“Right up there”: The British songwriter Elvis Costello put in the same league as Ray Davies
Ray Davies, to multiple generations of musicians, represents the gold standard of British songwriting, with his quintessentially English output capturing the changing spirit of the nation and, in doing so, inspiring the next generation of socially-conscious alternative rock songwriters, like Elvis Costello.
Costello might have risen through the ranks during the age of punk rock revolution, when DIY was the law of the land and any genuine musical talent was viewed with suspicion, but his efforts were always on something of a higher level. Not only was the thick-rimmed songwriter drawing from a far larger pool of influences than his angry young contemporaries, but he also knew the inherent power of quality songwriting, thanks in part to his adoration of artists like Ray Davies.
Moving from the youthful rock rebellion of The Kinks’ early days to the stunning social realism and musings on Englishness itself that arrived later in his songwriting career, Ray Davies boasts one of the most impactful and diverse discographies of any British songwriter.
It is no surprise, then, that somebody like Elvis Costello would consider himself a disciple of The Kinks, but that is certainly not to say that Davies is the only songwriter who has impacted the output of Costello over the decades.
One major influence, in fact, is the underrated stylings of Lindisfarne’s Alan Hull – a songwriter who, like Davies, found some notable successes during his early days, but continues to be routinely overlooked by the musical mainstream for reasons unknown. Nevertheless, Costello once declared, “I think he’s up there with Richard Thompson and Ray Davies and the really English songwriters.”
A bold claim indeed, but one which Hull’s extensive output is inarguably deserving of. After all, Lindisfarne’s output was utterly essential in carving out the folk-rock sounds of Britain back in the 1970s, and Hull’s work always seemed imbued with the kind of deeply affecting emotion that very few songwriters can pull off well.
For Costello, Hull’s early work provided some of his earliest musical inspiration, and you can certainly hear the lineage of Alan Hull in some of Costello’s more folk-slanted, emotional offerings, particularly on records like Spike. In fact, that is a fact that the songwriter readily admits, linking Hull’s legendary track ‘All Fall Down’ to his own ‘Tramp The Dirt Down’ from years later.
“People associated Lindisfarne and therefore Alan’s writing with the sing-a-long chorus,” he shared in the BBC documentary Lindisfarne’s Geordie Genius: The Alan Hull Story. “When the sing-a-long choruses all fall down, you’re on to a different story. It took me 20 more years to write essentially the same song, ‘Tramp The Dirt Down’.”
So, Alan Hull might occupy an entirely different space within the musical realm to Ray Davies, but it is easy to see why both songwriters were so impactful as far as Elvis Costello was concerned; carving out the early inspiration of the legendary musician and imbuing his work with the socially-conscious, endlessly emotive rock that has made him such an unwavering presence within British music.
