Goodbye Cruel World (Elvis Costello album)



Goodbye Cruel World was Elvis Costello's ninth album overall and the eighth with his backing band the Attractions. It was released in 1984 by F-Beat Records in the UK and Columbia in the US.

Tensions within the band—notably between Costello and bassist Bruce Thomas—were beginning to tell, and Costello announced his retirement and the break-up of the group shortly before they were to record Goodbye Cruel World. Costello later said that in making it, they had "got it as wrong as you can in terms of the execution".

Costello wrote at his official website: "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 outweighed 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."

Reception
The album's production (by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, who also produced the previous Punch the Clock), was not in line with Costello's other works, relying heavily on electronics and an overall slick, trendy feel. Thus, the record is not regarded among his better works; Costello's liner notes to the 1995 reissue on Rykodisc open with the statement, "Congratulations! You just bought the worst album of my career."

The album is represented on Elvis Costello compilation The Very Best of Elvis Costello, by the cover song 'I Wanna Be Loved'.

Track listing
"I Wanna Be Loved" is a cover of a Hi Records single by Teacher's Edition and features backing vocals by Green Gartside of Scritti Politti. "The Only Flame in Town" features vocals by Daryl Hall.

All songs written by Elvis Costello, except as indicated.

Side one

 * 1) "The Only Flame in Town" – 4:01
 * 2) "Home Truth" – 3:12
 * 3) "Room with No Number" – 4:13
 * 4) "Inch By Inch" – 2:29
 * 5) "Worthless Thing" – 3:04
 * 6) "Love Field" – 3:26

Side two

 * 1) "I Wanna Be Loved" (Farnell Jenkins) – 4:47
 * 2) "The Comedians" – 2:36
 * 3) "Joe Porterhouse" – 3:29
 * 4) "Sour Milk-Cow Blues" – 2:50
 * 5) "The Great Unknown" (Costello, Clive Langer) – 3:00
 * 6) "The Deportees Club" – 2:54
 * 7) "Peace in Our Time" – 4:06

Bonus tracks (1995 Rykodisc)
Note: The Rykodisc version has the original tracks and bonus tracks on one CD. The Rhino version has two CDs with the original tracks on the first CD.
 * 1) "Turning the Town Red" – 3:14
 * 2) "Baby It's You" (Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Barney Williams) – 3:11
 * 3) "Get Yourself Another Fool" (Ernest Tucker, Frank Heywood) – 4:01
 * 4) "I Hope You're Happy Now" – 2:51
 * 5) "The Only Flame in Town" (Live) – 4:16
 * 6) "Worthless Thing" (Live) – 3:11
 * 7) "Motel Matches" (Live) – 2:39
 * 8) "Sleepless Nights" (Live) (Felice Bryant, Boudleaux Bryant) – 2:39
 * 9) "Deportee" (Demo) – 3:22
 * 10) "Withered and Died" (Richard Thompson) – 3:14

Bonus disc (2004 Rhino)

 * 1) "The Only Flame in Town" (Alternate version) – 4:05
 * 2) "Young Boy Blues" (Doc Pomus, Phil Spector) – 3:27
 * 3) "Turning the Town Red" – 3:14
 * 4) "I Hope You're Happy Now" – 2:51
 * 5) "Tomorrow's (Just Another Day)" (Mike Barson, Carl Smyth) – 2:54
 * 6) "Get Yourself Another Fool" (Forrest, Heywood) – 4:03
 * 7) "Baby It's You (Burt Bacharach, Hal David) – 3:11
 * 8) "I Wanna Be Loved" (Demo version) (Jenkins) – 3:22
 * 9) "The Great Unknown" (Demo version) (Costello, Langer) – 2:35
 * 10) "She Loves the Jerk" (Demo version) (John Hiatt) – 3:10
 * 11) "Turning the Town Red" (Demo version) – 3:37
 * 12) "Peace in Our Time" (Demo version) – 3:30
 * 13) "Withered and Died" (Thompson) – 3:14
 * 14) "The Comedians" (Demo version) – 2:25
 * 15) "Inch By Inch" (Demo Version) – 2.11
 * 16) "Mystery Voice" (Demo version) – 2:23
 * 17) "Joe Porterhouse" (Demo version) – 3:19
 * 18) "The Town Where Time Stood Still" (Demo version) – 2:15
 * 19) "Blue Murder on Union Avenue" (Demo version) – 2:30
 * 20) "Home Truth" (Demo version) – 3:05
 * 21) "The Only Flame in Town" (Live) – 4:12
 * 22) "Worthless Thing" (Live) – 3:10
 * 23) "Sleepless Nights" (Live) (F. Bryant, B. Bryant) – 2:39
 * 24) "What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend" (Live) (Jerry Dammers) – 2:10
 * 25) "Motel Matches" (Live) – 2:39
 * 26) "Love Field" (Live) – 3:21

Personnel
with:
 * Elvis Costello – vocals, guitars
 * The Attractions
 * Steve Nieve – keyboards
 * Bruce Thomas – bass guitar
 * Pete Thomas – drums
 * Gary Barnacle – saxophones
 * Jim Paterson – trombone
 * Luís Jardim – percussion
 * Daryl Hall – duet harmony vocals on "The Only Flame in Town"
 * Green Gartside – harmony vocals on "I Wanna Be Loved"

The album credits keyboard player Steve Nieve with providing "random racket" under the name, "Maurice Worm".

Charts
Album Single

Cultural references
The graphic novel Watchmen quotes from the chorus of the song "The Comedians" at the end of chapter two: "And I'm up while the dawn is breaking, even though my heart is aching. I should be drinking a toast to absent friends instead of these comedians."

Is featured on the 7th episode of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, "Revisionist History." Particularly the song "Deportees Club" and an alternate version titled "Deportee" from the 1994 Rykodisc reissue.