Listening to: When I Was Cruel. He’s back! with 2/3 of the Attractions! “You don’t become more reasonable — you become less reasonable. But it’s expressed more as absurdity. It doesn’t have to be just fury and mindless insult. And on this album, most of the negative things are intended for myself.” Questions for Elvis Costello: “The musician on why he’s still angry, why he doesn’t make money on his records and why he can’t understand his own lyrics.”

Sometime last year, you reached a point where you’d been Elvis Costello for longer than you were Declan McManus. Did you mark the date?

No, I didn’t. I don’t see that as my identity. It’s not on my passport. It’s a show-business alias. Like Count Basie — he wasn’t really a count. Though my driver’s license might be Costello.

And your first wife goes by the name Costello.

Only professionally, though.

Hmm. This is beginning to sound like an Elvis Costello song. Have you written any lyrics that you read now and say, ”What does that mean?”

Oh, yeah. But you know Monet? I look at his paintings without my glasses and they’re in focus and 3-D. I think that about words.

NY Times Magazine

Actually, the recording does disappoint, after several listenings. I agree with this deflating review by Ira Robbins in Salon:

“Endurance presents a different challenge in rock than it does in jazz, blues or pop. Physicality, youthful allure and creative momentum are less relevant to the aging titans of those musics than to rockers struggling to beat the clock. Credible artistic careers of 30 or 40 years, the rule in many realms, are the exception in rock. Costello’s reinvention as a vocalist was a prudent move, and this belated attempt to have it both ways is proof. If he hasn’t lost the ability to rock with conviction, at the very least he’s shown that it’s no longer a simple matter of choice. “It was so much easier when I was cruel,” he sings, and he’s undoubtedly right.”