WEBVTT - Encore: Hallelujah 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.436 Pushkin years ago, and this is going to date me. 0:00:23.116 --> 0:00:25.476 My best friend Bruce and I used to make mixtapes 0:00:25.476 --> 0:00:29.236 for each other, actually mixed CDs. We used to spend 0:00:29.316 --> 0:00:32.236 enormous amounts of time picking the songs and then an 0:00:32.276 --> 0:00:34.636 even more enormous amount of time on the art for 0:00:34.716 --> 0:00:38.596 the CD box. My mixes were always named after Pope's 0:00:38.956 --> 0:00:42.156 for reasons I cannot remember, like Pope Pious to twelfth 0:00:42.396 --> 0:00:46.676 with a big photocopied picture of him in some ermine robe. Anyway, 0:00:47.036 --> 0:00:48.996 the point of the mixes, and I think this is 0:00:49.036 --> 0:00:50.956 true of everyone who grew up in the mix era, 0:00:51.556 --> 0:00:54.396 was to find songs that you knew about and liked, 0:00:54.756 --> 0:00:57.476 and that you believed that your best friend didn't know 0:00:57.516 --> 0:01:00.916 about and would like, which, if you're talking about someone 0:01:00.916 --> 0:01:03.236 with whom you've been sharing music, your whole life is 0:01:03.276 --> 0:01:07.516 a pretty narrow window. Anyway. Bruce put the acoustic re 0:01:07.516 --> 0:01:11.236 release of Elvis Costello's Deeptie on a special mix. I 0:01:11.276 --> 0:01:12.876 think it was for one of my birthdays in my 0:01:12.956 --> 0:01:16.836 roaring twenties. I just remember thinking two things as I 0:01:16.876 --> 0:01:21.836 listened to that song over and over again. First, I 0:01:21.916 --> 0:01:25.276 knew the first version and hated it. And This was 0:01:25.316 --> 0:01:28.316 the same song sung by the same artist, and now 0:01:28.396 --> 0:01:32.476 in this form it was magical. How did that work? 0:01:33.516 --> 0:01:36.676 The second thing I remember thinking is this is why 0:01:36.676 --> 0:01:40.596 God invented best friends. I still think that. By the way, 0:01:41.956 --> 0:01:48.076 here we go the first in our musical encore, Hallelujah. 0:01:48.476 --> 0:01:52.116 In nineteen eighty four, Alvis Costello released his ninth album, 0:01:52.396 --> 0:01:55.556 Goodbye Cruel World. I bought it the week it came out, 0:01:55.596 --> 0:01:58.156 because I bought every Elvis Costello album back then the 0:01:58.156 --> 0:02:01.396 week it came out. There's a theory in psychology the 0:02:01.476 --> 0:02:04.116 music you listened to at ages nineteen and twenty is 0:02:04.116 --> 0:02:07.196 the music that imprints itself most deeply on your consciousness. 0:02:07.996 --> 0:02:09.716 If you make a list of your favor it songs, 0:02:09.876 --> 0:02:12.876 you'll see what I mean. Anyway, I was twenty in 0:02:12.996 --> 0:02:16.436 nineteen eighty four, so I remember Goodbye Cruel World. I 0:02:16.516 --> 0:02:19.956 listened to it right away. And this episode is about 0:02:19.996 --> 0:02:24.036 one song on that album. It's called The Deportees Club. 0:02:24.596 --> 0:02:29.676 I still have it on vinyl. It goes like this, 0:02:39.156 --> 0:02:47.796 Oh God, it's awful. My name is Malcolm Bladmo. Welcome 0:02:47.916 --> 0:02:56.876 to Revisionist History, my podcast about things forgotten or misunderstood. 0:02:59.436 --> 0:03:01.796 This week I want to go back to Elvis Costello 0:03:01.956 --> 0:03:05.516 in nineteen eighty four. I should say you don't have 0:03:05.596 --> 0:03:08.516 to know anything about Elvis Costello or even like his 0:03:08.636 --> 0:03:12.276 music to be interested in this story. I'm not talking 0:03:12.276 --> 0:03:15.876 about Deportees Club as a song, but as a symbol. 0:03:16.636 --> 0:03:20.956 I'm interested in understanding how creativity works, and I've chosen 0:03:20.996 --> 0:03:24.836 Depotees Club as my case study for the purely arbitrary 0:03:24.876 --> 0:03:29.116 reason that I'm obsessed with it, and maybe hopefully you 0:03:29.196 --> 0:03:40.556 will be two once you're finished. Depotees Club is the 0:03:40.596 --> 0:03:42.876 second to last song on the B side of Goodbye 0:03:42.956 --> 0:03:45.956 Cruel World. The album cover is a picture of a 0:03:45.956 --> 0:03:48.916 little mountaintop with two trees on it, with Costello and 0:03:48.956 --> 0:03:53.036 his band members in various strange poses. It's all very eighties. 0:03:53.996 --> 0:03:56.396 The record was produced by two legends of the British 0:03:56.476 --> 0:03:59.876 music scene at the time, Clive Langer and Alan win Stanley. 0:04:00.476 --> 0:04:03.316 You've probably heard some of their work. They did records 0:04:03.316 --> 0:04:06.636 with Madness, Lloyd Cole, David Bowie, virtually all of the 0:04:06.676 --> 0:04:09.116 great English new wave hit songs of the nineteen eighties. 0:04:09.116 --> 0:04:13.196 He's In early nineteen nineties, Clive Langer and Allan Winstanley 0:04:13.356 --> 0:04:15.996 were the guys behind the curtain. I don't know if 0:04:16.036 --> 0:04:19.116 you've ever heard Come On Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners, 0:04:19.756 --> 0:04:23.316 Come On Eileen. Oh, I swear what he means at 0:04:23.316 --> 0:04:26.396 this moment you mean everything. 0:04:26.876 --> 0:04:26.956 Now. 0:04:26.996 --> 0:04:29.156 I'm a terrible singer, but maybe you could make that 0:04:29.236 --> 0:04:38.516 out that song. Langer and Winstanley Clive Langer knows Elvis Costello. 0:04:38.596 --> 0:04:41.636 Of course they would bump into each other in the 0:04:41.676 --> 0:04:43.876 way that people in a small world always bump into 0:04:43.956 --> 0:04:46.676 each other, and new wave music in the nineteen eighties 0:04:46.956 --> 0:04:50.036 was a small world. At one point, Langer has his 0:04:50.076 --> 0:04:51.796 own band and he was doing a show in a 0:04:51.876 --> 0:04:55.356 riverboat in the river Mersey. Costello calls him up and 0:04:55.396 --> 0:04:55.876 he said, oh. 0:04:55.796 --> 0:04:57.996 I'll come up and play a few songs before you 0:04:58.076 --> 0:04:58.356 go on. 0:04:59.036 --> 0:05:02.116 That's Langer. We met at a pub on Lowiston Road 0:05:02.116 --> 0:05:05.956 in Hackney in North London. He's slightly spidery, with close 0:05:05.996 --> 0:05:09.156 cropped white hair and oversized glasses and the kind of 0:05:09.196 --> 0:05:12.676 graciousness that only the English seemed to possess. An absolutely 0:05:12.676 --> 0:05:16.676 delightful person. My father is English and all older, charming 0:05:16.716 --> 0:05:19.596 englishmen remind me of my father. We had some tea. 0:05:20.116 --> 0:05:23.876 It was all very civilized, Okay, back to Alvis Costello. 0:05:24.836 --> 0:05:28.596 He came up and played all his best songs, I 0:05:28.636 --> 0:05:31.396 mean his hits, you know, Alison and everything. 0:05:35.156 --> 0:05:40.756 So Alison Costello's first big hit. 0:05:43.716 --> 0:05:48.556 And then I had to go on and do my 0:05:48.596 --> 0:05:51.156 first ever show with the same lineup, and we weren't 0:05:51.156 --> 0:05:53.476 as good, you know, So I don't know, I didn't 0:05:53.476 --> 0:05:54.436 know quite how to take that. 0:05:55.236 --> 0:05:57.196 If you detect a little bit of friction in that, 0:05:57.476 --> 0:06:01.036 you're not wrong. Alvis Costello is a genius, and like 0:06:01.076 --> 0:06:04.476 a lot of geniuses, he has a really strong personality. 0:06:05.996 --> 0:06:09.236 A few years passed and Costello's record label decides they 0:06:09.236 --> 0:06:12.756 want to broaden his commercial appeal. He has a fanatical 0:06:12.796 --> 0:06:15.596 following among those who know New Way music, but the 0:06:15.676 --> 0:06:18.676 label wants a big commercial hit, so they turned to 0:06:18.716 --> 0:06:21.996 the hit makers Langer and win Stanley, and the two 0:06:22.036 --> 0:06:25.196 of them produce a record for Costello called Punch the Clock, 0:06:25.716 --> 0:06:30.596 which has a number of absolutely exquisite songs, including Shipbuilding, 0:06:30.876 --> 0:06:32.876 which Langer co wrote with Elvis Costello. 0:06:35.636 --> 0:06:37.356 Is birth. 0:06:40.556 --> 0:06:49.516 New sculting Shoes Fun. You collaborate on Punch the Clock? 0:06:49.836 --> 0:06:50.076 Yeah? 0:06:50.196 --> 0:06:52.516 And you like that album? 0:06:52.996 --> 0:06:55.836 Yes? He doesn't, and he doesn't know. 0:06:57.436 --> 0:06:58.876 Why is he unhappy with it. 0:06:59.036 --> 0:07:03.276 I think it was just too commercial for that time, 0:07:03.316 --> 0:07:08.196 and he wanted to write something simpler, more live, more. 0:07:08.516 --> 0:07:10.916 You know. He's more of a purist than I am, 0:07:11.236 --> 0:07:13.916 so I was brought up with psychedelic pop in the 0:07:13.956 --> 0:07:15.956 mid sixties, so I was kind of like, oh, yeah, 0:07:16.036 --> 0:07:17.436 we can do this, we can do that, you know, 0:07:18.036 --> 0:07:20.676 and he's like, oh, I want it to sound real 0:07:20.756 --> 0:07:22.236 and black pop dinner or something. 0:07:22.356 --> 0:07:22.596 You know. 0:07:23.676 --> 0:07:26.076 But when you get that right, that's amazing. 0:07:27.076 --> 0:07:28.876 I want to hear a little bit more about Punch 0:07:28.916 --> 0:07:32.516 the Clock, about whether those differences in perspective had an 0:07:32.596 --> 0:07:34.516 impact on the way the record turned out. 0:07:35.196 --> 0:07:37.556 Not so much. On Punch the Clock. We didn't have tension. 0:07:37.636 --> 0:07:39.756 We had tension later, which I'll talk to you about 0:07:40.196 --> 0:07:42.676 what we did have. When we did the playback Punched 0:07:42.676 --> 0:07:45.516 the Clock, we got quite drunk and played it back 0:07:45.596 --> 0:07:47.156 really loud, of. 0:07:47.156 --> 0:07:49.316 Course they did, and how much would you kill to 0:07:49.396 --> 0:07:50.236 a bit in the room with. 0:07:50.236 --> 0:07:54.836 Them, and he kind of freaked out, said it's all rubbish, 0:07:55.236 --> 0:07:58.076 you know, it's terrible, it's terrible, and I was like 0:07:58.196 --> 0:08:00.996 I had to, you know, calm him down a bit, 0:08:01.036 --> 0:08:03.036 and we all carry it on. 0:08:03.916 --> 0:08:06.796 When the time comes to make the next album. Costello 0:08:06.836 --> 0:08:10.396 turns to Langer and Winstanley again, only this time. 0:08:10.596 --> 0:08:12.436 The first thing he said is that I want to 0:08:12.436 --> 0:08:14.556 call it Goodbye World. I think it's going to be 0:08:14.636 --> 0:08:17.596 my last album, which he didn't even tell the band, 0:08:18.356 --> 0:08:19.676 so he was confiding in me. 0:08:20.396 --> 0:08:23.836 They do a first run through recording all the songs live. 0:08:24.796 --> 0:08:26.716 Langer is the producer, the one who's supposed to be 0:08:26.796 --> 0:08:30.636 running the show, but immediately there's an issue. Alvis basically 0:08:30.676 --> 0:08:31.476 takes over. 0:08:31.716 --> 0:08:35.436 Because he's quite a forceful, powerful guy, very eloquent and 0:08:35.636 --> 0:08:39.596 you know, lovely, but you can sort of barge in 0:08:39.636 --> 0:08:42.996 and start changing things, you know. So I remember saying 0:08:43.036 --> 0:08:46.516 to it, thanks for letting me be here to listen 0:08:46.516 --> 0:08:49.756 to you and make your record, you know. But I 0:08:49.756 --> 0:08:51.676 don't think it should go like that. Shouldn't be like this, 0:08:51.916 --> 0:08:56.036 you know. So it was a bit. We're a bit 0:08:56.036 --> 0:08:57.716 of a standoff. I think he went out and bought 0:08:57.756 --> 0:08:59.316 a half bottler gin and. 0:09:00.116 --> 0:09:02.276 I asked Langer and why Costello said this was going 0:09:02.316 --> 0:09:04.876 to be his last album. It's not like he was 0:09:04.916 --> 0:09:06.436 an old man ready to retire. 0:09:06.956 --> 0:09:10.476 He wasn't even thirty. It's just he'd had a lot 0:09:10.636 --> 0:09:14.356 on his back you know he'd been through a lot. 0:09:15.836 --> 0:09:17.476 I don't know if he wanted to carry on playing 0:09:17.516 --> 0:09:19.796 the game at that point. 0:09:20.756 --> 0:09:24.876 The result is disastrous. I hated Goodbye Cruel World when 0:09:24.916 --> 0:09:27.916 I first heard it, and remember, I'm a massive Elvis 0:09:27.996 --> 0:09:30.996 Costello fan. A couple of years ago, Costello did a 0:09:31.036 --> 0:09:33.956 television variety show called Spectacle Ladies. 0:09:33.676 --> 0:09:36.996 And gentleman, will you please welcome to the stage. 0:09:37.236 --> 0:09:38.436 I want to list to Nick Lo. 0:09:39.396 --> 0:09:41.436 And in the episode where he interviews Nick Low and 0:09:41.516 --> 0:09:45.156 Richard Thompson, the camera pans the audience and twice you 0:09:45.196 --> 0:09:49.756 see me grinning madly as I said. I'm a massive 0:09:49.796 --> 0:09:52.916 Elvis Costello fan, and believe me when I say Goodbye 0:09:52.996 --> 0:09:58.756 Cruel World was unlistenable, especially Deportie's Club. He was angry 0:09:58.916 --> 0:10:08.476 and loud and upsetting. And I'm not the only one 0:10:08.476 --> 0:10:18.436 who feels that. In nineteen ninety five, the album is 0:10:18.516 --> 0:10:21.836 re released by Raycho Disc Records, and Elvis Costello writes 0:10:21.876 --> 0:10:26.756 in the liner notes, congratulations, you've just purchased our worst album. 0:10:27.116 --> 0:10:37.436 You have to kind of admire his honesty. Except on 0:10:37.476 --> 0:10:41.316 that same re release, Costello includes a new version of 0:10:41.316 --> 0:10:44.476 Deporte's Club, one of the songs on the original album 0:10:44.596 --> 0:10:47.396 he hates so much he gives it a new melody 0:10:47.716 --> 0:10:51.516 and plays it by himself. An acoustic version, shortens the 0:10:51.516 --> 0:10:55.956 title to Deportee, fiddles with some of the lyrics, and 0:10:55.996 --> 0:10:59.836 it never appears anywhere else, just on this random re 0:10:59.836 --> 0:11:02.956 release by Rico disc Records, whatever that is. And I 0:11:02.956 --> 0:11:05.556 would never have heard it except that my friend Bruce 0:11:05.636 --> 0:11:08.636 ran across it and played it for me. Bruce, by 0:11:08.676 --> 0:11:10.956 the way, was also in the audience of that Elvis 0:11:10.996 --> 0:11:15.876 Casseillo TV show, grinning madly. Anyway, Bruce and I used 0:11:15.876 --> 0:11:18.196 to make mixtapes for each other, and he puts this 0:11:18.276 --> 0:11:21.796 new version Deportee on a mixtape for my birthday, and 0:11:21.836 --> 0:11:24.516 I become obsessed with it. I'll bet I sing parts 0:11:24.556 --> 0:11:27.676 of it to myself almost every day. I don't really 0:11:27.716 --> 0:11:29.916 know why, but it might be one of my favorite 0:11:29.916 --> 0:11:33.356 songs ever. There's a line in it that jumps into 0:11:33.356 --> 0:11:36.956 my head whenever I'm sad. It's so perfect, a little 0:11:36.956 --> 0:11:41.076 couplet about the dissolution of romantic love and you don't 0:11:41.076 --> 0:11:44.996 know where to start or where to stop. All this 0:11:45.156 --> 0:11:49.556 pillow talk is finely tall ging shop. 0:11:51.956 --> 0:11:52.716 Can we play it? 0:11:53.116 --> 0:11:56.676 Yeah? I'm in the pub with Clive Langer, the producer 0:11:56.756 --> 0:12:01.276 of the original awful version Deportees Club. Strangely, he'd never 0:12:01.356 --> 0:12:04.236 heard the new, obscure and amazing version of the song 0:12:04.516 --> 0:12:05.676 he produced so long ago. 0:12:06.076 --> 0:12:10.036 Want to hear his new version? Yeah? 0:12:10.836 --> 0:12:13.476 So I found it on my iPhone and Langer leaned 0:12:13.476 --> 0:12:15.636 his head over the table so that his ear would 0:12:15.636 --> 0:12:19.436 be right next to the tiny phone speaker. MS is 0:12:19.556 --> 0:12:23.116 the one in the air, dir. 0:12:23.356 --> 0:12:34.596 Children Nightclub, bar stand in five Classrooms, Its bunch and 0:12:34.916 --> 0:12:39.276 Chip stands. 0:12:39.596 --> 0:12:41.716 On your charms. 0:12:43.036 --> 0:12:52.916 Best doing the bass batles stress stabski and bart booze 0:12:53.196 --> 0:13:05.556 and burn bugs buk deep Barty. There's a tads. 0:13:06.876 --> 0:13:10.876 It sounds like he's on the song, but he didn't 0:13:10.916 --> 0:13:13.436 know at the time either that that's what saw. I mean, 0:13:13.436 --> 0:13:16.716 that's what's sort of fascinating that. Yeah, neither of you 0:13:16.756 --> 0:13:17.396 in the moments. 0:13:18.036 --> 0:13:20.156 No was sometimes you know, if it's not sounding right, 0:13:20.676 --> 0:13:24.356 maybe I don't know, maybe we were not focused enough, 0:13:24.996 --> 0:13:27.676 you know, maybe we were making a record, but we 0:13:27.676 --> 0:13:29.196 were miles away. 0:13:29.396 --> 0:13:29.596 You know. 0:13:31.156 --> 0:13:35.556 In the end, they Elvis Costello and his producers all 0:13:35.636 --> 0:13:39.476 thought they had put out something mediocre. What they didn't 0:13:39.516 --> 0:13:43.036 understand until much later was that that mediocrity contained a 0:13:43.036 --> 0:13:47.116 bit of genius. It's just that it hadn't become genius yet. 0:13:55.996 --> 0:13:59.116 That's what I want to talk about, time and iteration. 0:13:59.716 --> 0:14:03.836 What happens when genius takes its sweet time to emerge. 0:14:04.036 --> 0:14:06.236 I know that this is just one three minute song. 0:14:06.596 --> 0:14:08.836 Maybe you don't even like it, but every time I 0:14:08.876 --> 0:14:11.676 hear I think the same thing, which is this is 0:14:11.716 --> 0:14:14.316 something that gives a lot of people in the world pleasure, 0:14:14.716 --> 0:14:19.036 including me. And it almost didn't happen. If Elvis Costello 0:14:19.076 --> 0:14:22.956 doesn't go back and revisit Deportees Club turn it into Deportees, 0:14:23.276 --> 0:14:26.236 we miss all that beauty, and the thought of that 0:14:26.796 --> 0:14:34.316 breaks my heart. There's a theory about creativity that I've 0:14:34.356 --> 0:14:38.076 always loved. It's an idea that an economist named David 0:14:38.076 --> 0:14:41.916 Gailnsen came up with. Gailenson is an art lover, and 0:14:41.996 --> 0:14:44.476 it strikes him when looking at modern art, that there 0:14:44.476 --> 0:14:47.996 are two very different trajectories that great artists seem to take. 0:14:49.236 --> 0:14:51.236 On the one hand, there are those who do their 0:14:51.236 --> 0:14:53.876 best work very early in their life. They tend to 0:14:53.876 --> 0:14:56.996 work quickly. They have very specific ideas that they want 0:14:56.996 --> 0:15:01.236 to communicate, and they can articulate those ideas clearly. They 0:15:01.276 --> 0:15:06.676 plan precisely and meticulously, then they execute boom. Gailensen calls 0:15:06.716 --> 0:15:11.676 them conceptual innovators. Picasso is a great example. He bursts 0:15:11.716 --> 0:15:14.556 on the scene in his early twenties and electrifies the 0:15:14.676 --> 0:15:16.996 art world at the turn of the last century. I 0:15:17.036 --> 0:15:19.516 think that someone like Picasso is who we have in 0:15:19.596 --> 0:15:26.876 mind when we think of that word genius. But Galenson says, 0:15:26.956 --> 0:15:30.556 wait a minute, there's another kind of creativity. He calls 0:15:30.596 --> 0:15:35.556 it experimental innovation. Experimental innovators are people who never have 0:15:35.636 --> 0:15:40.116 a clear, easily articulated idea. They don't work quickly when 0:15:40.116 --> 0:15:42.396 they start off. They don't really know where they're going. 0:15:42.756 --> 0:15:45.876 They work by trial and error. They do endless drafts. 0:15:46.156 --> 0:15:49.676 They're perpetually unsatisfied. It can take them a lifetime to 0:15:49.716 --> 0:15:53.996 figure out what they want to say. Who's a good example. Seisson, 0:15:54.876 --> 0:15:58.156 every bit as famous and important a painter as Picasso, 0:15:58.396 --> 0:16:01.356 may be the greatest of the Impressionists who reinvent modern 0:16:01.436 --> 0:16:05.076 art in Paris in the late eighteen hundreds. With Seison's 0:16:05.076 --> 0:16:08.556 genius and Picasso's genius, they could not be more different. 0:16:10.436 --> 0:16:11.956 Why don't we start with your favorite? 0:16:12.156 --> 0:16:13.316 Do you have a favorite in this field. 0:16:14.156 --> 0:16:17.436 Maybe my favorite at the moment is that one the big. 0:16:17.956 --> 0:16:20.956 I'm talking to a man named John Elderfield. He's a 0:16:20.996 --> 0:16:23.516 season expert, and he took me to that gallery at 0:16:23.516 --> 0:16:26.036 the Metropolitan Museum in New York where they have all 0:16:26.036 --> 0:16:29.396 of their seisons, easily a few billion dollars worth of 0:16:29.396 --> 0:16:32.516 paintings in one room. And it took only about five 0:16:32.596 --> 0:16:36.556 minutes wandering from picture to picture with Elderfield to see 0:16:36.676 --> 0:16:38.236 experimental genius in action. 0:16:38.876 --> 0:16:42.436 So this is one of the many portraits of his 0:16:42.516 --> 0:16:46.956 wife's that Saysan made, and it's one of four pictures 0:16:46.996 --> 0:16:49.996 done in a short period of time when they were 0:16:50.036 --> 0:16:51.396 living together in Paris. 0:16:52.316 --> 0:16:54.476 The seison we're looking at is a picture of a 0:16:54.476 --> 0:16:58.116 middle aged woman seated. Her head is tilted slightly to 0:16:58.156 --> 0:17:01.236 the side. As with a lot of Seison's portraits, we 0:17:01.316 --> 0:17:04.076 can see only one of her ears. He didn't like 0:17:04.156 --> 0:17:07.956 doing the second year. She's sitting quietly, almost floating in 0:17:07.996 --> 0:17:09.556 the chair and kids. 0:17:09.676 --> 0:17:14.036 Arguably, you know, one of the greatest portraits that he did. 0:17:14.916 --> 0:17:18.396 It's one of a series of four similar portraits. Elderfield 0:17:18.436 --> 0:17:21.636 says that the first two are a little smaller, looser, 0:17:21.916 --> 0:17:25.036 maybe one traced from another, and then a third much 0:17:25.116 --> 0:17:27.516 like the one we're looking at, but without any background 0:17:27.556 --> 0:17:31.036 painted in just the figure. Is this very typical of 0:17:31.076 --> 0:17:33.956 the way he worked? So he does essentially comes back 0:17:33.996 --> 0:17:35.956 to her four times. 0:17:36.316 --> 0:17:38.236 Yeah, and then he gets it right. 0:17:39.476 --> 0:17:42.636 Notice my assumption here, because what I was thinking when 0:17:42.676 --> 0:17:44.716 I said that bit about he gets it right the 0:17:44.756 --> 0:17:47.876 fourth time was that if Saeson did four versions, he 0:17:47.956 --> 0:17:51.076 must have been marching towards some kind of preordained conclusion. 0:17:51.596 --> 0:17:54.756 He has an idea and he's perfecting it. But that's 0:17:54.796 --> 0:17:59.116 not seyson Standard practice is you do a sketch, work 0:17:59.156 --> 0:18:02.876 out the problems, do a finished version. Seyson kind of 0:18:02.876 --> 0:18:06.116 starts in the middle. The fourth version of Seeson's portrait 0:18:06.156 --> 0:18:08.556 of his wife, the one we're looking at, is less 0:18:08.596 --> 0:18:10.836 finished than his second and third versions. 0:18:10.876 --> 0:18:13.756 Well, for example, here you can see this unfinished parts 0:18:13.836 --> 0:18:17.236 are putatively unfinished parts. I mean like the area of 0:18:17.316 --> 0:18:20.116 the dress there where there's like you can really see 0:18:20.156 --> 0:18:22.596 the grounds of the canvas, and all the way through 0:18:22.636 --> 0:18:24.996 the lower part. You know, you can see who's been 0:18:25.036 --> 0:18:28.636 putting these breast strikes down and not actually filling them 0:18:28.636 --> 0:18:29.236 all together. 0:18:30.476 --> 0:18:34.276 Seizan didn't work according to some clear linear plan. He 0:18:34.356 --> 0:18:38.596 basically just did versions over and again, iteration after iteration, 0:18:39.076 --> 0:18:43.556 trying to stumble on something that seized his imagination. Many 0:18:43.596 --> 0:18:46.636 of Saizan's paintings are unsigned because he doesn't want to 0:18:46.676 --> 0:18:49.876 admit to himself that he's done. He does portraits of 0:18:49.916 --> 0:18:52.596 his art dealer, Ambrose Viallard, and he makes him come 0:18:52.676 --> 0:18:54.476 for a hundred sittings. 0:18:54.076 --> 0:18:55.396 One hundred, one hundred. 0:18:55.556 --> 0:18:57.756 Normally they would be how many now, I. 0:18:57.676 --> 0:19:00.636 Mean normally for portraits it would just be a relatively 0:19:00.676 --> 0:19:03.076 short number, I mean five or something. 0:19:03.236 --> 0:19:05.716 Why does he need one hundred exactly? 0:19:05.876 --> 0:19:07.956 I mean, what's what's he doing? All the time? 0:19:09.156 --> 0:19:12.756 Z was never finished? This is what David Gillinson means 0:19:12.756 --> 0:19:15.956 by experimental genius, and Galenson points out that you can 0:19:15.996 --> 0:19:24.756 see this creative type in virtually every field. Herman Melville 0:19:24.756 --> 0:19:27.676 publishes Moby Dick when he's thirty two, writes it in 0:19:27.676 --> 0:19:28.316 a heartbeat. 0:19:28.556 --> 0:19:29.276 He's Picasso. 0:19:31.436 --> 0:19:34.516 Mark Twain publishes Huck Finn when he's in his late forties, 0:19:34.556 --> 0:19:37.316 and it takes him forever because he ends up obsessively 0:19:37.396 --> 0:19:43.276 rewriting and rewriting the ending. He says on Orson Wells 0:19:43.276 --> 0:19:47.036 does Citizen Kane when he's twenty four Picasso. Alfred Hitchcock 0:19:47.036 --> 0:19:49.836 doesn't reach his prime until his mid fifties, after he 0:19:49.916 --> 0:19:53.956 spent his entire career making one thriller after another, playing 0:19:53.996 --> 0:19:59.556 with a genre over and over again, says On. But 0:19:59.596 --> 0:20:02.596 there's one field where I think Galenson's theory plays out 0:20:02.636 --> 0:20:04.916 the most powerfully, and that's music. 0:20:06.436 --> 0:20:12.676 It goes like this, the fourth fifth, the monifold, major lift, 0:20:13.156 --> 0:20:24.316 the baffled kiing loompos Helua Hellelua, hallelu. 0:20:26.476 --> 0:20:27.676 Helua. 0:20:28.676 --> 0:20:32.516 That's the song Hallelujah. It was composed by the Canadian 0:20:32.556 --> 0:20:36.116 songwriter Leonard Cohen. But basically everybody has done a cover 0:20:36.196 --> 0:20:40.436 of Hallelujah. Rufus Wainwright, You Two, Jeff Buckley, bon Jovie, 0:20:40.516 --> 0:20:44.276 John Kle, Bob Dylan, I could go on. It's featured 0:20:44.316 --> 0:20:47.516 in countless TV and movie soundtracks. If you ride the 0:20:47.596 --> 0:20:50.396 New York City subway on a regular basis, you'll probably 0:20:50.396 --> 0:20:53.636 hear a busker singing it virtually every day. Like a 0:20:53.636 --> 0:20:56.476 good Canadian, I go to a Canada Day celebration every 0:20:56.516 --> 0:20:59.356 year at Joe's Pub in Manhattan, where local artists sing 0:20:59.356 --> 0:21:03.396 cover versions of Canadian songs. Every year, someone does a 0:21:03.476 --> 0:21:07.156 version of Hallelujah. Every year it brings down the house. 0:21:08.116 --> 0:21:11.036 And here's what's in thinking about that song. It is 0:21:11.156 --> 0:21:25.596 so not Picasso, it is Seyson textbook seison. A few 0:21:25.716 --> 0:21:29.196 years ago, the music writer Alan Light wrote an absolutely 0:21:29.276 --> 0:21:33.036 wonderful book, an entire book on the song Hallelujah. It's 0:21:33.076 --> 0:21:35.596 called The Holy of the Broken. And one of the 0:21:35.596 --> 0:21:39.756 big themes is how peculiar Leonard Cohen is. He's a poet, 0:21:40.076 --> 0:21:41.156 a tortured poet. 0:21:41.596 --> 0:21:43.956 He is a writer in that way that he labors 0:21:43.996 --> 0:21:47.756 over what these lyrics are, line by line, word by word, 0:21:47.796 --> 0:21:51.116 throws a lot away, spends a great deal of time, 0:21:51.156 --> 0:21:54.076 and Hallelujah, famously, out of all of these, is probably 0:21:54.076 --> 0:21:57.316 the song that he says bedeviled him the most. 0:21:57.676 --> 0:21:59.996 That's Alan like, he came by my house one day 0:22:00.036 --> 0:22:01.516 to talk about Hallelujah. 0:22:01.596 --> 0:22:05.676 He sort of was chasing some idea with this song 0:22:05.796 --> 0:22:08.676 and couldn't find it and just kept writing and writing 0:22:08.716 --> 0:22:11.596 and depending when he tells the story, wrote fifty or 0:22:11.636 --> 0:22:15.236 sixty or seventy verses, which just for this song, which. 0:22:15.636 --> 0:22:18.916 I mean, you've been writing about music for many, many years. 0:22:18.956 --> 0:22:21.756 Have you ever heard of a musician who wrote eighty 0:22:21.796 --> 0:22:22.316 different I. 0:22:22.676 --> 0:22:24.636 Don't think so. I mean, and I don't know what that. 0:22:24.676 --> 0:22:26.556 I don't know if that means variations on verses, I 0:22:26.596 --> 0:22:29.036 don't know if that means entirely like how much of 0:22:29.036 --> 0:22:31.236 this is exaggeration, But it doesn't matter. It's a whole 0:22:31.236 --> 0:22:36.036 other level. Well, there's the famous story that you know, 0:22:36.116 --> 0:22:38.276 Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan have this kind of mutual 0:22:38.556 --> 0:22:42.396 admiration thing, and apparently they met up in the eighties 0:22:42.396 --> 0:22:44.796 at some point they were both in Paris, and they 0:22:44.876 --> 0:22:49.636 went to meet at a cafe and Dylan said, oh, 0:22:49.756 --> 0:22:52.836 I like that that song Hallelujah, which is a fascinating 0:22:52.836 --> 0:22:55.356 piece of this story that really the first person who 0:22:55.356 --> 0:22:58.596 paid attention to Hallelujah as an important song was Bob Dylan. 0:22:58.676 --> 0:23:00.076 But he said to Leonard, you know, I like that song. 0:23:00.116 --> 0:23:02.636 How long do you work on that? And Leonard said, 0:23:02.676 --> 0:23:05.316 I told him that I'd worked on it for two years. 0:23:05.676 --> 0:23:08.756 Which was a lie. Cohen later confessed it took him 0:23:08.796 --> 0:23:12.436 much longer. Then Cohen asks Dylan how long it took 0:23:12.476 --> 0:23:13.876 him to write the song I and I. 0:23:14.476 --> 0:23:16.116 And Bob said, yeah, fifteen minutes. 0:23:16.796 --> 0:23:19.236 Dylan is picasso with Leonard. 0:23:19.276 --> 0:23:21.676 It's not the first thought best thought school at all, 0:23:22.156 --> 0:23:25.436 and he talks about, you know, being in a hotel 0:23:25.516 --> 0:23:27.636 room in his underwear, banging his head on the floor 0:23:27.636 --> 0:23:31.396 because he couldn't solve this song, Hallelujah. 0:23:31.716 --> 0:23:36.236 Leonard Cohen spends five years writing Hallelujah. He finally records 0:23:36.236 --> 0:23:38.876 it in nineteen eighty four. It's for an album called 0:23:38.956 --> 0:23:43.476 Various Positions. When Cohen finishes recording the songs, he takes 0:23:43.476 --> 0:23:46.556 them to his record label, which is CBS. To the 0:23:46.556 --> 0:23:50.356 head of CBS, who's this legendary figure named Walter Yetnikoff, 0:23:50.556 --> 0:23:53.316 who's the guy who releases Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bruce 0:23:53.316 --> 0:23:58.276 Springsteen's Born in USA? Not a dumb guy. Yetnikoff listens 0:23:58.316 --> 0:24:01.276 to Cohen's songs and says, what is this? We're not 0:24:01.356 --> 0:24:04.876 releasing it. It's a disaster. The album ends up being 0:24:04.876 --> 0:24:08.756 released by the independent label Passport Records. It barely makes 0:24:08.796 --> 0:24:11.116 a rip. And if you go back and listen to 0:24:11.156 --> 0:24:14.516 that first Hallelujah and try to forget how beautiful future 0:24:14.596 --> 0:24:18.556