Every dog has his day, and every genius has his dog. Elvis Costello’s follow-up to Punch the Clock, 1984’s Goodbye Cruel World, was his first (and by my count, still only) outright dog.
I’ve posted this quote before but it’s a good one, so I’ll post it again. In his liner notes for a re-release of this album, Costello wrote, “Congratulations! You just bought the worst album of my career.”
Funny to think that such an album warranted a re-release in the first place. Actually, like most of Costello’s albums, it’s been released more than a few times with varying selections of bonus tracks and liner notes. It’s nearly impossible, and certainly expensive, to be an Elvis Costello completist.
Goodbye Cruel World suffers from tinny, poppy production but also from rare lackluster songwriting on Costello’s part. The album’s best song is also its most popular, the goofy duet ‘The Only Flame in Town,’ performed with Darryl Hall. The rest are mostly forgettable.
I will admit to finding some of these songs better than I remembered when listening to them for this weekend’s blog entries. Today’s track, ‘Room With No Number,’ is a good example. Buried beneath the gimmicky 80s production is a tune that’s not half-bad.
Clothes scattered across the floor
Covers pulled back from the pillow
A sign hung on the door
Two lovers locked up tight
Through the endless days and nights
Hiding something they can’t show
Something no-one else must know
Chorus
There’s a room without a number
While the sign outside says there’s
no vacancy as you take your key
They smile at you so understandingly
She cried out in the night
Woke the porter from his sleep
He grinned slyly to himself
As he went to fetch his keys
Look what love has brought them to
This terrible nightmare
His or hers he could not tell
As they were still sleeping there
Chorus
And I wish he could be
The man he was before he was me
A girl arrived at first light
And inquired if they’d been seen
And why the numbers ran from twelve
Missing out thirteen
And they said oh my darling
Put it down to superstition
Try to avoid a scandal
And don’t arouse suspicion
They re-arranged the furniture
They even papered over the door
There’s a room without a number
While the sign outside says there’s
no vacancy as you take your key
They smile just so so you know
Meet Me In Montauk 
I have never heard this song, but it certainly does seem like Costello light. As you say, everyone is entitled to an “off” performance, especially in a career as long as his.
Yeah, I don’t think this is a good sound for Elvis. Only his delivery of “And I wish he could be…. ” sounds remotely like the Elvis I love.
I really am unfamiliar with this record, save for the few that made it onto the greatest hits record. I do enjoy “The Only Flame In Town” and the cover “I Wanna Be Loved” (which I didn’t know was a cover until today)
I suppose you can’t blame EC for wanting to reach a wider audience and obtain a level of more mass popularity, which he clearly was trying to do with Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World. And I’m sure he was getting some pressure from the record company as well. Thank goodness, though, after this album, EC made music they way he wanted to, even if it was only for a more targeted audience.