Elvis Costello: Out Of Our Idiot

This, along with Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers is an excellent compilation of Elvis Costello 'b' sides and rarities. Let's get straight to it. Here is what is on offer.

Seven Day Weekend is a rousing, catchy, rockin' opener that is, strangely perhaps, a duet with reggae legend Jimmy Cliff. Cliff co-wrote the song but it isn't remotely reggae in its rocking sound. It dated from the Blood & Chocoloate sessions and has a distinctive "one-two-three-four-five-six-seven day weekend" repeated chorus. There's something a bit Northern Soul about it. Maybe I'm put in mind of Seven Days Too Long.

Turning The Town Red was, I think, written as a part of a TV programme soundtrack, but I can't bring to mind what, neither can I find out. Either way, it is a typical Costello 1983-sounding song, coming from the Punch The Clock sessions. It would have sounded great on that album. Found it! The show was "Scully", a Scouse-set show of which I have a vague memory only.

Another fine track from 1983 was Heathen Town, the 'b' side to the Everyday I Write The Book single. I knew it from way back then and it's a great song, archetypal in its cynical Costello semi-ballad style. Costello described as his answer song to the Flying Burritos Brothers' Sin City, which is mentioned in the song's first line - "They used to call it sin city but now it's gone way past that". "There's a choir of angels at the fall of Rome singing Ave Maria" is another great line too. In fact, the song is packed full of them. How about this for just a "b' side -

"It starts as a flirtationand ends up as an expensive habit.With one eye on her placein debtor's prisonAnd the other on a girldressed as a rabbit.Now you can live foreverendure fits and startsThe only stake you cannot raiseIs the one driven through your heart"

The People's Limousine is an upbeat and impossibly catchy country song from 1986's King Of America sessions. It is written by (supposed) brothers Henry and Howard Coward who were, in fact, Costello and songwriting partner T-Bone Burnett. With lines like "It was a chilly Florentine evening, two men in evening hats. Telling tales of the underground and fishing for rats" it couldn't be anyone other than Costello, could it?
 
So Young. A cover version of a song by Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons (no me neither!). It is played in a lively reggae style and, with its infectious organ notes, sounds like an Attractions original, something I always thought it was, for years.
 
Little Goody Two Shoes. Dating from November 1981, this song has two versions. The first is a frantic, harmonica driven piece of blues rock, the second a slowed-down, jazzy blues number. Both are equally impressive and enjoyable. It is the bluesy one that appears here.
 
American Without Tears #2 is a companion song to the one that was on King Of America. It is more harmonica drenched and bluesy, but the tale it tells is no less intriguing, cinematic and atmospheric. I seriously love both incarnations of the song.

Get Yourself Another Fool actually dates from 1949 and was originally popularised by Sam Cooke. Paul McCartney cut it for his 2015 Kisses On The Bottom covers album. Arthur Conley did it in 1968 as well. Costello does it in his best country-influenced heartbreaker style. I love that subtle organ backing too. Costello-wise, it is from the King Of America sessions.

Walking On Thin Ice is an interesting cover. A Yoko Ono song, Costello makes it his own in robust, chunky fashion. The original (by Yoko) appears on Lennon's posthumous Double Fantasy album and, he was clutching a tape of Yoko's recording of the song when he was murdered in December 1980. Costello doesn't lose any of the song's innate funkiness in his version and it is one of this collection's best cuts. Check out the brass and organ bits. Great stuff.

Withered And Died is a Richard Thompson song and is, unsurprisingly, quiet, acoustic and folky. In covering it, Costello is showing once more just how impressively eclectic his musical taste is. It was the 'b' side to 1984's Peace In Our Time single. 
 
Blue Chair was a single from the Blood & Chocolate sessions. Another version of it appears on that album. The versions are slightly different but not hugely so other than the single is more muscular, slightly faster and more drum-powered. Piano drives the album version along and Costello's vocal is more soulful.

Baby It's You was the 'b' side to 1984's The Only Flame In Town single and it is a cover of the Bacharach/David number that The Beatles did on the 1963 Please Please Me debut album. Costello plays it pretty straight.
 
From Head To Toe was a cover of a Smokey Robinson & The Miracles song, it is also from February 1982. It is a suitably toe-tapping, energetic number featuring a glorious Motown bass line. Elvis and The Attractions do this really well. A rocking piano drives it along, together with some lively drums. It was actrually a stand-alone single but surprisingy not a hit. It is from the Imperial Bedroom era.
 
Shoes Without Heels is another of those Costello cryptic semi-ballads, while Baby's Got A Brand New Hairdo is one of those where he utilises a breakneck, frantic backbeat. Both these are fine songs which wouldn't have been out of place on either Blood & Chocolate or King Of America from whose sessions they came from. 

The 'b' side to 1983's Let Them All Talk single, The Flirting Kind was another absolute killer flip side. Once more it is delivered in the tuneful, lyrically captivating ballad style. I'm not quite sure quite how to describe songs such as these other than they are top quality and just unmistakeably Costello. I love this one.
 
Black Sails In The Sunset. This is a most delectable track, with a lovely bass line and piano melody. Costello's yearning vocal gives the song great feeling. I am surprised that it didn't make the cut for the Blood & Chocolate album as it is one of his best songs from the time.
 
A Town Called Big Nothing (Really Big Nothing) is the album's one true oddity. It is kind of spaghetti western-style soundtrack number, full of typical of the genre brass and a spoken vocal supplied by Sy Richardson, an actor and director, apparently. It is just very strange but I have to say it is not without an oddball appeal. Costello at his most quirky, not somewhere he goes too often.
Big Sister. A rocking, frenetic version of Big Sister's Clothes that has Costello spitting out the lyrics over a clunking piano backing. There is a further extended alternative version, which is twice as long and is slowed down to a trundling pace. It almost sounds as if it has been slowed down too much, and it goes on too long.
Imperial Bedroom. Now, this really should have been on the album that bears its name. It is a piano-driven waltz of a number with some killer, rumbling bass and some great vocals from Elvis. The hook is memorable and I have found myself singing "In the imperial bedroom, the regal boudoir..." many times. 
 
The Stamping Ground. This was the 'b' side to You Little Fool. It is a slightly mournful, slow-paced Costello original. It is a reasonable track, with a good hook, but probably not worthy of being on the Imperial Bedroom album.
 
Overall, this has been a really impressive listen. I played this CD over and over at the end of the eighties when I first got it, making myself totally familiar with the material.
 

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