Hetty O'Hara Confidential

Album: Hey Clockface (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Hetty O'Hara Confidential" is a saga of a vindictive gossip columnist rendered obsolete by social media. Costello said of the old-school writer's undoing to Billboard: "It's one of the great dangers of the speed of communication, being faster than the ability to reason."
  • Costello pithily described the song's storyline as "the tale of a tattler who outlives her time."
  • Released as the follow-up Hey Clockface to "Hey Clockface/How Can You Face Me?," both songs share a similar furious synthetic percussion and were recorded at Suomenlinnan Studio in Helsinki, Finland.
  • Costello also produced the track and is credited with Mouth, Hammond Organ, Fender Jazzmaster, Upright Piano, Rhythm Ace and All Other Noises. The song was recorded and engineered by Eetü Seppälä and mixed in Los Angeles by Sebastian Krys.

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