Elvis Costello describes the late Burt Bacharach as an ‘extremist’

• The late Burt Bacharach was “extreme in love and invention,” says Elvis Costello.
• The songwriting friends collaborated for almost three decades.
• Costello recently recalled Bacharach putting him in his place in the studio.

The songwriting friends collaborated for almost three decades after initially meeting in 1989 while working at the same recording studio.

And recalling their 1998 album “Painted From Memory,” Costello remarked that he thought Bacharach was a “extremist” when it comes to music and romance.

Speaking to Uncut magazine, Costello said: “Making ‘Painted From Memory’, Burt told me, ‘I don’t demand 110 per cent anymore, I settle for 98.’ Listen to the music in the bridge of ‘Alfie’, for which Hal David wrote: ‘Until you find the love you’ve missed, you’re nothing.’ Burt is an extremist for sure. Extreme in love and invention.”

Costello recently recalled Bacharach putting him in his place in the studio in relation to the same topic.

The 68-year-old Grammy winner said the legendary composer was a “very considerate” person, but when it came to music, he had the kind of rigorous approach that “makes you fall in line”.

In an interview with The Times newspaper, Costello said Bacharach – who died from natural causes aged 94 on February 8 – was: “Very considerate, but he won’t let anything get in the way of the music, and all the geniality and elegance on the surface of the songs hides the power at the heart of them.”

He continued: “Once he gets the shape of a melody he won’t negotiate. ‘Could I get a triplet, so I can use it against this three-syllable word?’ — ‘No, you can’t.’ After a while, the sheer rigour of his approach makes you fall into line.”

Since many artists now work remotely, Costello acknowledges that these kinds of “chance encounters” are becoming increasingly rare.

He said: “These are the chance encounters that don’t happen today because now everyone makes albums on their laptops.

“I had been using a marimba with the same suspension as [that in the Bacharach classic] ’24 Hours from Tulsa’, as a gesture of acknowledgment really. He was down the hallway so I asked him to listen.”

Asked what the ‘What the World Needs Now Is Love’ hitmaker thought, Costello replied: “He was gentlemanly about it.”

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