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Wed 12 November 2025 22:30, UK
It was the age of punk that introduced the airwaves to the thick-rimmed spectacles and confrontational anger of Elvis Costello back in the 1970s, but the songwriter didn’t subscribe to all of the movement’s ideals. Namely, he wasn’t all that keen on the idea of burning down rock and roll’s past and rebuilding from the rubble.
Unlike many of his safety-pinned, spikey-haired comrades, Costello’s sonic repertoire was always a little more expansive than buzzsaw guitars and phoney ideas of anarchy.
Even on his earliest releases, like 1977’s masterful debut album My Aim Is True, the songwriter drew upon everything from old-school rockabilly to his lasting appreciation of American soul and R&B music. It shouldn’t have been all that surprising, then, when Costello’s time in the spotlight far outlasted the various fleeting punk outfits he shared a stage with during those early years.
Along the way, Costello’s appreciation for other genres and generations only seemed to increase, culminating in his being one of the most expansive and enduring discographies of any of his peers. As well as gifting the world a litany of legendary albums and anthems, though, Costello has also taken every possible opportunity to espouse the joys of other people’s albums, which have inspired him along the way.
Among the various albums and artists who’ve impacted Costello over the years, Van Morrison has been ever-present since the early days, with whom he shares that undying appreciation for soul and R&B. Of course, Van Morrison has been responsible for some of the most iconic songs of all time, from the garage rock mastery of ‘Gloria’ to the soft rock smash of ‘Brown Eyed Girl’, and although he was potentially a little bit before Costello’s time, there are undeniable parallels between the two in terms of songwriting sensibilities.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, Costello is a natural disciple of the Irish songwriter. In typical punk fashion, though, Costello was never going to highlight Van Morrison’s most famous works as being particular favourites of his. Instead, he has cited the woefully underrated 1968 masterpiece Astral Weeks as being a notable favourite. “It might be the best record of original thought that anybody’s ever made,” he once declared.
“It’s so completely unlike anything that went before it. And the vocal performances are the freest that I think Van ever recorded.” High praise indeed, and praise which escaped the album upon its initial release back in the late 1960s. After all, the album didn’t share much in common with the pop-centric sounds of Morrison’s previous efforts and, as a result, mainstream audiences seemed to find it far too experimental and out-there for their tastes.
With the benefit of hindsight, though, Astral Weeks is among the greatest and most ambitious albums of the 1960s, carving out an otherworldly blend of folk, jazz, blues, and even proto-progressive rock. It certainly captures the kind of hypnotic soundscapes which are now synonymous with that period in musical history, but it does so in ways which no other artist around that time would even dare to attempt, much less if they had already scored mainstream success with a record as colossal as ‘Brown Eyed Girl’.
In a similar sense, Elvis Costello was never one to stick rigidly to one particular sound for the sole reason that it washed well with mainstream audiences. Like Van Morrison, he is unwavering in his artistic drive and desire for sonic diversity, and it was perhaps albums like Astral Weeks which first alerted him to the power of individuality.
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