Elvis Costello Releases New Song “No Flag”

Elvis Costello has just released the new song, “No Flag,” which was on his lonesome back in February.

The singer-songwriter explained his motivation with the song, saying he traveled to Finland and spent three days in a studio that was “a 20-minute ferry ride from downtown Helsinki.” He also added, “I wanted to go somewhere nobody knew me. So, this is ‘the Helsinki sound.’”

The lyrics of the song point to the world overwhelming the sense of the ordinary person. “No Flag” is the successor to his Grammy-acclaimed album Look Now – which enlisted top talents like the Impostors, Burt Bacharach, and the legend herself, Carole King. Costello wanted to go back to his ’80s sounds, saying, “I knew if we could make an album with the scope of Imperial Bedroom and some of the beauty and emotion of Painted From Memory, we would really have something,”

Costello performed a home concert in March for the benefit of the UK’s National Health Service. “Pretty much anything you do that adds to the solution rather than adds to the problem is the right thing to do, as you know. You don’t need me to tell you that,” he said.