaker 4: We had some tea. It was all very civilized. Okay,

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Speaker 4: back to Elvis Costello. He came up and played all

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Speaker 4: his best songs. I mean it's his you know Alison

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Speaker 4: and Everything.

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Speaker 1: Song, Allison Costello's first big hit.

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Speaker 3: Oh then I had to go on and do my

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Speaker 3: first ever show with the same lineup, and we weren't

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Speaker 3: as good, you know, so I don't know. I didn't

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Speaker 3: know quite how to take that.

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Speaker 1: If you detect a little bit of friction in that,

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Speaker 1: you're not wrong. Alvis Costello is a genius, and like

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Speaker 1: a lot of geniuses, he has a really strong personality.

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Speaker 1: A few years pass and Costello's record label decides they

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Speaker 1: want to broaden his commercial appeal. He has a fanatical

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Speaker 1: following among those who know New Way music, but the

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Speaker 1: label wants a big commercial hit, so they turned to

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Speaker 1: the hit makers Langer and win Stanley, and the two

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Speaker 1: of them produce a record for Costello called Punch the Clock,

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Speaker 1: which has a number of absolutely exquisite songs, including Shipbuilding,

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Speaker 1: which Langer co wrote with Elvis Costello.

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Speaker 2: Isis worth the news culture shoes? Fine?

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Speaker 1: You collaborate on Punch the Clock?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: And you like that album?

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Speaker 3: Yes? He doesn't, and he doesn't know.

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Speaker 1: Why is he unhappy with it?

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Speaker 3: I think it was just too commercial at that time,

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Speaker 3: and he wanted to write something simpler, more live more.

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Speaker 3: You know, he's more of a purist than I am.

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Speaker 3: So I was brought up with psychedelic pop in the

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Speaker 3: mid sixties, so I was kind of like, Oh, we

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Speaker 3: can do this, we can do that you know, and

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Speaker 3: he's like, oh, I want it to sound real and

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Speaker 3: black pop dinner or something, you know. But and when

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Speaker 3: you get that right, that's amazing.

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Speaker 1: I want to hear a little bit more about Punch

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Speaker 1: the Clock, about whether those differences in perspective had an

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Speaker 1: impact on the way the record turned out.

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Speaker 3: Not so much. On Punch the Clock we didn't have tension.

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Speaker 3: We had tension later, which I'll talk to you about

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Speaker 3: what we did have. When we did the playback of

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Speaker 3: Punch the Clock, he got quite drunk and played it

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Speaker 3: back really loud.

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Speaker 1: Of course they did, and how much would you kill

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Speaker 1: to a bit in the room with.

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Speaker 3: Him, and he kind of freaked out, said it's all rubbish,

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Speaker 3: it's terrible, it's terrible, and I was like, I had to,

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Speaker 3: you know, calm him down a bit and we all

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Speaker 3: carry it on.

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Speaker 1: When the time comes to make the next album, Castello

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Speaker 1: turns to Langer and win Stanley again, only this time.

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Speaker 3: The first thing he said is that I want to

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Speaker 3: call it Goodbye Corl World. I think it's going to

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Speaker 3: be my last album, which he didn't even tell the band,

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Speaker 3: so he was confiding in me.

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Speaker 1: They do a first run through recording all the songs live.

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Speaker 1: Langer is the producer, the one who's supposed to be

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Speaker 1: running the show, but immediately there's an issue. Elvis basically

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Speaker 1: takes over.

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Speaker 3: Because he's quite a forceful, powerful guy, very eloquent and

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Speaker 3: you know, lovely, but you can sort of barge in

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Speaker 3: and start changing th hims, you know. So I remember saying,

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Speaker 3: thanks for letting me be here to listen to you

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Speaker 3: and make your record, you know, but I don't think

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Speaker 3: it should go like that. Shouldn't be like this, you know.

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Speaker 3: So it was a bit a bit of a standoff.

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Speaker 3: I think he went out and bought a half bottler.

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Speaker 1: June and I asked Langer and why Costello said this

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Speaker 1: was going to be his last album. It's not like

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Speaker 1: he was an old man ready to retire.

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Speaker 3: He wasn't even thirty. It was just that he'd had

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Speaker 3: a lot on his back, you know, he'd been through

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Speaker 3: a lot. I don't know if he wanted to carry

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Speaker 3: on playing the game at that point.

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Speaker 1: The result is disastrous. I hate it. Goodbye cruel World.

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Speaker 1: When I first heard it, and remember I'm a massive

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Speaker 1: Elvis Costello fan. A couple of years ago, Costello did

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Speaker 1: a television variety show called Spectacle.

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Speaker 5: Ladies, and gentleman, will you please wag him to the stage.

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Speaker 1: I want to live to Nick Lo, And in the

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Speaker 1: episode where he interviews Nick Low and Richard Thompson, the

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Speaker 1: camera pans the audience and twice you see me grinning

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Speaker 1: madly as I said. I'm a massive Elvis Costello fan,

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Speaker 1: and believe me when I say goodbye. Cruel world was unlistenable,

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Speaker 1: especially Deporte's Club. It was angry and loud and upsetting.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not the only one who feels that way.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety five, the album is re released by

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Speaker 1: Raiko Disc Records, and Elvis Costello writes in the liner notes, congratulations,

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Speaker 1: you've just purchased our worst album. You have to kind

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Speaker 1: of admire as honesty. Except on that same re release,

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Speaker 1: Costello includes a new version of Deporte's Club, one of

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Speaker 1: the songs on the original album he hates so much

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Speaker 1: he gives it a new melody and plays it by himself.

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Speaker 1: An acoustic version shortens the title to DEPORTI fiddles with

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Speaker 1: some of the lyrics, and it never appears anywhere else,

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Speaker 1: just on this random re release by Raiko disc Records.

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Speaker 1: Whatever that is, and I would never have heard it

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Speaker 1: except that my friend Bruce ran across it and played

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Speaker 1: it for me. Bruce, by the way, was also in

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Speaker 1: the audience of that Elvis Casseillo TV show, grinning madly. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: Bruce and I used to make mixtapes for each other,

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Speaker 1: and he puts this new version Deportee on a mixtape

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Speaker 1: for my birthday, and I become obsessed with it. I'll

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Speaker 1: bet I sing parts of it to myself almost every day.

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Speaker 1: I don't really know why, but it might be one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite songs ever. There's a line in it

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Speaker 1: that jumps into my head whenever I'm sad. It's so perfect,

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Speaker 1: a little couplet about the dissolution of romantic love and

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Speaker 1: you don't know where to start or where to stop.

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Speaker 1: All this pillow talk is finely talk, king shop.

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Speaker 3: Can we play it?

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Speaker 6: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I'm in the pub with Clive Langer, the producer of

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Speaker 1: the original awful version Deportees Club. Strangely, he'd never heard

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Speaker 1: the new, obscure and amazing version of the song he

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Speaker 1: produced so long ago.

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Speaker 3: I want to hear his new version.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So I found it on my iPhone and

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Speaker 1: Langer leaned his head over the table so that his

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Speaker 1: ear would be right next to the tiny phone speaker.

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Speaker 1: Is the one in the.

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Speaker 2: Air Children nine Club, bar Shend, Fine Classrooms, bunch of charms.

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Speaker 7: Send.

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Speaker 2: All Chrum that's doing the spent stems and part us.

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Speaker 2: There's a tad.

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Speaker 7: You know, it.

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Speaker 1: Sounds like he's found the song, but he didn't know

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Speaker 1: at the time either that That's what I mean, That's

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Speaker 1: what's sort of fascinating that. Yeah, either review in the moment.

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Speaker 3: No, Sometimes you know, if it's not sounding right, maybe

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Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe we were not focused enough. You know,

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Speaker 3: maybe we were making a record, but we were miles away.

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Speaker 6: You know.

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Speaker 1: In the end, they Alvis Costello and his producers all

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Speaker 1: thought they had put out something mediocre. What they didn't

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Speaker 1: understand until much later was that that mediocrity contained a

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Speaker 1: bit of genius. It's just that it hadn't become genius yet.

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Speaker 1: And that's what I want to talk about, time and iteration.

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Speaker 1: What happens when genius takes its sweet time to emerge.

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Speaker 1: I know that this is just one three minute song.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you don't even like it, but every time I

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Speaker 1: hear it, I think the same thing, which is this

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Speaker 1: is something that gives a lot of people in the

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Speaker 1: world pleasure, including me, And it almost didn't happen. If

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Speaker 1: Elvis Costello doesn't go back and revisit Deportees Club turn

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Speaker 1: it into Deportee, we miss all that beauty, and the

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Speaker 1: thought of that breaks my heart. There's a theory about

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Speaker 1: creativity that I've always loved. It's an idea that an

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Speaker 1: economist named David Gailnsen came up with. Gailenson is an

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Speaker 1: art lover, and it strikes him when looking at modern art,

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Speaker 1: that there are two very different trajectories that great artists

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Speaker 1: seem to take. On the one hand, there are those

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Speaker 1: who do their best work very early in their life.

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Speaker 1: They tend to work quickly. They have very specific ideas

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Speaker 1: that they want to communicate, and they can articulate those

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Speaker 1: ideas clearly. They plan precisely and meticulously, then they execute boom.

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Speaker 1: Galensen calls them conceptual innovators. Picasso is a great example.

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Speaker 1: He bursts on the scene in his early twenties and

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Speaker 1: electrifies the art world at the turn of the last century.

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Speaker 1: I think that someone like Picasso is who we have

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Speaker 1: in mind when we think of that word genius. But

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Speaker 1: Galenson says, wait a minute, there's another kind of creativity.

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Speaker 1: He calls it experimental innovation. Experimental innovators are people who

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Speaker 1: never have a clear, easily articulated idea. They don't work

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Speaker 1: quickly when they start off. They don't really know where

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Speaker 1: they're going. By trial and error, they do endless drafts.

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Speaker 1: They're perpetually unsatisfied. It can take them a lifetime to

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Speaker 1: figure out what they want to say. Who's a good example. Seison,

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Speaker 1: every bit as famous and important a painter as Picasso,

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Speaker 1: may be the greatest of the Impressionists who reinvent modern

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Speaker 1: art in Paris in the late eighteen hundreds. With Seison's

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Speaker 1: genius and Picasso's genius, they could not be more different.

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Speaker 1: Why don't we start with your favorite?

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Speaker 8: Do you have a favorite in this wild Maybe? My

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Speaker 8: favorite at the moment is that one the bay.

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Speaker 1: I'm talking to a man named John Elderfield. He's a

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Speaker 1: Seeson expert, and he took me to that gallery at

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Speaker 1: the Metropolitan Museum in New York where they have all

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Speaker 1: of their seisons, easily a few billion dollars worth of

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Speaker 1: paintings in one room, and it took only about five minutes.

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Speaker 1: Wandering from picture to picture with Elderfield to see experimental

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Speaker 1: genius in action.

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Speaker 8: So this is one of the many portraits of his

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Speaker 8: wife's that says On made, and it's one of four

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Speaker 8: pictures done in a short period of time when they

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Speaker 8: were living together in Paris.

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Speaker 1: The season we're looking at is a picture of a

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Speaker 1: middle aged woman seated. Her head is tilted slightly to

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Speaker 1: the side. As with a lot of Saison's portraits, we

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Speaker 1: can see only one of her ears. He didn't like

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Speaker 1: doing the second year. She's sitting quietly, almost floating in

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Speaker 1: the chair.

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Speaker 8: And I think it's arguably one of the greatest portraits

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Speaker 8: that he did.

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Speaker 1: It's one of a series of four similar portraits. Elderfield

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Speaker 1: says that the first two are a little smaller, looser,

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Speaker 1: maybe one trace from another, and then a third much

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Speaker 1: like the one we're looking at, but without any background

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Speaker 1: painted in just the figure. Is this very typical of

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Speaker 1: the way he worked? So he does essentially comes back

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Speaker 1: to her four times.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, and then he.

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Speaker 2: Gets it right.

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Speaker 1: Notice my assumption here, because what I was thinking when

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Speaker 1: I said that bit about he gets it right the

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Speaker 1: fourth time was that if Saeson did four versions, he

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Speaker 1: must have been marching towards some kind of preordained conclusion.

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Speaker 1: He has an idea and he's perfecting it. But that's

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Speaker 1: not seyson Standard practice is you do a sketch, work

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Speaker 1: out the problems, do a finished version. Seyson kind of

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Speaker 1: starts in the middle. The fourth version of Sezon's portrait

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Speaker 1: of his wife, the one we're looking at, is less

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Speaker 1: finished than his second and third versions.

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Speaker 8: Well, for example, here you can see this unfinished parts

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Speaker 8: putatively unfinished parts, I mean like the area of the

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Speaker 8: dress there where there's like you can really see the

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Speaker 8: grounds of the canvas and all the way through the

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Speaker 8: lower part, and you can see who's been putting these

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Speaker 8: breast strikes down and not actually filling them all together.

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Speaker 1: Sezon didn't work according to some clear linear plan. He

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Speaker 1: basically just did versions over and again, iteration after iteration,

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Speaker 1: trying to stumble on something that seized his imagination. Many

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Speaker 1: of Saizan's paintings are unsigned because he doesn't want to

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Speaker 1: admit to himself that he's done. He does portraits of

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Speaker 1: his art dealer, Ambrose Villard, and he makes him come

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Speaker 1: for a hundred sittings, one.

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Speaker 8: Hundred, one hundred.

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Speaker 1: Normally they would be how many.

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Speaker 8: And now I mean normally for portraits it would just

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Speaker 8: be a relatively short number, I mean five or something.

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Speaker 1: Why does he need a hundred exactly?

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Speaker 8: I mean, what's in?

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Speaker 2: What's she doing?

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Speaker 8: All the time?

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Speaker 1: Saisan was never finished. This is what David Gilinson means

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Speaker 1: by experimental genius, and Gillinsen points out that you can

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Speaker 1: see this creative type in virtually every field. Herman Melville

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Speaker 1: publishes Moby Dick when he's thirty two, writes it in

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Speaker 1: a heartbeat. He's Picasso. Mark Twain publishes Huck Finn when

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Speaker 1: he's in his late forties, and it takes him forever

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Speaker 1: because he ends up obsessively rewriting and rewriting the ending.

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Speaker 1: He says on who else does Citizen Kane? When he's

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Speaker 1: twenty four? Picasso. Alfred Hitchcock doesn't reach his prime until

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Speaker 1: his mid fifties, after he spent his entire career making

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Speaker 1: one thriller after another, playing with a genre over and

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Speaker 1: over again. Saison. But there's one field where I think

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Speaker 1: Galenson's theory plays out the most powerfully, and that's music.

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Speaker 6: It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minifold,

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Speaker 6: the major lift, the baffled game. Coboluia heluaallulua.

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Speaker 1: That's the song Hallelujah. It was composed by the Canadian

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Speaker 1: songwriter Leonard Cohen. But basically everybody is in a cover

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Speaker 1: of Hallelujah. Rufus Wainwright, You Two, Jeff Buckley, bon Jovi,

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Speaker 1: John Kle, Bob Dylan, I could go on. It's featured

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Speaker 1: in countless TV and movie soundtracks. If you ride the

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Speaker 1: New York City Subway on a regular basis, you'll probably

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Speaker 1: hear a busker singing it virtually every day. Like a

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Speaker 1: good Canadian, I go to a Canada Day celebration every

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Speaker 1: year at Joe's pap in Manhattan, where local artists sing

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Speaker 1: cover versions of Canadian songs. Every year someone does a

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Speaker 1: version of Hallelujah. Every year. It brings down the house.

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Speaker 1: And here's what's interesting about that song.

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Speaker 3: It is so not Picasso. It is seison, textbook seison.

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Speaker 1: A few years ago, the music writer Alan Light wrote

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Speaker 1: an absolutely wonderful book, an entire book on the song Hallelujah.

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Speaker 1: It's called The Holy or the Broken, and one of

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Speaker 1: the big themes is how peculiar Leonard Cohen is. He's

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Speaker 1: a poet, a tortured poet.

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Speaker 7: He is a writer in that way that he labors

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Speaker 7: over what these lyrics are, line by line, word by word,

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Speaker 7: throws a lot away, spends a great deal of time.

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Speaker 7: And Hallelujah, famously, out of all of these, is probably

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Speaker 7: the song that he says bedeviled him the most.

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Speaker 1: That's allan like. He came by my house one day

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Speaker 1: to talk about Hallelujah.

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Speaker 7: He sort of was chasing some idea with this song

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Speaker 7: and couldn't find it and just kept writing and writing

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Speaker 7: and depending when he tells the story, wrote fifty or

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Speaker 7: sixty or seventy verses.

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Speaker 1: Which is for this song, which I mean, you've been

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Speaker 1: writing about music for many, many years. Have you ever

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Speaker 1: heard of a musician who wrote eighty different?

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Speaker 7: I don't think so, I mean, and I don't know

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Speaker 7: what that. I don't know if that means variations on verses.

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Speaker 7: I don't know if that means entirely like how much

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Speaker 7: of this is exaggeration, But it doesn't matter. It's a

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Speaker 7: whole other.

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Speaker 2: Level.

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Speaker 7: Well, there's the famous story that you know, Leonard Cohen

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Speaker 7: and Bob Dylan have this kind of mutual admiration thing,

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Speaker 7: and apparently they met up in the eighties. At some

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Speaker 7: point they were both in Paris and they went to

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Speaker 7: meet at a cafe and Dylan said, oh, I like

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Speaker 7: that song Hallelujah, which is a fascinating piece of this

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Speaker 7: story that really the first person who paid attention to

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Speaker 7: Hallelujah as an important song was Bob Dylan. But he

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Speaker 7: said to Leonard, you know, I like that song. How

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Speaker 7: long did you work on that? And Leonard said, I

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Speaker 7: told him that I'd worked on it for two years.

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Speaker 1: Which was a lie. Cohen later confessed it took him

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Speaker 1: much longer. Then Cohen asks Dylan how long it took

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Speaker 1: him to write the song I and I.

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Speaker 7: And Bob said, yeah, fifteen minutes.

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Speaker 1: Dylan is picasso with Leonard.

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Speaker 7: It's not the first thought, best thought school at all,

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Speaker 7: and he talks about, you know, being in a hotel

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Speaker 7: room in his underwear banging his head on the floor

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Speaker 7: because he couldn't solve this song, Hallelujah.

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Speaker 1: Leonard Cohen spends five years writing Hallelujah. He finally records

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Speaker 1: it in nineteen eighty four. It's for an album called

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Speaker 1: Various Positions. When Cohen finishes recording the songs, he takes

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Speaker 1: them to his record label, which is CBS. To the

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Speaker 1: head of CBS, who's this legendary figure named Walter Yetnikoff,

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Speaker 1: who's the guy who releases Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bruce

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Speaker 1: Springsteen's Born in USA? Not a dumb guy. Jetnikoff listens

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Speaker 1: to Cohen's songs and says, what is this? We're not

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Speaker 1: releasing it. It's a disaster. The album ends up being

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Speaker 1: released by the independent label Passport Records. It barely makes

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Speaker 1: a ripple. And if you go back and listen to

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Speaker 1: that first Hallelujah and try to forget how beautiful future

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Speaker 1: versions would be, the song's failure makes sense. It's not

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Speaker 1: there yet. There's an essay written by Michael Barthel about

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Speaker 1: the trajectory of Hallelujah, and he calls Cohen's original version

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Speaker 1: so hyper serious that it's almost satire. Ah No, kind

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Speaker 1: of turgid, isn't it. But Cohen's not done. He keeps

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Speaker 1: tinkering with it. He plays it in concerts, and he

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Speaker 1: slows it down. It becomes twice as long. He changes

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Speaker 1: the first three verses, leaving only the final verses the same.

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Speaker 1: The song becomes even darker this time around.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll see your flag on the marvel large.

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Speaker 3: But listen, love, love is not some kind of victory Marge, No.

385
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Speaker 2: It's cold.

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Speaker 5: Maybe it's severa Brokale how Land, how Land.

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Speaker 1: One night, Cohen is playing this version at the Beacon

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Speaker 1: Ballroom in New York, and the musician John Cale happens

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Speaker 1: to be in the audience. Cayl is a legend, used

390
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Speaker 1: to be in the Velvet Underground, a really pivotal figure

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Speaker 1: in the rock and roll a vant garde. He hears

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Speaker 1: this song come out of Cohen's mouth and he's blown away,

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Speaker 1: so he asked Cohen to send in the lyrics. He

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Speaker 1: wants to do a version of it, so Coen factes

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Speaker 1: him fifteen pages. Who knows what the lyrics actually are.

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Speaker 1: At this point, Cale says that for his version he

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Speaker 1: took the cheeky parts. He ends up using the first

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Speaker 1: two verses of the original combined with three verses from

399
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Speaker 1: the live performance, and Cale changes some words. Most importantly,

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Speaker 1: he changes the theme and brings back the biblical references

401
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Speaker 1: that Cohen had in the album version.

402
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Speaker 7: Maybe there's a God about all I ever love?

403
00:24:41,876 --> 00:24:42,636
Speaker 2: From love?

404
00:24:43,556 --> 00:24:45,276
Speaker 3: How does shoot at someone?

405
00:24:45,556 --> 00:24:45,716
Speaker 1: Who?

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Speaker 3: Are you?

407
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Speaker 2: You?

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Speaker 1: And it's not a cry you can hear at night.

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Speaker 1: It's not somebody you've seen the line.

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Speaker 5: It's a call and answer for Alganillluia.

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Speaker 1: Hell Cale is really the one who cracks the code

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Speaker 1: of Hallelujah. According to Alan Knight, this cover version appears

413
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Speaker 1: on a Leonard Cohen tribute album put together by a

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Speaker 1: French music magazine. It was called I'm Your Fan. Came

415
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Speaker 1: out in nineteen ninety one. Almost nobody bought I'm Your Fan,

416
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Speaker 1: except weirdly me. I think I found it in a

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Speaker 1: remainder bin in a little record store on Columbia Road

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Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. Another person who bought I'm Your

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Speaker 1: Fan was a woman named Janine who lived in Park

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Speaker 1: Slope in Brooklyn. She was good friends with a young

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Speaker 1: aspiring singer named Jeff Buckley. He used to house sit

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Speaker 1: at her apartment, and one time, when Buckley's there, he

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Speaker 1: happens to see the CD of I'm Your Fan. He

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Speaker 1: plays it. He hears John Cale's version of Hollelujah and

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Speaker 1: decides to do his own version of that version. He

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Speaker 1: performs it at a tiny little bar in the east

427
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Speaker 1: village called Cheney, where he happens to be heard by

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Speaker 1: an executive from Columbia Records. So Columbia Records ends up

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Speaker 1: signing Buckley and he records his version of Hollelujah for

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Speaker 1: the album Grace, which ends up being Buckley's first and

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Speaker 1: only studio album. It came out in nineteen ninety four.

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Speaker 9: Remember moved in you and the Holy Dove was moving too,

433
00:26:22,796 --> 00:26:26,956
Speaker 9: And every breathed Withdrew was Hallanluia.

434
00:26:37,196 --> 00:26:39,756
Speaker 1: Now I'm guessing that Buckley's version is the one you're

435
00:26:39,756 --> 00:26:43,436
Speaker 1: most familiar with. It's the famous one, the definitive one.

436
00:26:44,516 --> 00:26:47,716
Speaker 1: It's not really a cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. It's

437
00:26:47,756 --> 00:26:51,116
Speaker 1: a cover of John Cayle's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah,

438
00:26:51,476 --> 00:26:54,916
Speaker 1: only with Cale's piano swapped out for a guitar, and

439
00:26:54,996 --> 00:26:58,156
Speaker 1: of course Buckley swaps out Cale's voice for his own

440
00:26:58,436 --> 00:27:24,796
Speaker 1: extraordinary voice Hallelujah. All every subsequent cover, and there have

441
00:27:24,916 --> 00:27:28,956
Speaker 1: been hundreds, are really covers a Buckley covering Kale covering Cohen.

442
00:27:29,876 --> 00:27:34,036
Speaker 1: So the evolution finally stops. But wait, not really.

443
00:27:34,836 --> 00:27:38,036
Speaker 7: Buckley records a song in nineteen ninety four, still nobody

444
00:27:38,076 --> 00:27:40,836
Speaker 7: particularly pays attention to it. I mean again, in retrospect,

445
00:27:40,876 --> 00:27:43,436
Speaker 7: we think of Jeff Buckley as this very important figure

446
00:27:43,476 --> 00:27:47,356
Speaker 7: and this big influence on Radiohead and Coldplay, but nobody

447
00:27:47,396 --> 00:27:50,356
Speaker 7: bought Grace. Nobody bought Jeff's record. When it came out,

448
00:27:50,396 --> 00:27:52,676
Speaker 7: it peaked at number one hundred and sixty on the

449
00:27:52,796 --> 00:27:55,116
Speaker 7: charts or something. It was a huge disappointment after all

450
00:27:55,196 --> 00:27:58,236
Speaker 7: the hype around him, so that didn't make it a hit.

451
00:27:59,036 --> 00:28:04,076
Speaker 1: Buckley is this incredibly handsome man, looks almost ethereal like Jesus,

452
00:28:04,756 --> 00:28:07,676
Speaker 1: with that incredible voice. But none of that is enough

453
00:28:07,796 --> 00:28:12,196
Speaker 1: until nineteen ninety seven, when something tragic happens. Buckley's in

454
00:28:12,276 --> 00:28:14,556
Speaker 1: Memphis and he goes swimming in one of the channels

455
00:28:14,596 --> 00:28:17,556
Speaker 1: of the Mississippi. He's wearing boots and all his clothing

456
00:28:17,636 --> 00:28:19,476
Speaker 1: and singing the chorus of a Whole Lot of Love

457
00:28:19,556 --> 00:28:24,116
Speaker 1: by led Zeppelin, and he vanishes, never seen again. And

458
00:28:24,236 --> 00:28:29,196
Speaker 1: that tragedy suddenly propels his work and Hallelujah into the spotlight.

459
00:28:29,836 --> 00:28:31,836
Speaker 7: And it's really kind of you know, as you hit

460
00:28:31,916 --> 00:28:34,996
Speaker 7: the new century, that's when the snowball kind of starts.

461
00:28:35,236 --> 00:28:38,436
Speaker 7: The first few covers, the first few soundtrack placements. It's

462
00:28:38,556 --> 00:28:41,316
Speaker 7: fifteen years since Leonard recorded.

463
00:28:40,956 --> 00:28:53,596
Speaker 1: This song, fifteen years and think about how many incredible

464
00:28:53,676 --> 00:28:57,356
Speaker 1: twists and turns that song takes before it gets recognized

465
00:28:57,396 --> 00:29:05,236
Speaker 1: as a work of genius. It just happens that the

466
00:29:05,316 --> 00:29:09,636
Speaker 1: independent label Passport Records releases the first version. The album

467
00:29:09,676 --> 00:29:13,716
Speaker 1: it's on is rejected by CBS Records. Then Leonard Cohen

468
00:29:13,796 --> 00:29:17,316
Speaker 1: doesn't give up, keeps tinkering and performing new versions of Hallelujah.

469
00:29:17,596 --> 00:29:20,916
Speaker 1: John Cale, one of the most influential musicians of his era,

470
00:29:21,516 --> 00:29:24,916
Speaker 1: happens to hear Cohen doing that. He revises the song

471
00:29:25,076 --> 00:29:28,596
Speaker 1: some more. Cale's version goes out on the obscure French

472
00:29:28,716 --> 00:29:32,196
Speaker 1: CD I'm a Fan, which goes nowhere except Janine's living

473
00:29:32,276 --> 00:29:35,516
Speaker 1: room in Park Slope, and Janine happens to have a

474
00:29:35,556 --> 00:29:38,836
Speaker 1: house sitter who happens to play it, happens to like it,

475
00:29:39,116 --> 00:29:43,316
Speaker 1: and happens to have an ethereal amazing voice. Buckley's version

476
00:29:43,516 --> 00:29:46,756
Speaker 1: goes nowhere until he happens to die under the most

477
00:29:46,836 --> 00:29:51,836
Speaker 1: dramatic and heartbreaking of circumstances. And then finally we recognize

478
00:29:51,836 --> 00:29:55,076
Speaker 1: the genius of this song. But think about how fragile

479
00:29:55,156 --> 00:29:57,876
Speaker 1: and elusive that bit of genius is. If any of

480
00:29:57,956 --> 00:30:02,356
Speaker 1: those incredibly random things don't happen, you probably would never

481
00:30:02,476 --> 00:30:13,156
Speaker 1: have heard Hallelujah. I don't think this crazy chain of

482
00:30:13,236 --> 00:30:18,356
Speaker 1: happenstance matters so much with conceptual innovations. Paul Simon One says,

483
00:30:18,636 --> 00:30:21,276
Speaker 1: A Bridge over Troubled Water one of the most beautiful

484
00:30:21,316 --> 00:30:24,716
Speaker 1: pop songs ever written. It came so fast, and when

485
00:30:24,756 --> 00:30:27,356
Speaker 1: it was done, I said, where did that come from?

486
00:30:27,876 --> 00:30:31,356
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like me. The song came out perfectly.

487
00:30:32,076 --> 00:30:35,476
Speaker 1: You can evaluate it right away. It doesn't require fifteen

488
00:30:35,556 --> 00:30:38,596
Speaker 1: years worth of twists and turns and random events. The

489
00:30:38,676 --> 00:30:43,036
Speaker 1: world is really good at capturing conceptual creations, or at

490
00:30:43,116 --> 00:30:46,636
Speaker 1: least we don't miss as many conceptual works because they

491
00:30:46,636 --> 00:30:50,596
Speaker 1: don't require that the stars be perfectly aligned. But if

492
00:30:50,636 --> 00:30:54,036
Speaker 1: you're Seyson and the first version you produce is just

493
00:30:54,116 --> 00:30:57,396
Speaker 1: a starting point and you never know exactly what you're

494
00:30:57,516 --> 00:30:59,996
Speaker 1: doing or why, or whether your work is finished or not,

495
00:31:00,636 --> 00:31:04,956
Speaker 1: the stars really do have to be aligned. Seyson was

496
00:31:04,996 --> 00:31:07,836
Speaker 1: his own worst enemy in a way. He threw up

497
00:31:07,956 --> 00:31:11,316
Speaker 1: barrier after barrier. He wasn't thinking of us when he

498
00:31:11,356 --> 00:31:15,636
Speaker 1: painted his paintings. That was really John Elderfield's point. The

499
00:31:15,876 --> 00:31:18,516
Speaker 1: art of the experimental innovator is elusive.

500
00:31:19,596 --> 00:31:23,436
Speaker 8: There are some of them which now are in museums

501
00:31:23,476 --> 00:31:26,476
Speaker 8: which we know he had tried to destroy. I mean,

502
00:31:26,676 --> 00:31:28,956
Speaker 8: and you can see in some of them the cases

503
00:31:29,036 --> 00:31:30,756
Speaker 8: of where he slashed the canvases.

504
00:31:31,676 --> 00:31:33,516
Speaker 1: Why would he destroy his own canvases?

505
00:31:33,756 --> 00:31:37,436
Speaker 8: You know, he had certain ideas about what he wanted

506
00:31:37,516 --> 00:31:40,276
Speaker 8: to do and felt he actually never was actually getting

507
00:31:40,396 --> 00:31:44,276
Speaker 8: to that point. There are other paintings done much later

508
00:31:44,436 --> 00:31:48,436
Speaker 8: where he simply abandons them. And Picassa said that, you

509
00:31:48,516 --> 00:31:54,196
Speaker 8: know what actually engages us is Saisan's doubt, his uncertainty.

510
00:31:54,396 --> 00:31:56,636
Speaker 1: He's obsessive, you know, he's.

511
00:31:56,596 --> 00:31:58,876
Speaker 8: Absolutely just totally obsessive.

512
00:32:07,836 --> 00:32:13,556
Speaker 1: Elvis Costello Deportee in its original, flawed form. It comes

513
00:32:13,596 --> 00:32:16,156
Speaker 1: out in nineteen eighty four, the same year, by the way,

514
00:32:16,436 --> 00:32:19,356
Speaker 1: that Hallelujah first came out, and I'm not sure that's

515
00:32:19,396 --> 00:32:23,116
Speaker 1: a coincidence, because nineteen eighty four is a very particular

516
00:32:23,236 --> 00:32:26,196
Speaker 1: moment in pop music. The biggest album of that year

517
00:32:26,516 --> 00:32:31,236
Speaker 1: was Michael Jackson's thriller Pop Music Gloss to Perfection. There's

518
00:32:31,276 --> 00:32:33,876
Speaker 1: not a single stray note or emotion on that record.

519
00:32:34,236 --> 00:32:40,236
Speaker 1: It's the antithesis of songs like Hallelujah or Deportee. Along

520
00:32:40,316 --> 00:32:43,116
Speaker 1: comes Costello. He wants to make an album in the

521
00:32:43,236 --> 00:32:46,356
Speaker 1: midst of that cultural moment, and he's not interested in

522
00:32:46,436 --> 00:32:51,356
Speaker 1: glossy perfection. His marriage is breaking up, he's having financial difficulties.

523
00:32:51,716 --> 00:32:55,156
Speaker 1: He says later that Langer and Winstanley were ill equipped

524
00:32:55,196 --> 00:32:57,876
Speaker 1: for dealing with someone of my temperament at that time.

525
00:32:58,356 --> 00:33:01,076
Speaker 1: A nurse with a large sedative syringe might have been

526
00:33:01,116 --> 00:33:06,836
Speaker 1: more appropriate. Costello writes a series of dark, emotional, bitter songs,

527
00:33:07,476 --> 00:33:11,156
Speaker 1: gritty and spare, to match his moods. Something not nineteen

528
00:33:11,196 --> 00:33:14,876
Speaker 1: eighty four. Meanwhile, Langer and Winstanley had been brought on

529
00:33:14,996 --> 00:33:18,076
Speaker 1: board to produce Hits, polished exquisite.

530
00:33:18,316 --> 00:33:22,316
Speaker 3: Every little bit was pondered over and you know, thought

531
00:33:22,356 --> 00:33:24,676
Speaker 3: about and put together very carefully. I mean, you had

532
00:33:24,836 --> 00:33:27,636
Speaker 3: bands like Scrittly Polity at that time, you know, spending

533
00:33:27,916 --> 00:33:31,716
Speaker 3: nine months on a song, and Trevor Horn spending four

534
00:33:31,836 --> 00:33:34,636
Speaker 3: weeks on the snare sound for Two Tribes.

535
00:33:35,076 --> 00:33:37,996
Speaker 1: Two Tribes was an album by a hugely popular band

536
00:33:38,036 --> 00:33:40,836
Speaker 1: called Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and they spent a month

537
00:33:41,076 --> 00:33:42,676
Speaker 1: just getting a particular drum sound.

538
00:33:42,756 --> 00:33:45,996
Speaker 3: Right, So we weren't that pendictte but we were dealing

539
00:33:46,116 --> 00:33:50,916
Speaker 3: with a world that was, you know, perfection. It was

540
00:33:51,076 --> 00:33:52,516
Speaker 3: we were trying to make pop perfection.

541
00:33:53,036 --> 00:33:55,316
Speaker 1: You can imagine what happened when that world collides with

542
00:33:55,396 --> 00:33:56,996
Speaker 1: Elvis Costello, and some of it.

543
00:33:57,116 --> 00:34:00,356
Speaker 3: Just sounded like I mean, even the band were kind

544
00:34:00,396 --> 00:34:04,916
Speaker 3: of not very excited by some of the material. So

545
00:34:05,276 --> 00:34:08,076
Speaker 3: it wasn't a great experience. But we did it very quickly,

546
00:34:08,436 --> 00:34:11,276
Speaker 3: but just quickly. Mean in the time it took Trevor

547
00:34:11,356 --> 00:34:14,116
Speaker 3: On to get a Slayer down to two tribes, so

548
00:34:14,196 --> 00:34:15,556
Speaker 3: it's about three or four weeks.

549
00:34:15,756 --> 00:34:19,796
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole album, it was a mess perfectionism in

550
00:34:19,876 --> 00:34:23,636
Speaker 1: a hurry. That's how you get to the bitter words. Congratulations,

551
00:34:23,836 --> 00:34:27,436
Speaker 1: you've just bought my worst album. Goodbye Cruel World is

552
00:34:27,516 --> 00:34:32,516
Speaker 1: not good. It's unlistenable, But it's what happens next that matters.

553
00:34:33,716 --> 00:34:36,716
Speaker 1: You Know how people always say, put your failures behind you,

554
00:34:37,076 --> 00:34:40,356
Speaker 1: get on with your life, never look back. Alvis Costello

555
00:34:40,476 --> 00:34:44,076
Speaker 1: does none of those things, because he says on he's

556
00:34:44,116 --> 00:34:47,156
Speaker 1: not Picasso. He carries around a little black book where

557
00:34:47,156 --> 00:34:49,916
Speaker 1: he writes draft after draft after draft of the songs

558
00:34:49,956 --> 00:34:52,956
Speaker 1: he's thinking about. He changes lines in the middle of

559
00:34:53,036 --> 00:34:56,396
Speaker 1: songs he's already recorded. He re arranges songs at different

560
00:34:56,476 --> 00:35:00,636
Speaker 1: tempos or in different time signatures. He cannibalizes his own work,

561
00:35:00,956 --> 00:35:04,676
Speaker 1: creating new songs out of old songs. And I don't

562
00:35:04,756 --> 00:35:08,836
Speaker 1: know where to start or where to stop. He doesn't

563
00:35:08,836 --> 00:35:10,836
Speaker 1: want to. S sign is named to the painting. And

564
00:35:10,996 --> 00:35:13,316
Speaker 1: thank god there are people like him and Saizon in

565
00:35:13,396 --> 00:35:17,676
Speaker 1: this world, because without the obsessives and the perpetually dissatisfied,

566
00:35:17,996 --> 00:35:20,916
Speaker 1: and the artists who go back over and over again

567
00:35:21,316 --> 00:35:24,716
Speaker 1: repainting what others see as finished, we would never have

568
00:35:24,836 --> 00:35:26,316
Speaker 1: seen the beauty of deportee.

569
00:35:27,796 --> 00:35:34,956
Speaker 5: And you don't know weirdest stopped, all wed stop, All

570
00:35:35,076 --> 00:35:38,836
Speaker 5: this pillow talk is nothing.

571
00:35:39,156 --> 00:35:39,956
Speaker 6: Marve then.

572
00:35:41,556 --> 00:35:43,276
Speaker 3: Fine talk.

573
00:35:44,876 --> 00:35:50,476
Speaker 2: In shop down when ack.

574
00:35:50,916 --> 00:35:54,196
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Revisionist History. If you like what

575
00:35:54,356 --> 00:35:57,316
Speaker 1: you've heard, do us a favor and rate us on iTunes.

576
00:35:58,036 --> 00:36:00,556
Speaker 1: You can get more information about this and other episodes

577
00:36:00,876 --> 00:36:05,116
Speaker 1: at Revisionististory dot com or on your favorite podcast app.

578
00:36:06,076 --> 00:36:09,196
Speaker 1: Our show is produced by mea LaBelle, Roxanne Scott, and

579
00:36:09,316 --> 00:36:13,796
Speaker 1: Jacob Smith. Our editor is Julia Barton. Music is composed

580
00:36:13,916 --> 00:36:18,676
Speaker 1: by Luis Guerra and Taka Yasuzawa. Flaonon Williams is our

581
00:36:18,756 --> 00:36:24,276
Speaker 1: engineer and our fact checker is Michelle Siraka. The Panoply

582
00:36:24,436 --> 00:36:28,796
Speaker 1: management team is Laura Mayor, Andy Bauers and Jacob Weissberg.

583
00:36:29,636 --> 00:36:34,276
Speaker 1: I'm Malcolm Glad Party, Party,