A happy Peel session from Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello and the Attractions : Beaten to the Punch

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On March 3, 1980 BBC Radio 1 broadcast a peppy Peel Session set performed by the Elvis Costello and The Attractions who had just released Get Happy! They played four songs, "Beaten To The Punch", "Possession", "B Movie" and "High Fidelity", all from the new album.

Of "Possession", Costello would write in the liner notes of Girls Girls Girls :

“Another drunken composition (or is it decomposition). On the run from a cleverly isolated Dutch studio, we sought excitement in a small cafe. Sure enough I started to fall ‘in love’ with the waitress, but was hustled back to work before the trouble began. I began my protestations of desire in the taxi, and although other grim thoughts came to mind, the song was ‘complete’ by the time we reached the studio. Naturally we recorded it right away and in a childishly literal gesture I insisted on playing organ (very badly).”

"B Movie", which was first performed in Minneapolis in 1979, begins with the line "I found America hiding in the corner of my wallet".

Costello borrowed "Some things you never get used to" from a song of the same name for the opening line of "High Fidelity", confessing  in the Girls Girls Girls liner notes 

“Beginning with a line from a Supremes record, this amoral tale might have overdone the self pity had it not been for the comical drunkenness of the singer. Nice dance routine with this one!”