Goodbye Cruel World

Goodbye Cruel World, 1984

From the Rhino liner notes:
"It seems I wasn’t exactly in a cheerful and optimistic mood when I made this album and that hadn’t really changed by the time the disc was first reissued. Now, with the benefit of a little more distance, I am able to say that it is probably the worst record that I could have made of a decent bunch of songs. I hope, for the sake of those who cared for it in the first place, that this edition will go some way to making them feel a little better about their purchase. That’s if any of them ever read this little note…

Although the title was meant with black humour, I used to quit about once a week in those days (I still do). My first marriage finally collapsed between the recording and the release of this album, so it is not hard to imagine where some of the desperation in the lyrics originated.

I’ve previously made much of the fact that I almost completely thwarted the efforts of my producers, Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, and it is true to say that they were probably ill-equipped for dealing with someone of my temperament at that time. A nurse with a large sedative syringe might have been more appropriate.

“Langer and Winstanley” are widely associated with a huge run of successful pop recordings throughout the 1980s, beginning with Madness and taking in Dexy’s Midnight Runners and our own Punch The Clock. They did develop certain techniques that defined their “sound”, but this is to ignore that London-born Clive is also a witty and talented composer (the music of “Shipbuilding” is entirely his), who had begun his career in the vibrant post-punk, art-school band scene in Liverpool and that Alan had engineered the early records of the might Buzzcocks, among many others.

Tracks

Side 1:
01. The Only Flame In Town (4:02)
02. Home Truth (3:13)
03. Room With No Number (4:13)
04. Inch By Inch (2:29)
05. Worthless Thing (3:04)
06. Love Field (3:26)

Side 2:
07. I Wanna Be Loved (Farnell Jenkins) (4:48)
08. The Comedians (2:36)
09. Joe Porterhouse (3:30)
10. Sour Milk-Cow Blues (2:50)
11. The Great Unknown (Costello/Langer) (3:00)
12. The Deportees Club (2:54)
13. Peace In Our Time (4:05)

Credits

• Produced by: Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley
• Musicians:

Elvis Costello - vocals, guitar & anvil

Maurice Worm (Steve Nieve) - Random Racket (keyboards)

Bruce Thomas - bass

Pete Thomas - drums

Gary Barnacle - saxes & electric sax.

Jim Paterson - trombone

Luis Jardim - percussion

Daryl Hall - vocals on The Only Flame In Town

Green - vocals on I Wanna Be Loved

Original discography pages

• Home Page discography page | A01 | A02 |
• Singles: S01 | S02 | S03 | S04 | S05 | S06 | S07 | S08 | S09 | S10 | S11 | S12 | S13 | S14 | S15 | S16

Internal links

• Lyrics | Liner Notes | Album Images

External links

• Elvis Costello on Rhino's Goodbye Cruel World resissue page