Rank Goodbye Cruel World

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 5:46 am

I agree that this is the worst album he could have made with a decent bunch of songs. My go:

1. Inch By Inch
2. The Home Truth
3. Love Field (incredible version with Bill Frisell on Deep Dead Blue)
4. Joe Porterhouse
5. The Deportees Club (the acoustic remake would have been #1 or 2)
6. Only Flame In Town (I actually enjoy this tacky version as well as the video)
7. Worthless Thing (v.g. lyric and tune, but the playing is incredibly stiff, esp. BT's)
8. Room With No Number
9. The Great Unknown
10. The Comedians (silly arrangement of a good song. Orbison's version is fantastic)
11. Peace In Our Time (nice arrangement of weak song)
12. Sour Milk Cow Blues
13. I Wanna Be Loved (My girlfriend who sorta likes EC overheard me listening to this the other day and said "It's because of songs like these I thought I hated soul music for years" which goes for me as well. I've actually felt physically sick listening to this. It was surprisingly good live in Stockholm with the Imposters the other year, though.)

martinfoyle · Post by **martinfoyle** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 6:47 am

I must make up a collection of alternative better versions of these songs e.g. the Ryman Oct 2002 version of I Wanna Be Loved is light years better than the studio version.

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 8:29 am

What, "Hello Cruel World"?

wardo68 · Post by **wardo68** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:42 am

1. Love Field
2. The Deportees Club
3. Worthless Thing
4. The Comedians
5. Home Truth
6. Peace In Our Time
7. Joe Porterhouse
8. The Great Unknown
9. The Only Flame In Town
10. I Wanna Be Loved
11. Inch By Inch
12. Sour Milk Cow Blues
13. Room With No Number

Tough call, this. As with PTC, there are other versions of these songs I much prefer, but rules are rules. This is my ranking of the album versions. There was a time when I enjoyed Only Flame and IWB Loved more, but familiarity has lessened their effect.

John · Post by **John** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:28 pm

8 ok, 5 not keen

1. Worthless Thing
2. Inch By Inch
3. I Wanna Be Loved
4. Peace In Our Time
5. Joe Porterhouse
6. Room With No Number
7. The Comedians
8. The Only Flame In Town

9. The Deportees Club
10. Love Field
11. Home Truth
12. The Great Unknown
13. Sour Milk-Cow Blues (possibly my least favourite Elvis track)

Branst · Post by **Branst** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 3:37 pm

01. Worthless Thing
02. Inch By Inch
03. The Great Unknown
04. Room With No Number
05. Love Field
06. Joe Porterhouse
07. Peace In Our Time
08. Sour Milk Cow Blues
09. Home Truth
10. The Only Flame In Town
11. I Wanna Be Loved
12. The Comedians
13. The Deportees Club

Chrille · Post by **Chrille** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:02 pm

A mediocre album, but definetley better than Spike (my least favourite E.C album so far)

1. Love Field
2. I Wanna Be Loved
3. Peace In Our Time
4. Inch By Inch
5. The Deportees Club
6. The Comedians
7. Home Truth
8. Sour Milk-Cow Blues
9. The Only Flame In Town
10. Room With No Number
11. Worthless Thing
12. The Great Unknown
13. Joe Porterhouse

invisible Pole · Post by **invisible Pole** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 6:01 pm

As the demos/alternate takes show this could have been quite a good album...
My ranking is based on the album versions.

01. Worthless Thing (this has always been my favourite track from GCW)
02. Peace In Our Time
03. Home Truth
04. The Great Unknown
05. Inch By Inch
06. Love Field
07. The Comedians
08. The Only Flame In Town
09. I Wanna Be Loved
10. Room With No Number
11. Joe Porterhouse
12. Sour Milk Cow Blues
13. The Deportees Club

Copenhagen Fan · Post by **Copenhagen Fan** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 3:59 am

LOVE1. Inch By Inch
2. The Home Truth
3. The Great Unknown
4. Worthless Thing
5. Peace In Our Time

Think are good
6. Room With No Number
7. Love Field
8. The Comedians
9. Joe Porterhouse
10. Only Flame In Town

The worst shit ever made
11. Sour Milk Cow Blues
12. The Deportees Club
13. I Wanna Be Loved

Not as bad as advertised...I like the album.

Fishfinger king · Post by **Fishfinger king** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:16 pm

1. Inch by inch
2. Worthless thing
3. I wanna be loved
4. Joe Porterhouse
5. Love Field
6. The only flame in town
7. Sour milk cow blues
8. Peace in our time
9. Room with no number
10. The deportees club
11. The great unknown
12. The comedians
13. Home truth (I find this too painful and sad to listen to)
Turning the town red, acoustic Deportee would both be top 5, if included.

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:01 am

And no one else wanted to play?

RinghioStarr · Post by **RinghioStarr** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:21 am

1. Home Truth
2. The Only Flame In Town
3. Worthless Thing
4. Love Field
5. Room With No Number
6. The Comedians
7. I Wanna Be Loved
8. The Great Unknown
9. Inch By Inch
10. The Deportees Club
11. Joe Porterhouse
12. Peace In Our Time
13. Sour Milk Cow Blues

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:20 am

Worthless Thing
Peace In Our Time
The Comedians
I Wanna Be Loved
The Deportees Club
Home Truth
The Only Flame In Town
Inch By Inch
Joe Porterhouse
Love Field
Room With No Number
The Great Unknown
Sour Milk-Cow Blues

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:55 pm

I was going to count the score on this today but it turns out five of the songs have the same number of 'votes', so it would be great if anyone else would like to chip in to break the blocks up.

Also, I'd like to wait for the new KoA reissue to arrive before ranking that so I have to break the chronology. Either skipping that for now and head for Blood & Chocolate or going back for a Ten Bloody Liberties parenthesis. Any thoughts?

guidedbyvoices · Post by **guidedbyvoices** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 11:05 pm

I reall can't rank it since the only song I can stand is The Only Flame In Town. However, the bonus disc has some great stuff, especially She Loves The jerk. That was a revelation, and Get Yourself Another Fool made it worth owning.

HolyCoatAndHat · Post by **HolyCoatAndHat** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:13 am

However, the bonus disc has some great stuff, especially She Loves The jerk.

I have the original GBCW, which I seldom listen to, so no bonus disk... Is She Loves The Jerk the John Hiatt song???

invisible Pole · Post by **invisible Pole** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:47 am

Yes, it is, and Elvis does a great rendition of the song, imho.

VonOfterdingen · Post by **VonOfterdingen** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 3:39 am

I'll throw in a rank of GBCW today or tomorrow.

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 6:57 am

oh you great dane you

wardo68 · Post by **wardo68** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:31 am

King Hoarse wrote:I'd like to wait for the new KoA reissue to arrive before ranking that so I have to break the chronology. Either skipping that for now and head for Blood & Chocolate or going back for a Ten Bloody Liberties parenthesis. Any thoughts?

I'm up for a Ten Bloody Liberties ranking.

VonOfterdingen · Post by **VonOfterdingen** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:05 am

This is hard - not ranking the best but ranking the worst

1. Inch By Inch
2. Home Truth
3. Love Field
4. Worthless Thing
5. Peace in our Time
6. The Comedians
7. The Great Unknown
8. The Only Flame in Town
9. Joe Porterhouse
10. Sour Milk-Cow Blues
11. The Deportees Club
12. Room With No Number
13. I Wanna be Loved

My favorite bonusdisc songs are The only flame in town, Young Boy Blues and the version of I Hope You're Happy Now

Unexpected No.4 · Post by **Unexpected No.4** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 2:47 am

1.THE DEPORTEES CLUB
2.INCH BY INCH
3.WORTHLESS THING
4.ONLY FLAME IN TOWN
5.JOE PORTERHOUSE
6.HOME TRUTH
7.ROOM WITHOUT A NUMBER
8.THE GREAT UNKNOWN
9.I WANNA BE LOVED
10.THE COMEDIANS
11.SOUR MILK-COW BLUES
12.LOVE FIELD
13.PEACE IN OUR TIME

Extreme Honey · Post by **Extreme Honey** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 7:20 pm

You know this may be or may not be his weakest album. But I certainly love Inch by Inch and love field (although they would have been good contendors for get happy!!, i don't know why i just see them in there

). I'll say it proudly, this album rocks! It's one of the first Costello albums I picked up and gratefullly listened to back in the day (only a few years ago...

). The best thing about Costello is the page not the guitar. And for some reason, even Costello fans lean towards the Guitar. Which is why Armed Forces and this year's model are so loved and why albums that are beautifully gifted with smart lyrics get tossed aside (MLAR and GCW, for example). I am a true Costello fan, I know his pen is mightier than his guitar. I'd rather read GCW's lyrics than listen to Chealsea (that song bugs me!). Costello will gladly tell you anyday his first 3 and a half albums where meant to sell, not to impress. He will gladly tell you he was thinking about cocaine and heroin instead of Mr. Joe Potterhouse. one day, we'll all listen to GCW and see it for what it's really worth.

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 8:08 pm

The fact that he wanted GCW to sell is the problem. Punch The Clock sold better than Imperial Bedroom, so the same hit producers were used again, despite very different material.

Yes, overall the lyrics are very good here (Sour Milk Cow Blues and Peace In Our Time being two exceptions IMO), but the recorded versions don't do them justice because they tried to make a hit record with heartfelt songs played by a band that on these sessions mostly didn't connect with them.

TYM and AF were surely made with sales in mind too, but everyone was trying for and reached the same goal on those. Some wonderful songs were left out because they didn't fit, but the ones that made the cut don't seem compromised at all. On GCW, several songs were rearranged in a manner that clearly wasn't in line with their original moods and intentions because Elvis didn't have the guts or couldn't afford to make a dark ballad album at that point, which is what the lyrics required.

Elvis writes that he had thought about inviting Richard Thompson and others to play on a more sparse Goodbye Cruel World. If he would have done that instead of using what must have been the Attractions' worst sessions and hindering good producers from doing their job I'm sure I would love the results. Now I don't, I just enjoy it.

PS. Steve's synth sound annoys me a lot here as well as on large chunks of TYM. DS.

DeathWearsABigHat · Post by **DeathWearsABigHat** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 4:51 am

In order to do this I'm ranking the songs themselves rather than their arrangements on GCW, many of which suck bigtime.

1. The Comedians
2. Peace In Our Time
3. Home Truth
4. I Wanna Be Loved
5. The Deportees Club
6. Love Field
7. The Only Flame In Town
8. Inch By Inch
9. Worthless Thing
10. Joe Porterhouse
11. Room With No Number
12. The Great Unknown
13. Sour Milk Cow Blues

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