29th March £7.00. From RPM Records in Newcastle. A case of music dragging you to a good place if you're in a bad space. This happened to me today. The record cover stared out at me from the front rack of the best record shop in Newcastle. Beautiful cover! So I bought it.
Elvis Costello makes me think of four things. Armed Forces, and Oliver's Army somehow not getting to Number One in the singles charts where it deserved to be in the late Seventies. Seeing him in W.H.Smiths in Richmond in the early eighties wearing an enormous hat which virtually said 'Look at me I'm Elvis Costello'. Being bitten on the neck on the dancefloor in a Moscow hotel by the sister of Cait O'Riordan, (Pogue bassist who married Costello) during a college trip in 1983. My mate Rod, the biggest Costello fan I've ever known, buying and playing this record in my first year at university.
The album of course is just great!
Can you believe (of course you can) that this was only one of the albums he put out in 1986. What a run of albums he had from 1977 until 1986, almost uninterrupted. This album makes me think especially of our first year in college and being almost in love with one particular person, mostly because they also loved this record. We wrote letters about it back and forth over the break. Memories.
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