He was making a prediction: “I’m going to know how to write a song when I’m 60. Uncharacteristic swagger must be building to a punchline.Įxcept it wasn’t. And in interviews, he tended to scrupulously avoid speaking about his work in ways that might come off as pretentious, leaning heavily on a British taste for cool irony that also informed his approach to lyric-writing. It sounded like the start of another comic riff. But also I think my voice is going to sound great.” Point of fact, I think I’m going to look fantastic when I’m 60. “But the thing is, you see, now I really think I’m just starting to get good. . . .
Then he smiled, his eyes turning mischievous. “No indeed.” He took a drag on a cigarette, suddenly pensive, and looked off to the side, as if considering whether or not to reveal a secret plan. “I certainly never thought I’d still be doing at 40,” he acknowledged. Strumming a guitar, Lowe told funny, self-deprecating stories about his intimidating father-in-law and an early attempt at writing a novelty song about the Bay City Rollers. His feathered mop of hair had already started going gray. In the BBC video, Lowe looked older than 40, puffy, slightly haggard, wearing a drab tweed jacket that might’ve been nicked from a boarding-school headmaster nearing retirement. He’d quit drinking for a few years, but soon started up again, and his decade-long marriage to Carlene Carter, the singer-songwriter and child of Nashville royalty (daughter of June Carter Cash, stepdaughter of Johnny Cash), was nearing its official break. RS Recommends: 5 Devices You Need to Set Up Your Smart Homeħ0 Greatest Music Documentaries of All Timeīy the time of Party of One, though, it had been five years since any of Lowe’s songs had charted. A Lowe-penned song, “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” would become one of Costello’s most indelible tunes, and Lowe’s own solo career took off as well, right alongside the rise of punk and New Wave, his signature hits remaining stone classics of the era: “Cruel to Be Kind,” “So It Goes,” “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass.” punk single, the Damned’s “New Rose,” and began a fruitful collaboration with Elvis Costello, producing Costello’s first five albums, a legendary run. There, Lowe produced what’s widely considered the first U.K. (or within, for that matter), and then as a house producer at a scrappy independent label called Stiff Records. Lowe had a new album to promote, Party of One, but he’d been in the music business for two decades, first in the band Brinsley Schwarz, which wore its Americana influences on its sleeve but never made much of an impression outside the U.K. In January 1990, a couple of months shy of his 41st birthday, Nick Lowe welcomed a BBC film crew into his suburban London row house for an interview.
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