Elvis Costello’s many reissues have gotten a lot of play on these Random Weekends, with both good and mediocre results.
Today’s song, a sped-up — practically disco — version of ‘Town Cryer,’ the stately closing track of Imperial Bedroom, is definitely worth a listen. The contrast between this song and its official counterpart is hilariously extreme. This is so bad it’s good… or maybe it’s just good.
OK, I understand that truly random groupings will always result in clusters that appear anything but random, but it still seems weird that this series has turned into Elvis Costello Bonus Track Weekends over the past several weeks.
Nothing against Mr. Costello, who is of course one of my very favorite artists, but it’s time to give somebody else a shot! And while all of these bonus tracks are enjoyable enough, they mostly justify the fact that they were left off of his official releases.
Three of the last six Random Weekend decisions have come from Elvis Costello which I suppose makes sense given the law of averages. I have more Costello tunes than tracks by any other artist but Bob Dylan. I guess we can expect a flood of Mr. Zimmerman any time now.
Today’s track is another of the many bonus tracks offered up on the many reissues of Costello’s albums. And to point out the absurd degree of reissuing applied to Costello’s catalog, allow me to submit that this song has appeared in two different incarnations on four different releases.
The Random iTunes Man is going all theme weekend on me.
Here’s another track from Elvis Costello, this time from the excellent Get Happy!!. Listening to it has me thinking I ranked this album too low on my list of favorite 80s records. Isn’t that always the case? Whatever you’re enjoying in the moment feels like the best thing ever, until you move on to the next thing.
That’s what makes lists kind of ridiculous. Of course it’s never stopped me from obsessively compiling them.
Elvis Costello has written so many songs that I’m sure not even he can keep up with them.
Indeed, in the liner notes for the reissue of Mighty Like a Rose, he admits that he forgot about this existence of today’s SOTD until it came up in a search of material from the recording sessions.
‘Just Another Mystery’ isn’t among Costello’s finest songs, by any means, but can you imagine creating something as fully realized as this and then just forgetting about it? He probably wrote three equally good songs the same day.
Meet Me In Montauk 