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Our "Make an Idiot of the Editor Contest," staged to plug holes in "The Great Lost Elvis Costello Album"/ "My Aim Is Two" (TPCM, Sept./Oct. 1981), elicited quite a response. Here's the dope us dopes missed:
Dave Marsh, prominent author of various books, says "It doesn't surprise me that you missed Chris Kenner's 'Packing Up' because the only place I've ever heard it is on Kenner's Land of 1,000 Dances LP. Costello's reading is pretty much a straight cop from Kenner's original; the arrangement is a straight cop. Good taste that boy has, tho." Marsh was the only reader to get that one.
"Imagination' is a tune written by the team of Burke/Van Heusen and recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, Cal Tjader, and others," according to Erskine Wood of Eugene, Oregon. "I am not sure that this is the same song on Our Aim Is True ["Imagination Is a Powerful Deceiver"], but given Elvis's highly eclectic tastes it is not unlikely." We will confirm or deny this one in a future issue. Reader Wood, if correct, gets sole kudos.
"Third Rate Romance" was written by Howard Russell Smith of the Amazing Rhythm Aces and recorded by the Aces on their Stacked Deck and The South's Greatest Hits LPs. It was a Top 15 hit for the Aces in 1975, though not for Jesse Winchester, who recorded it with the Aces backing him the previous year on his third LP, Learn to Love It. It has also been recorded by country artist Johnny Duncan on a self-titled LP and by the Fabulous Poodles on Unsuitable.
"I Wrote This Song" is actually "The Roadette Song," credited to Dury/Hardy. Dury is Ian Dury; his old band Kilburn and the High Roads released the song on Handsome and Wotabunch.
Perhaps the most embarrassing flub was "Neat Neat Neat," written by Brian James of the Damned. It was that band's first single and appears on the Damned Damned Damned (my sentiments exactly) LP.
Other tidbits: The version of "Lip Service" on Honky Tonk Demos is also known as "Cheap Reward." Honky Tonk itself takes its name from UK DJ Charlie Gilett's Radio London show, for which Elvis recorded the EP in his lean and hungry days. It was also slated to be a prize in a New Musical Express contest, but Elvis and Jake Riviera nixed the idea.
A few letters contained possible additions to The Great Lost Elvis Costello Album, though some are ineligible based on our rule that all material must be written by the artist. Dutch reader Edwin Blanker has a bootleg EP called Cowboy Discs, credited to Tex and the Attractions, that contains "Honky Tonkin' and "Honky Tonk Blues," the latter written by Hank Williams. He also has a song, "Really Mystified," recorded during a BBC session, on a bootleg
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