Elvis Costello has announced his latest album with The Imposters, The Boy Named If, with the full title of this record being ‘The Boy Named If (And Other Children’s Stories),”.
The record is set to be released on January 14, 2022. Costello explained in a press release “‘IF,’ is a nickname for your imaginary friend; your secret self, the one who knows everything you deny, the one you blame for the shattered crockery and the hearts you break, even your own.”
He then went on to discuss the lyrical content of the record, stating that “Once upon a time, when I didn’t know what a kiss could do and didn’t even dare to caress, the way ahead was a mystery; a departing from that magic state called innocence for the pain that leads to pleasure and all that jazz. Don’t get me started about the guilt and shame and all those other useless possessions that you must throw overboard before you set sail with your dreamboat (and a runcible spoon).”
The album’s first single “Magnificent Hurt” has already been released and you can listen to it below.
Costello described the album as a collection of songs that “take us from the last days of a bewildered boyhood to that mortifying moment when you are told to stop acting like a child – which for most men (and perhaps a few gals too) can be any time in the next fifty years.”
The album will be released on EMI and was co-produced by Sebastian Krys and Costello. The Boy Named If will be available via CD, vinyl, cassette, download, streaming, and a numbered and signed, 88-page Hardback Storybook Edition. The book version will feature 13 illustrated short stories with titles that correspond to the song titles, with a release promising that some will set the scene for the tracks, while others are “sequels, or a clue or hint to what might have been going on before the music began.” Fans can pre-order the album here. You can also view the album artwork and tracklisting below.
The Boy Named If Tracklist:
- Farewell, OK
- The Boy Named If
- Penelope Halfpenny
- The Difference
- What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?
- Paint The Red Rose Blue
- Mistook Me For A Friend
- My Most Beautiful Mistake (guest vocal by Nicole Atkins)
- Magnificent Hurt
- The Man You Love To Hate
- The Death Of Magic Thinking
- Trick Out The Truth
- Mr. Crescent
