Otis Westinghouse wrote:The above has made me return to CD2. It's been a while. I bought all the reissues in such rapid succession that I'm not sure I drank all the details in slowly enough, instead I gulped them down and have to go back to remind myself and avoid confusion. My Dark Life is fabulous as ever, but why so much enthusiasm for Almost Ideal Eyes? I don't quite get it. I can't see it fitting the LP proper in mood or style. EC writes:
""Almost Ideal Eyes" is an out-take that should probably have remained part of the album – if only for the bizarre guitar playing in the fade."
I beg to differ. For me it's 200 syllabes per line, frantic into awkwardly slow rhythm switches make it a curio, worthy of CD2, but not a great EC moment, by any means.
The thing that leap out at me as especially enjoyable, and far more pleasurable to listen to, was the cover of Sleeper's 'What Do I Do Now?' which EC makes far more poignant than the original. He writes:
""What do I do now?" is a solo recording of a song by Louise Wener, made in response to her group Sleeper’s participation in the "Four singles in one month" series (see "The other footnote")."
But what was Sleeper's participation? Is it on CD2? I haven't checked all the credits.
Louise Wener is now a novelist (so that was what she did now):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Wener
They did a version of The other end of the Telescope
http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... ess_Beauty