Elvis Costello “Radio Radio” Britt Daniel “Veronica”

The clip, recorded live on SNL in 1977, that forever linked Costello with “punk”. It’s a great act of defiance–apparently of Lorne Michaels, who wanted to keep the irreverence and commentary limited to Chevy Chase falling off ladders as Gerald Ford. It’s a snarling performance, and when I hear that organ loudly kick in here, it reminds me of Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” at Albert Hall eleven years prior, when he told his backing band (The Band, actually) to “play fucking loud” after being called “Judas” by someone in the crowd.

And then, there’s Britt Daniel’s performance of “Veronica”, off the eternally underappreciated Spike, from the Veronica Mars show that I’ve never seen. It works well—Daniel’s had a Costello jones since Girls Can Tell, and his unmistakable singing voice has always sounded like a Costello/Jonathan Richman hybrid. Though the incorporation of the song into the show (is Britt trying to eat the microphone?) is obvious, certainly someone involved with the production is/was aware that it was written (partially by Paul McCartney) for Costello’s ailing grandmother (or mother?), who was suffering at the time from Alzheimer’s disease. Although I’m well aware of the readerly vs. writerly debate as applied to musical texts, and like to think that individual listeners should have the agency to make up their own meanings apart from that intended by the writer, and that the actual song text has no inherent “authority” over its received meaning, I like to watch the clip and think of the song as being about a senile old woman. It makes it extra strange and kind of funny when Veronica looks over her shoulder and takes personal inspiration from Daniel’s performance.