Elvis Costello Takes More Liberties

Elvis Costello : Crawling to the USA

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In September of 1980, Elvis Costello And the Attractions were the subject of an odds'n'sods compilation released in America. With Taking Liberties, American fans got their hands on 20 B-sides, UK album cuts and outtakes. It also includes three previously unreleased cuts — "Clean Money," an alternative take of "Black And White World" and "Hoover Factory."The UK counterpart is a cassette-only release called 10 Bloody Marys and 10 How's Your Fathers.

Here's an ad for the album plucked from Trouser Press magazine

Among the highlights are "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea," from the English version of This Year's Model and Costello's reclaiming of "Girls Talk", best known by the Dave Edmunds cover version on Repeat When Necessary.

The Village Voice's Greil Marcus wrote of Taking Liberties:

Costello's great theme is hardly exhausted, though it may, for the time being, have exhausted him, or closed in on him. I think it remains the key to his career: that will to take revenge on the guilty conscience he has received from the past. The question now is whether Costello can find the music, recreate the craft, to keep the key turning. Yes, he's a star, with a year or so of free ride left in his name, but he's never given the slightest evidence he's interested in stardom for its own sake.

NME's Nick Kent sums it up :

 I'm glad I've got the record end I don't feel shortchanged. I see no reason why you should feel differently.

Playin' With a Horse

Nick Lowe : Big Kick, Plain Scrap!

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On June 9, 1979 Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds each released a classic power pop album, recorded during the same sessions using their same Rockpile bandmates. 

Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust followed up his eccentric Jesus of Cool with Lowe's only U.S. Top 40 hit, "Cruel To Be Kind".  (We're saving our discussion of the single for later in the year. ) For reasons I'll never understand the album was out of print for twenty years, though Basher: The Best of Nick Lowe featured seven of eleven songs on the American version, including "American Squirm" (recorded with Elvis Costello and the Attractions) and "Big Kick, Plain Scrap".

Finally in 2011 Yep Records brought this classic album back to record store shelves with the help of this little seen promotional video.

Dave Edmunds : Girls Talk

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On the very same day, Edmunds released his best album, Repeat When Necessary. The lead off track, Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk" peaked at #4 on the UK Singles Chart and #12 in Ireland. 

Edmunds recalls :

 "Elvis came to the studio one day, and he said, 'I've got a song for you.' And he gave me a cassette. Now, it wasn't very good - it was just him on a guitar, and he was rushing through it at a furious pace. At first I couldn't see it. I really liked the complete new arrangement and feel that I put to it. I'm not sure Elvis liked it, mind you. He's quite an intense person and he's quick to point out things that he doesn't like." 

Repeat When Necessary also features "Crawling From the Wreckage", written by Graham Parker and Hank DeVito's "Queen of Hearts", covered by Juice Newton two years later. 

In 1979 the BBC aired a documentary about Rockpile. Have an hour? Watch these good friends at work, having a drink and a smoke. At 42:00 Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy hangs out at a recording session.