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Goodbye Cruel World

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This release is coloured with the atmosphere of gloom in which it was made.

"I think the first time we ever got really attacked for a new release apart from when we first started was Goodbye Cruel World, and to be honest I knew it wasn't a good record by the time...It was the only one I was tempted to...I was committed to it. I'd spent too much money on it to not release it and I thought on balance the good things that I'd got wrong in the studio that were in the song writing probably out weighed the bad things that I'd allow to happen in the production, which is not distracting anything from the effort that Clive Langer made to do the best. I mean, I announced to them that it was the last record I was ever going to make before we went in the studio. I decided to quit for all kinds of weird personal reasons...I was really down about lots of other things and I really just decided I wanted to do this one record, and I was asking them to make a record they weren't really set up to do, which was essentially a 'live-in-the-studio' record. And then we had a loss of nerve about that and started to edge it back towards the kind of production they did anyway. But the damage had been done, we'd started out to record a folk-rock record, which is what it originally sounded like, which you can hear in some of the more soulful songs, like Home Truth, which is an unbelievably painful, true song. I made Clive Langer's life impossible, and I take full responsibility for the failure of the production, 'cause I was asking them one time to do one thing and the next to do another, and changing my mind every 15 minutes and driving everybody in the band mad. And really just getting it as wrong as you can in terms of the execution of what are basically a bunch of really good songs." (EC)


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Tracks

Initial UK release:

Side 1:
  The Only Flame In Town
  Home Truth
  Room With No Number
  Inch By Inch
  Worthless Thing
  Love Field
Side 2:
  I Wanna Be Loved
  The Comedians
  Joe Porterhouse
  Sour Milk Cow Blues
  The Great Unknown
  The Deportees Club
  Peace In Our Time

Bonus tracks on Demon/Rykodisc CD reissue:
  Turning The Town Red
  Baby It's You (with Nick Lowe)
  Get Yourself Another Fool (GCW mix)
  I Hope You're Happy Now (early band version)
  The Only Flame In Town (live)
  Worthless Thing (live)
  Motel Matches (live)
  Sleepless Nights (live)
  Deportee (demo)
  Withered And Died

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Release information:

Albums

  1984-06-18  Goodbye Cruel World
  1995-02-28  Goodbye Cruel World (reissue)
 2004-09-__  Selections From Almost Blue, Goodbye Cruel World and Kojak Variety [USA promo]
 

Singles

  1984-04-__  Peace In Our Time
                / Withered And Died
  1984-06-__  I Wanna Be Loved (radio version)
                / Turning The Town Red
  1984-06-__  I Wanna Be Loved (radio version)
                ; Turning The Town Red
                / I Wanna Be Loved (extended smooch 'n' runny version)
  1984-06-__  I Wanna Be Loved (radio version)
                ; Turning The Town Red
                / I Wanna Be Loved (version discotheque)
  1984-__-__  I Wanna Be Loved
                / Love Field
  1984-__-__  I Wanna Be Loved [US white label promo]
                / I Wanna Be Loved
  1984-07-__  L.A.F.S. (Love At First Sight) - Nick Lowe & his Cowboy Outfit
                / Hey Big Mouth (Stand Up And Say That) - Nick Lowe & his Cowboy Outfit
                ; Baby It's You - Nick Lowe + EC
  1984-08-__  The Only Flame In Town
                / The Comedians
  1984-08-__  The Only Flame In Town (version discotheque)
                / The Comedians
  1984-08-__  The Only Flame In Town (version discotheque)
                / Pump It Up (dance mix)
                ; The Comedians
  1984-__-__  The Only Flame In Town (special mix)
                / Baby It's You - Nick Lowe + EC
                ; Pump It Up (1984 monster mix)
  1984-__-__  The Only Flame In Town (special mix) [US demonstration copy]
                / The Only Flame In Town (special mix)
  1984-__-__  The Only Flame In Town [US demonstration copy]
                / The Only Flame In Town
  1984-__-__  The Only Flame In Town (edit)
                / Turning The Town Red
  1984-__-__  Peace In Our Time [French promo]
                / The Comedians
  1984-__-__  The Only Flame In Town
                / The Deportees Club
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