DIRT BOX NEWS AT 7 REPORTING LIVE FROM NEBRASKA: As you know, before this week because of my "coming soon" moratorium, I had not heard Flowers in over a year and a half. One thing that has surprised me since is that every time hearing "You Want Her Too" I like it less and less! Imo it's problems are threefold: 1. It highlights the worst qualities of Costello's voice. His part is not very melodic and it just sounds like he's spitting and croaking at you the whole time. 2. It doesn't function well as a duet. Costello's part is more of a background player than a duet partner, which just makes point 1 worse--not only are his melody parts lacking, but his half of the lyric is corny as hell 3. It trods the same ground as The Girl is Mine, but doesn't do it nearly as well. People may think the Jackson duet is cheesier, but I think it is a more straightforward and to the point take on this slightly misogynistic songwriting trope. The Girl is Mine at least acknowledges the woman's presence in the situation. Also Micheal and Paul have a direct conversation and competition regarding the girl in question. Elvis and Paul on the other hand are just taking potshots at each other, and the song's purpose gets muddled in the process. Why are the characters even engaging in this song fight at all? The girl isn't even in the room so nothing is even close to solved by the end. In any case, it's just stuck out like a sore thumb to me and I find myself skipping from My Brave Face right to Distractions. I'm honestly wondering what you all think, because I see that most of your alternate FITD track lists still include this clunker (sometimes at the expense of tracks like Put It There and That Day is Done!). Is it just because it's Elvis's token appearance on the final album and so people keep it despite its flaws? Thoughts?
"Predictable and nice" is "You Want Her Too," not "Don't Be Careless Love." Are you guys talking about the same song?
Thanks--it appears that the page for the downloads wasn't available for a bit today. It kept taking me to the main page and to the free downloads. Yep, it was painful.
I don't even know anymore. Yeah, I got mixed up, but my point stands: "Don't Be Careless Love" has the same intro vocal between the 1988 demo and the finished album version. From a quick comparison, so does "That Day Is Done" and "You Want Her Too."
Interesting take...I completely disagree though. I think You Want Her Too is perfect for what it is and is much more melodically daring than The Girl is Mine and I like the sarcastic back and forth. obviously we keep it because we don't think it's a clunker.
Just starting to dig into the DVD. Just two comments: 1. Am I right in saying that this is not only the largest amount of music released on these Archive sets, but it also the largest amount of video released? It really is a great set. With that said.... 2. What in the name of all that is decent, loving, holy, and all that jazz is the Ou Est Le Soleil video?!?! What is it? Why? How? Who? Who thought that talking head Paul in the middle of a 1980's video game was a good idea to promote a single? Add a sombrero and you've got a party party!
I don't think "You Want Her Too" is the greatest song on the album by any means, but a few comments: It's not intended to function as a duet. It was recorded for a McCartney album, and it's intentional that Elvis is given the secondary role of a background singer. I agree with the first point, disagree with the second. Elvis idolizes Randy Newman, and sometimes emulates him by writing songs from the perspective of people who are not admirable or are even despicable. I think there's some of that going on in this song... an awareness that the characters are coming from a somewhat misogynistic perspective, alternately discussing "her" as property and/or blaming her for their own actions while being entirely self-focused in the process. I don't think we're supposed to identify with either character in this song or view either of them positively. I think the ambiguity toward the characters and the general indirectness of the song give it a level of complexity lacked by the simple one-upmanship of "The Girl is Mine." I don't think it matters whether anything is resolved in the song. It's intended as a portrait of two characters and a situation, not a story with a beginning and end. Lyrically, I find it far superior to "Motor of Love" (with its Hallmark card sentiments blended with an extremely clumsy metaphor) or "How Many People" (which sounds like a song from Sesame Street both in terms of its intellectual complexity and simple rhymes).
Yeh, that video is astonishing. I'd only seen it for the first time last year and I didn't even think it had a PV before then. I can see why it wasn't played much. The whole Sombrero ending stuff is terrible/great and I'd love it if someone giffed it. I think this is the most promo videos Paul ever made for one album.
Opnions differ-that's all. You want her to was one of my favourites when the album first arrived -still like it but not as much. The lyrics I find rather funny - would not call them misogynistic-the characters in the song perhaps but they are just characters and the song makes them look rather silly -imo the point of the song and a way of writing lyrics Elvis uses now and then. Musically I think it contains a very good melody with obvious nods to the Beatles. The released version suffer from some overproduction -prefer the stripped down band-demo. I think Elvis snarl here is meant to contrast Paul's more sweet delivery-here in lies some of the problems within the song namely-the Paul-John connection is a bit to obvious(think Getting better)?and that makes the song to much of a pastishe. That was somethingvI enjoyed back in the days but given all the exposure to the Beatles after-beginning with Pauls Flowers tour-it list some of it s charm But I still find it a good song
re: You Want Her Too I've heard Elvis perform this song live with the preface that it was like the cartoons or movies where the character would have an angel over one shoulder and a devil over the other, guiding or tempting the character at a moment of doubt or crisis. He would even switch sides of the microphone while singing the lines. So, instead of hearing it as two people challenging each other ala "The Girl Is Mine", hearing it as a person wrestling with conscience or insecurity made it into a much more interesting song to me.
Does anyone if I have to download everything in one visit or can you do part and then come back latter?
I was contemplating putting together a mixture of the 1987 and 1988 demos to see whether I could make a perfect playlist, but it occurred to me; can you imagine if Paul and Elvis had released both sets of demos as one double album, with an 'acoustic' side and a 'studio' side, similar to what Neil Young did with 'Hey Hey (My My)? I think that it would have been received very well critically, and that it would have sat nicely alongside the 'acoustic rock' albums released by acts like Crowded House, the Wilbury's and Michael Penn in the late 80's.
Thank you. After a tough few months, I have left my job because of problems with the management, so I will be around much more often again (unfortunately for you all ).
Elvis Costello is as good as anybody. But, McCartney is best by himself. I can't believe for a second that this was ever going to be a duet album. This is a real twist for the Archive series. The great album has been made to seem secondary.
Glad to hear it Ben; your posts and thoughts very much of the time mirror my sentiments exactly especially when it comes to Macca. I too am quite busy these days with work and volunteering in my community during my free time (I haven't even had a chance to view the Flowers DVD yet and I've had it since Friday lol) but I lurk and read everything and chime in occasionally. Keep on keeping on!
I am glad to see that you also still make sure to check in on the forum; I always greatly enjoy your contributions, and I very much appreciate your kind words and the nice things that other members have said. It is great that you are doing community work (one of the very few things more important than Paul's music ), good on you. I am pleased that the mood of this thread has improved over the last couple of weeks; I have really enjoyed reading through the many interesting tangents that it has gone on.
I'm not surprised that it ultimately ended up *not* being a duet album, but I think the suggestion that was made earlier in this thread-- that Paul & Elvis could've made an album as a duo that would be close to what CD2 is, and then made a 2nd solo album that would sound more glossy & polished like FITD -- makes a lot of sense in hindsight. I think that would have been a tremendous one-two punch. I also think that the sentence "McCartney is best by himself" falls apart pretty quickly just by mentioning The Beatles. (And NOT counting them feels like a cheat!)
First when posts in this thread declare the 88 band tracks to be unfinished masters rather than demos, that's certainly true. But they aren't that unfinished, in fact many of them are complete enough to be on the album proper as is, with just some mastering tweaks. But there's 9 tunes, you have to discuss each one individually in that regard. Part of the big contrast is just the lushness of the albums production, compared to the sparseness of the 88 band tracks. Yes there's a little missing, but for most artists, time & money constraints give you theoretically unfinished work. Half the albums you hear in life have a theoretical unfinished aspect to them. One could say the first one or two Beatles albums were theoretically unfinished because of the brief time they were allowed to record them. So far as the blanket statement McCartney sounds better without other vocalists or guests. I guess that leaves out the Beatles or one. I like Ringo Start on Beautiful Night from 97. What a great track. I like Costello on you want her too. Saying that song & Don't Be Careless are terrible, I just shake my head.
My time to disagree with you again. I'm not a fan of Ou Est Le Soleil, but I like the video a lot. As someone who grew up playing video games that looked very similar to that, I find it nostalgic and a bit of classic gaming fun. I think the song works a lot better paired with that video than by itself.
I think one thing EC did to help in this case was not his singing as much as his getting McCartney to allow himself to let Beatlesque sounds back into his records. I seem to remember hearing McCartney say something similar, especially when it came to the harmony on the line, "take me to that place." Coincidentally, today I heard the live version of "Yesterday" from Anthology, where at the end Lennon jokes, "Thank you, Ringo, that was wonderful." He knew his friend was capable of getting along just fine solo.
I really only know Elvis from these songs, so he's new to me, but totally get what you're saying haha. That's a cool story. Thanks for sharing!
