40 DAYS OF ELVIS COSTELLO: A Countdown To WISE UP GHOST

[Lester Burnham]

At least he avoided the pastels and floppy, baggy suits that were en vogue later in the 1980s.

[cwr]

DAY SIX: Taking Liberties / Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers!

http://connorratliff.tumblr.com/post/58 ... -marys-ten

We can all agree that he looks pretty cool on the cover of Taking Liberties, right?

[docinwestchester]

Connor - Thank you for spotlighting Taking Liberties! This is still one of my favorite EC albums, but you never see it discussed in any way when it comes to the "oeuvre". This is no throwaway B-sides compilation, for sure. With so many brilliant songs, who needs a strong thematic link?

You had a funny point about EC torturing fans with his Hoover Factory vs. WTD choice on the spinning wheel. At one of my Beacon shows, he decided to do both because the audience vote was close enough. Needless to say, I was pleased:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lE1AqDeS20
Audience vote and discussion about the song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTlBN0g5eyk
More discussion, then Hoover Factory

[cwr]

DAY SEVEN: TRUST
http://connorratliff.tumblr.com/post/58 ... d-retiring

[Jack of All Parades]

From its issuance it has been amongst my favorites of all his records. It has never left my top three favorites and it is quite often given as my most favorite when asked to pick one. It is songcraft at a high level and its dissection of male/female relations is erudite, crude and painfully truthful. It was a coming of age bible for this young man. It also marked the emergence of a formidable backing band with special notice given to the piano player. Few songwriters have looked into the 'mirror' of the three minute pop tune and exposed themselves as this young man did on this record. It was and remains a high water mark for me in his recording and songwriting career, to date.

[John]

Enjoying these daily reads Connor. Thank you for going to the trouble.

I think the Shot With His Own Gun Clip was from Tony Wilson's late night Granada TV show What's On. I remember watching it at the time and couldn't believe he was singing this song, my least favourite track from the album at the time.

Was there an earlier appearance of a hat anywhere?

[cwr]

I'm enjoying it-- it's really kind of thrilling to go through it all chronologically and consider how much he has already accomplished in the span of a few short years.

TRUST is such a great record!

[The imposter]

Enjoying these daily reads Connor. Thank you for going to the trouble.

I think the Shot With His Own Gun Clip was from Tony Wilson's late night Granada TV show What's On. I remember watching it at the time and couldn't believe he was singing this song, my least favourite track from the album at the time.

Was there an earlier appearance of a hat anywhere?

I'll echo that sentiment too Connor. Enjoying reading these in the build up to the new release. Much more preferable (IMHO) to reading or hearing spoilers about WUG.Which hopefully maybe the first album I've heard virtually nothing of before it's release since North.

Also you are correct about the clip John.. although on "The Right Spectacle" DVD collection the show is listed as "What's In", which I think is incorrect.I'm just about old enough to remember the Granada show "What's On".

Interesting observation about the hat One I thought "Hat Man" would've spotted.

[Poor Deportee]

"Trust" is always the album I recommend to anyone looking for a single "representative" statement of EC's music. "Get Happy!!" is probably the one that is most likely to win new fans - but the muscular, dark, intelligent and supremely melodic musicality of Trust" gives us the closest thing to the distilled essence of this complex artist's work to my mind. It's too bad that by this point he'd slipped off the pedistal, because this album has always seemed underrated, lost in the wreckage post-Columbus.

[wardo68]

Mr. crw -- so glad you've been writing about EC again. I had to resort to the Wayback Machine to revisit some of the old astheygo content, but your current format is doing wonderful justice to the canon. I wonder if the new album will live up to the 40-day build!

[hatman]

Interesting observation about the hat One I thought "Hat Man" would've spotted.

That looks like some type of wool Top Hat of low quality. The hat he is wearing in the Clubland video looks much better. I believe it's a Homburg (see the curled brim) and could be vintage or maybe a Borsalino who was still making great hats around 1980 (they were last to do so).



My feeling is EC wore better hats at this time period. He had a more authentic vintage look. Now he is more hipster / trendy. Here is a Homburg of mine (I have many) from the early 1950s made by P. & C. Habig of Vienna.

[Poor Deportee]

By the way, I enjoyed the analogy between EC and The Beatles. I've always felt that Elvis is the truest inheritor of the Beatles' pop legacy - and that his fundamental trick has been to combine to sardonic lyrical perversity of Lennon with the melodicism of McCartney, all in one package. This is not to put him at the level of Lennon-McCartney, just to say that seeing him in these terms is one way of coming to grips with his basic contribution to pop music.

[docinwestchester]

I've always felt that Elvis is the truest inheritor of the Beatles' pop legacy - and that his fundamental trick has been to combine to sardonic lyrical perversity of Lennon with the melodicism of McCartney, all in one package.

Excellent observation. Totally agree.

[Jack of All Parades]

Equally telling for me have been McCartney's past comments in interviews where he has clearly stated that the closest association he has had in writing songs since he split from Lennon was when he worked with EC- he came the closest to slipping into Lennon's shoes and their collaboration was not strictly McCartney/melody and Costello/lyric. It was a true collaboration with both going back and forth on the melody/harmony, arrangements and the lyric.

[Poor Deportee]

Equally telling for me have been McCartney's past comments in interviews where he has clearly stated that the closest association he has had in writing songs since he split from Lennon was when he worked with EC- he came the closest to slipping into Lennon's shoes and their collaboration was not strictly McCartney/melody and Costello/lyric. It was a true collaboration with both going back and forth on the melody/harmony, arrangements and the lyric.

I for one enjoyed their co-authored work, and it would have been pretty nifty had they gone a step further and created a corporate entity - The Two Macs, say - and released an entire album or two under that banner. Sort of a two-man Travelling Wilburys. That would have been darned neat. Oh well.

[Ulster Boy]

By the way, I enjoyed the analogy between EC and The Beatles. I've always felt that Elvis is the truest inheritor of the Beatles' pop legacy - and that his fundamental trick has been to combine to sardonic lyrical perversity of Lennon with the melodicism of McCartney, all in one package. This is not to put him at the level of Lennon-McCartney, just to say that seeing him in these terms is one way of coming to grips with his basic contribution to pop music.

In a reverse universe, these lines from Happiness is a warm gun always strike me as Costellian:

She's well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane
The man in the crowd with the multicoloured mirrors on his hobnail boots
Lying with his eyes while his hands are busy working overtime

[cwr]

I still wish for a McCartney/MacManus album. Ideally just the two of them and two acoustic guitars (and then a tour like that!)

We know Costello would certainly be up for it. It would just take Paul wanting it to happen. Maybe someday...

[cwr]

DAY EIGHT: ALMOST BLUE

http://connorratliff.tumblr.com/post/58 ... r-landmark

[Jack of All Parades]

I have never been a hater of this album nor a huge lover. It is taken out from time to time and probably more for that second cd in the Rhino addition. I was already totally immersed in this material as a fifteen year old up in my room in Beacon, NY and a regular listener to college radio stations like KCR at Columbia and VKR at Vassar just up the road. I was an avid student of Jones, Cash, Haggard, Owens, Cline and Parsons having long listened to their records. I did not need EC to introduce these performers to my young ears. In fact it is probably why to this day I find his presentations on the record to be basically pastiches of the originals. I do think I know why he went this route. As for me, I think this music was an 'ur' source for him. These songs are great teachers about human relations and wants and desires and they also speak to our 'lower' natures. I find their honesty invigorating and I think EC did as well. He incorporated their lessons well in the work that would spew from him in the years and decades to come.

[Poor Deportee]

Is there any reason - apart from being a completist - that one would need to own this album? I always felt that if I wanted these songs, I'd get them in the original; and the cuts from this album that I have heard don't seem to add enough to motivate me to seek it out. It seems a pleasant enough album but, in effect, a curio.

[Ymaginatif]

In a reverse universe, these lines from Happiness is a warm gun always strike me as Costellian:

She's well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane
The man in the crowd with the multicoloured mirrors on his hobnail boots
Lying with his eyes while his hands are busy working overtime

They are very un-Beatles-like on the whole. Yes, written by John Lennon, but apparently together with Pete Shotton (an old schoolfriend).
Maybe Pete Shotton is the long lost Elvis Costello?!

[Neil.]

Is there any reason - apart from being a completist - that one would need to own this album? I always felt that if I wanted these songs, I'd get them in the original; and the cuts from this album that I have heard don't seem to add enough to motivate me to seek it out. It seems a pleasant enough album but, in effect, a curio.

I'd say this is definitely one for completists - but once you're into Elvis to a certain degree, most people end up becoming a completist!

I think 'Sweet Dreams' is one of his greatest recordings, I absolutely love 'Good Year for the Roses' and 'How Much I Lied' - but I never find myself returning to the other songs. Sherrill's production of the ballads is gorgeous, but I find the others a little awkward.

There are some great cuts on the bonus disc, though - 'He's Got You' and 'Psycho' among them!

[cwr]

If the 2-disc Rhino edition was still in print, I'd say get it, because it has so much extra material that it was, at the time, great value for money.

Nowadays... well, it's harder and harder to find those Rhino editions without paying an arm and a leg for them!

I WOULD recommend watching the "Making Of Almost Blue" documentary that I linked to in my post. I'd say it's essential viewing for any EC fan AND it'll give you a pretty good idea of whether you'd want to own the album.

[cwr]

DAY NINE: IbMePdErRoIoAmL & "Party Party"!

http://connorratliff.tumblr.com/post/58 ... y-party-im

[Jack of All Parades]

A damn near perfect record for my ears and has seemed so since day one in 1982 when I first heard it. Lovely shows that year promoting it as well. I love your quote from Orson Welles- that comes closest to explaining my feelings about this record. It is chock full of aural pleasures and contains one of the great songs of the late twentieth century. And it is fun-avoiding pretention. Its material is adult and literate and it still comes across that way over thirty years later. When I want to just have my head and ears stimulted- this is the record of EC's that I put in the player. Could never understand his distaste for "Party,Party". Back in the day, I played that single to death to the point where my wife hid it on me for some time. It should have made the cut for his "In Motion Pictures" release of last year. God, I love this record.