Elvis Costello shares new song 'Hetty O'Hara Confidential'

Elvis Costello has shared a new song — his second of 2020.

‘Hetty O’Hara Confidential’ follows on the trails of ‘No Flag’, which was released in June. The last album from Costello is 2018’s Look Now, credited to Elvis Costello and The Imposters.

Costello says ‘Hetty O’Hara Confidential’ tells “the tale of a tattler who outlives her time.” Spinning a very Tom Waits-esque story, Costello sings the story of a gossip columnist who gets got by karma when she “named the wrong man in the story she broke.”

It’s a timeless yet strangely prescient story, especially in the way Costello sings about “an unfortunate character trait / The irresistible impulse to assassinate” and what happens “now everyone has a megaphone.” While gossip columnists are more a thing from Costello’s heyday, he could just as easily be using the analogy as a lens for the current state of social media.

The song sounds like a throwback to classic ’90s Costello. Like ‘No Flag’, it’s part of what Costello calls “The Helsinki Sound“. According to Costello, ‘The Helsinki Sound’ is a collection of new material recorded across three days at Suomenlinnan Studio, a 20-minute ferry ride from downtown Helsinki.

Fans who enjoy ‘Hetty O’Hara Confidential’ and ‘No Flag’ won’t have to wait long for the next instalment of The Helsinki Sound. Costello has already announced a new single will arrive on August 14th.

Back in April, Costello wrote a lengthy and moving tribute to his late friend John Prine. In the Facebook post, Costello explained that Prine’s songs “were filled with what sounded like sound advice from a friend in a crowded bar or a voice in the margins, but never one that was self-pitying or self-regarding.” Last year, he received an O.B.E. for ‘Services to Music’.