ELVIS COSTELLO - EVERYDAY I WRITE THE BOOK

.In 1983, English singer and songwriter Elvis Costello had his first US top 40 hit single with Everyday I Write The Book. The song was featured on Punch the Clock - Costello's eighth studio album. He wrote the song in about 10 minutes as a challenge to himself to write a simple and typical "formula" song. The music video for the song became a MTV classic - it features domesticated look-alikes of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in a suburban setting. In 1977 Costello released his first album My Aim is True on Stiff Records. The label was only distributed in the UK at the time, and out of frustration with the lack of attention from US labels he staged a impromptu street performance outside a convention of CBS Records executives in London. His performance was shut down and he was arrested for busking - the act of performing in public for gratuities. The protest stunt managed to get the attention of label executives, and he was soon signed to Columbia/CBS. At the end of the year, on December 17, 1977, Costello had a big break in America when he was booked to perform on Saturday Night Live to replace the cancelled Sex Pistols. In the intro to the agreed upon song - Less Than Zero - Costello began yelling "Stop! Stop!" to his band, then he played Radio Radio - a song producer Lorne Michaels had specifically forbidden him to play (the song is an attack on the commercialism of the airwaves). NBC and Michaels banned him from the show for this (which was lifted in 1989), Meanwhile his antics garnished a lot of attention and helped to boost his popularity and record sales in the US.