The collaboration commenced with "God Give Me Strength", a commission for the 1996 film Grace of My Heart,[12] directed by Allison Anders, starring Illeana Douglas, with lead vocals by Kristen Vigard. Apparently pleased with the result, the pair expanded the project to this full album, the first for Costello after an absence of two years, and for Bacharach after an absence of 21years. Lyrics and music are co-credited to both Bacharach and Costello. In his 2015 autobiography, Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink, Costello wrote, "To have written a song like "God Give Me Strength" and simply stopped would have been ridiculous, so about a year later we began a series of writing sessions [...]."[13]
A companion album, The Sweetest Punch, was made concurrently by jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, released in 1999 on another Universal label, Decca Records. It consists of jazz arrangements of the Painted From Memory songs done by Frisell and his studio group. It features vocals by Costello on two songs, and by jazz singer Cassandra Wilson on two songs, one of which is a duet employing both.
"I Still Have That Other Girl" won a Grammy Award in 1998 for "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals" for Bacharach and Costello. Costello later wrote, "One day, while writing "I Still Have that Other Girl", we reached an impasse as to how to get to the full chorus. I was looking out of the window for inspiration when Burt began to play something I'd never heard before. It sounded beautiful, sort of Viennese. We were running a digital recorder to catch our working sketches, but when the recording was played back it was mostly obscured by me yelling, "That's it, you've got it, [...] Fortunately my overexcited babble didn't completely cover the invention, and we were able to decode the recording and complete the song".[15] The album was recorded and mixed by Kevin Killen.
Following the album's release, Costello and Bacharach performed songs from the album together at only a limited number of venues. One of these comprised a second-season episode of the American public television program Sessions at West 54th, later released on VHS. Also at this time, however, Costello began playing a different style of live concerts, accompanied by only longtime keyboardist Steve Nieve on piano. In 1999, Costello subsequently embarked on the Lonely World Tour, performed in this style with Nieve receiving equal billing; songs from Painted from Memory were a prominent part of the setlists on this tour.
Songs from the album remain in both Costello and Bacharach's live repertoires. A rendition of "God Give Me Strength" closes Costello's 2004 orchestrated live album My Flame Burns Blue, while some of Bacharach's later concerts with regular singer John Pagano also incorporated "God Give Me Strength".
Prior to the recording of the album, Irish film producer Phillip King proposed to Costello that a film should be made to document the process.[23] The resulting film, Because It's a Lonely World, was produced by King's company, Hummingbird Productions;[24] the title, taken from the lyrics of "What's Her Name Today?", was also originally a working title for the album itself and part of a promotional tagline for the album.[25] The hour-long documentary originally aired in the UK on Channel 4 on 26 December 1998,[26] and in the U.S., Bravo, which was then expanding its original programming lineup during the midst of a major advertising campaign,[27] aired it on 20 October 1999.[28]
2014 musical
On 24 September 2014, the album was performed by Australian musical theatre stars Michael Falzon and Bobby Fox at Sydney's City Recital Hall.[29] Falzon approached Fox in 2014 with a view to recreate the iconic 1998 album because, according to him,
"It's very much written from the heart and experience and it resonates so deeply with people. Because of the lyrics and because you can hear that hurt, you get all the emotions. And with Bacharach and Costello it's not just the lyrics; there are the clever arrangements that take you there anyway."[30]
The concert version featured popular hits by Bacharach and Costello during the first act, with a retelling of the album by Fox and Falzon in the second featuring Laura Bunting. It was produced by City Recital Hall and directed by Jonathan Biggins with musical director Isaac Hayward.
^Dominic, Serene (2003), Burt Bacharach, Song by Song, Schirmer Trade Books, ISBN0-8256-7280-5
^"When Elvis met Burt", The Irish Times, p. 56, 24 December 1998
^Fruitkin, Alan James (4 October 1999), "Bravo beefs up for fall", Mediaweek, vol. 9, no. 37, p. 14, ISSN1055-176X
^Schoemer, Karen (28 October 1999), "Because It's a Lonely World", Rolling Stone, no. 824, p. 111, ISSN0035-791X
^Chris Hook (16 August 2014). "Michael Falzon and Bobby Fox Will Bring The Burt Bacharach-Elvis Costello Album Painted From Memory To Life on Stage". The Daily Telegraph. Best Weekend: Show and Tell. p. 9.
