Editing Elvis Costello (section)

==== D.P. Costello ====
Even before disbanding Flip City in late 1975, Costello was writing songs he did not include in the band's repertoire.{{sfn|Thomson|2004|p=46}} He recorded some of these as solo demos for Dave Robinson in mid-1975.{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=224}} For the next year, he shopped these and other solo demos to music publishers and record companies, hoping to be hired either as a songwriter or a recording artist.{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=183}}<ref name="Jones-1977" /> He sent out as many as 20 songs on a single tape to publishers, not yet realising that no publisher would have the patience to listen to so many songs.<ref name="Doggett-1995" /> Sometimes he went to publishers' offices to perform his songs in person.<ref name="Costello-2001" /> None of this generated anything but rejections until he began creating "show reels" of no more than six of what he believed were his most attention-getting songs, selected to appeal to the recipient of each demo tape.<ref name="Doggett-1995" />{{sfn|Costello|2015|pp=183, in the photo gallery of deluxe ebook edition, "List of demos sent to record labels" and "Songs sent to ''Honky Tonk'', BBC Radio London"}}{{efn|Sources prior to 2015 state that Costello sent the six songs he sent to Charlie Gillett, often referred to as ''The Honky Tonk Demos'', to everyone he sent demos to during this period, including Stiff Records. However, in his 2015 memoir, ''Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink'', Costello states that his notebooks from this period indicate he was sending a different set of songs to each recipient. The deluxe ebook edition reproduces handwritten notebook pages illustrating this.{{sfn|Costello|2015|pp=183, in the photo gallery of deluxe ebook edition, "List of demos sent to record labels" and "Songs sent to ''Honky Tonk'', BBC Radio London"}}}}

By February 1976, Costello was booking himself into clubs as a solo act under the name D.P. Costello, D.P. being his initials and a nickname he was sometimes called by his family.{{sfn|Gimarc|1994|p=24}}<ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Norris|first=Chris|date=December 2008|title=[Elvis Costello] The Spin Interview|magazine=Spin}}</ref> While working as D.P. Costello, he learned to sing and play guitar very loudly and developed a forceful stage presence, although he was still playing to small audiences for very little money.<ref name="Colin1989" />{{sfn|Thomson|2004|pp=61–62}} Few of the songs he had played with Flip City were included in these performances.{{sfn|St. Michael|1986|p=17}} Instead, he was debuting some of the songs that would start to get the attention of the music industry, such as "Mystery Dance" and "Wave a White Flag".{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=183}}{{sfn|St. Michael|1986|p=17}}{{sfn|Costello|2015|pp=182–183, 598}} Costello included both songs on a six-track demo tape he sent to London radio presenter [[Charlie Gillett]], who thought "Wave a White Flag" was the best of the six.{{sfn|Thomson|2004|pp=64, 66–67}} Gillett played several songs from the tape on his radio show later that year, the first time any Costello song received airplay.{{sfn|Costello|2015|pp=183–184}}{{efn|After Costello became successful, the six songs he sent to Gillett were widely bootlegged.{{sfn|St. Michael|1986|pp=18–19}} They received an official release as bonus tracks on the 1993 and 2001 reissues of ''My Aim Is True''.<ref name="Costello-1993" /><ref name="Costello-2001" />}}

Sometime in 1976, lack of money forced Costello, his wife and their toddler son to move in with relatives near [[Heathrow Airport]], on the far west side of London.{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=184}} This meant Costello's commute to work in North Acton took him past the [[Hoover Building]] in [[Perivale]].{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=184}} Around the same time, he was starting to become aware of the nascent [[Punk rock|punk]] movement, although he would not hear any of the British punk bands until they began releasing records.{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=185}}<ref name="Marcus1982" /> He was, however, inspired by the [[The Modern Lovers|Modern Lovers]]' song "[[Roadrunner (Jonathan Richman song)|Roadrunner]]", with its reference to such quotidian landmarks as the [[Stop & Shop]], to write a song about the historical [[Art Deco]] building he rode past every day.{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=185}} Although he did not record it until 1980, Costello regarded this song, "Hoover Factory", as an artistic breakthrough.{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=185}} In the period just prior, he had been trying to imitate songwriters [[Randy Newman]] and [[John Prine]].{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=181}} "Hoover Factory", he later recalled, got him "through the door to a different, less ingratiating way of speaking" in his songwriting.{{sfn|Costello|2015|p=185}} The next song he wrote was "Radio Sweetheart",{{sfn|Costello|2015|pp=185–186}} which would become the B-side of his first single.{{Sfn|Thomson|2004|p=|pp=78}}