Elvis Costello Trashes Pink Floyd as 'Dreary' — SkimNews
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- Elvis Costello said he first fell in love with Jimi Hendrix's 'The Wind Cries Mary' in 1967 at age 12, crediting Hendrix's emotional side with shaping his own writing
- Costello dismissed Pink Floyd as music he 'never could, never will' listen to, finding it 'dreary' — while reserving praise for 'See Emily Play' as imaginative and playful
- Costello said Bob Dylan's obscure 'Cross the Green Mountain' sits in Dylan's 'very top tier' and that he inexplicably knows every lyric to its Civil War imagery
- Costello saved pocket money to buy Georgie Fame's 'Fame at Last' EP at age 11 from Potter's Music Shop in Richmond, calling it an education from Gerry Goffin and Carole King to Ray Charles and Mose Allison
- Costello named The Clash's 'Armagideon Time' as his morning get-up song, after finding Frank Sinatra's 'Good Morning' from Singin' in the Rain as his ringtone put him in a bad mood
- Costello wants Louis Armstrong's 'Keepin' Out of Mischief Now' played at his funeral, and the 49th anniversary edition of My Aim Is True is out now
Why it matters: The playlist lands as a marketing peg for the 49th anniversary reissue of My Aim Is True, but it doubles as a rare unguarded map of the influences that built one of rock's most literate songwriters — from his mother's Sinatra records to the Georgie Fame EP that introduced him to a 1960s musical education well before he picked up an instrument.
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