Daily Prompt | The Gad About Town

‘I Want to Vanish’

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Mark Aldrich

The original concept for All This Useless Beauty, the 1996 album from Elvis Costello & The Attractions, was to have that band record songs that Costello sold to other performers: to have Elvis Costello “cover” Elvis Costello songs that audiences first heard performed by other artists.

Because Paul McCartney never recorded “Shallow Grave,” and Johnny Cash never recorded “Complicated Shadows,” and Sam Moore had not recorded “Why Can’t a Man Stand Alone,” the concept never left its life as an idea and Costello became the first to record and release several of his songs. He “covers” his own songs.
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A Range of Emotions, All of Them Good

Posted on December 3, 2016 by Mark Aldrich

My girlfriend says it is like watching a kid in a candy store when we visit a book store. I suddenly appear to have multiple arms, like a Hindu deity, and my stride becomes a purposeful lurch.

Any purpose to my stride can be attributed to my knowing that she is not much of a fan of shopping at all, and less of a fan of browsing, of idling, of whiling away the hours, of fantasizing about future possessions, of wasting time! in a store whose shelves are taller than six feet and could crush us. I, on the other hand, experience a range of emotions, a panoply of feelings, all of them having to do with enjoying life, in a bookstore.
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