475 - Elvis Costello - Armed Forces - Dana Gould
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EPISODE SUMMARY:
Words have power, and if you know how to wield that power in just the right way, you can take the world by storm. That’s why comedians and musicians both can have such lasting impacts, more so than many other forms of creative expression. For a founding member of the new-wave movement like Elvis Costello, the ability to emit dark, brutal honesty through otherwise bright and cheerful wordplay is what made albums like his 1979 post-punk release Armed Forces such a sensation. It proved so impactful that even though comedian Dana Gould didn’t discover it until a few years later, its clever lyricism shaped his notion of how important it is to assemble your ideas in just the right way. After all, a way with words is what launched Dana into a career that has led to four comedy albums, roles on The Ben Stiller Show and Stan Against Evil, and a seven-year term as a writer on The Simpsons.
SHOW NOTES:
01:00 – Intro
10:15 – Dana liked Elvis mainly because they look the same
14:00 – Record executive definitions of “new-wave”
20:30 – Funny people love Elvis Costello
25:45 – The Puritanical Monogamy of America
29:15 – No email account is secure enough to hide an affair
33:45 – From peddlin’ pills to porn addictions
46:15 – The ever-changing line of what’s acceptable
48:45 – Not becoming famous will make you much less self-centered
53:30 – Just because you’re ancient doesn’t mean you’re any less hot
01:03:30 – “Dana Gould was overly loud and largely unoriginal.”
01:05:00 – The best friends aren’t dead yet
01:09:15 – Living in inescapable fear
01:12:45 – Helping create the greatest television show on Earth
01:15:45 – Sex is great, unless you’re Catholic
01:19:00 – If you post Pepe the Frog, Dana will block you
01:22:30 – Trying to be as funny as Albert Brooks
01:28:45 – Emotional Fascism
01:32:15 – Aiming for Carlin
01:36:15 – Outro
01:38:45 – ‘Quality Problems’ by All Day Sucker