I found this one in the used bin of Academy Records while I was killing time in Williamsburg today for a mere 3$ as the store was about to close(they put on a recording of a baby crying to coerce customers to pay and leave so they can close up.) This was released in 1980 as a collection of Declan McManus's b-sides from his first three albums. Elvis Costello's 1977 through 1980 spawned four albums: My Aim Is True, his debut record, full of Dylan-esque wordplay and honky tonk r&b supplied by the men who would become The News of Huey Lewis and The News, This Year's Model, my absolute favorite, futuristic punk rock with the newly formed and red-hot Attractions, containing some of the most provocative lyricism both political and personal in recorded music, Armed Forces, which Elvis gets really brainy building a wall of sound throwing post-punk and krautrock on top of Bacharach, David and Lennon/McCartney and Get Happy!, a inspired take on American soul music. In this writer's opinion, this is about as great a four record run as anyone ever had. Costello was about 23 for his first record and was 25 or 26 in 1980, when this compilation was released.
There is no doubt that in the coffee-fueled nights writing songs, these inspired years brought more material than three records could possibly hold. Taking Liberties itself is filled to the brim, packed with twenty tracks with only two covers: an odd reverb soaked guitar and vocal version of Rogers and Hart's "My Funny Valentine", showing off Elvis's aptitude as a jazz vocalist and "Getting Mighty Crowded", originally recorded by American r&b singer Betty Everett and written by the guy who wrote "The Hustle."
"Stranger In The House" a single from 1978, is an original country song that would hold strong on Elvis's 1981 country covers record Almost Blue, exposing his Gram Parsons and George Jones influence, and rich with the pedal steel guitar sound that flavors "Allison" so well. 1977's "Radio Sweetheart" is another one with a country influence, a very American b-side with an almost teenage vibe, a tale of dedicating a song on the air to a faraway(geographical or emotional?) to "Less Than Zero" which addresses british politics way over the head of the U.S. audience. You can hear in some of these tracks the solo-folkie Elvis that he would ditch to become the more ambitious leader of the Attractions. I often think that Steve Nieve's farsifa organs and synthesizers served as the contemporary counterpoint to Elvis's country and jazz loving old-timer taste, concocting a combination that would forever baffle the labels "punk", "new wave" and "power-pop."
The chugging "Big Tears" features features lead guitar from Mick Jones of The Clash(thank you Lucid Culture for this awesome tidbit.) Two tracks from the U.K. version of This Year's Model, "Night Rally" a warning cry against corporate fueled fascism and "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea", which has become one of his most popular songs, in which Elvis Costello practically raps, comparable to Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." This song is Elvis doing what Elvis does best, practically blowing his top, spouting out lyrics like "there's no place here for the mini-skirt waddle/capital punishment, she's last year's model" jumping from scene to scene, image to image, gripe to gripe.
The Elvis Costello of the 70's, while not officially punk, is the essential angry young man, whose sharp tounge would cut through a record, right into the brain of the listener. Even in pop songs like "Girls Talk" and "Wednesday Week", his anguish sinks through, challenging the emotional potential of the three minute song. Young Declan once said that the basis of all his songwriting was "anger and jealous" and that is exactly what drives all these tracks and the material of the era. Elvis is smart, pissed off and not afraid to taking about his feelings, and withholds no opinion. I always thought what he was doing when he made Model and Forces in the 70s, was like what Radiohead did with Kid A in 2000, touching upon alienation and fascism in the modern word with extreme urgency like a rock n' roll 1984, a game changing revelation in record music, except Elvis did it 23 years earlier!!! Here are the young, funny looking Attractions and Elvis at his coolest and most nebbish, he sorta resembles Woody Allen in Annie Hall!
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