Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

Pretty self-explanatory
sweetest punch
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

Post by sweetest punch »

Advance copies are already out and someone at the Steve Hoffman Forum has heard one: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/p ... 8/page-470

About disc 3 ( the 1988 demos): the arrangements of the songs are more worked out, but not as elaborated as on the released album. And Paul sings lead on these songs, except for "You Want Her Too", wich is a duet.

Seems there is also a hidden track on disc 2 ( the original demos)
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmusic/a ... 4-20170224

Reissue of Paul McCartney's 'Flowers In the Dirt'

With a month to go until the release of the reissue of Paul McCartney's classic album Flowers In The Dirt (the 10th installment of the Grammy-winning Paul McCartney Archive Collection) - Paul has released some photographs taken by Linda McCartney (with the exception of image 9 - taken by Herman Leonard) during the recording of the album.

The photographs show Paul working with Elvis Costello, who he collaborated with on four of the tracks featured on the album (My Brave Face, You Want Her Too, Don't Be Careless Love and That Day Is Done) as well as a shared moment with George Martin, who did the string arrangement for Put It There.

The majority of the album was recorded at Paul's Hog Hill Mill studio in East Sussex. This is also where some of the tracks were written with Elvis Costello.

Recalling working with Elvis, Paul said: "I was looking for someone to work with, trying to think of something imaginative to do and one day my manager said 'do you fancy writing with Elvis Costello? It might be a great thing'. I said 'yeah'. He (Elvis) came down to my studio and we sat opposite each other with our guitars because I had said to him early on that this is how I'd written with John, with me being left handed and him being right handed, it was almost like looking in a mirror. We did virtually what John and I did which was just make up a song a day."

Those who pre-order the album digitally from today will get Instant Grat tracks - previously unreleased original demo versions of My Brave Face and That Day Is Done - both recorded at one of the early writing sessions.

"Because we were working above the studio, we'd just go downstairs and make the record, just the two of us singing exactly what we had made up. So there were a few recordings that haven't been released. We keep saying to each other that they're good because they are raw, it's hot off the skillet'.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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Photos from the Flowers In The Dirt sessions: https://www.paulmccartney.com/?splashRe ... udio-story
Hear audio snippets of "That Day Is Done" and "My Brave Face": https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/flowe ... 1208192791
These two songs are complete on streaming services like Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music,...
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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There is a hidden track: The Lovers That Never Were (Geoff Emerick Mix): http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/p ... 8/page-532
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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https://www.paulmccartney.com/news-blog ... te-release

PAUL McCARTNEY

FLOWERS IN THE DIRT — THE CASSETTE DEMOS WITH ELVIS COSTELLO

RECORD STORE DAY EXCLUSIVE 3-TRACK CASSETTE-ONLY RELEASE

Image

With the Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection edition’s March 24th release date via MPL/Capitol/UMe fast approaching, Paul McCartney has confirmed a very special Record Store Day exclusive.

To commemorate Record Store Day this April 22nd, a limited edition three-song cassette of Paul and Elvis Costello's Flowers In The Dirt demos will be made available at participating RSD stores.

The limited edition cassette-only release will be the first time these recordings - 'I Don’t Want To Confess', 'Shallow Grave' and 'Mistress And Maid'- will be made available in the same form as when Paul and Elvis first cut them directly to tape.

Speaking about these tracks Paul said: “The demos are red hot off the skillet and that’s why we wanted to include them on this boxed set. What’s great about these songs is that they’ve just been written. So there’s nothing more hot off the skillet as I say. So that was the kind of great instant thing about them. I hadn’t listened to them in ages but when I did I knew we had to put them out. We made a little tape of them and sent them to Elvis, who loved them too. We said we should put out an EP or something and now the moment’s finally arrived.”

See below for a sneak peek at the cassette demo experience...



The demos will be made available digitally only as part of the Deluxe Edition when Flowers In The Dirt is released as the 10th installment in the multiple-GRAMMY-winning Paul McCartney Archive Collection.

The Paul McCartney Archive Collection release of Flowers In The Dirt was, as always, personally curated and overseen by Paul himself.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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Making room on this shelf....

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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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There's a review of the collection in this month's Q magazine, which I haven't had a chance to read yet. No doubt my wisers will post it.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertai ... ecf34f7389

Image
Costello and McCartney at Hog Hill Mill in 1988. (Linda McCartney/Copyright 1998 Paul McCartney)

Interesting excerpt:

In 1988, Costello and McCartney returned to the studio. The idea is that Costello would co-produce the new record. As they worked, they realized they had different ideas. One day, they were talking about “That Day is Done,” a gospel-inspired ballad. Costello wanted to use New Orleans brass. McCartney referenced the Human League. Costello left the studio to calm himself down.

McCartney: This is one of the rules of my game. I will say stuff, any idea that comes into my head. And if you don’t like it, you just tell me and I’ll probably agree. But my method is to throw out a lot of stuff and whittle it down. [Pause.] Actually, he was really not a fan of the Human League. I like “Don’t You Want Me.” [Hums the chorus.] I think that’s, like, a classic pop record. . . . I can now see now that me even mentioning the words Human League would send him off in the wrong direction.

The final studio recording of “That Day is Done,” on “Flowers,” was actually true to Costello’s original idea.

Costello: I think I was just overly sensitive, to be honest, because I did feel so attached to the lyrics.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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This 'Musician' feature from 1990 is interesting in that it gives an account of the Elvis/Macca collaboration just after it started.

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... ,_May_1990

(extracts)

Paul -

Costello's influence is still apparent, though, particularly in "That Day Is Done," the song from which the album draws its title. That tune takes the album's maturity to its logical conclusion — the grave. In the tradition of country songs like "Long Black Veil," "That Day Is Done" is sung by a ghost to the young woman crying over his resting place as "she sprinkles flowers in the dirt." "I must give Elvis a lot of credit for 'That Day Is Done,'" McCartney says. "His grandmother was dying in Ireland and a lot of this 'Long Black Coat'-ness came from that fact. We wrote it together, but I must give him a lot of credit for that. I'm well into it, I really enjoyed making the record. My elderly housekeeper Rose, who wouldn't like me to tell her age, heard it and she said to Linda, 'Is that him, Lin? No! Is that him?' She was totally into it. For hours she wouldn't believe it was me!"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elvis -

I remember one review said, "It's very hard to imagine any Paul McCartney song opening, 'I feel such sorrow, I feel such shame.'" Obviously the lyrical root of that song started with me. But it would have been a very plain, probably not very memorable gospel song if there hadn't been a strong chorus on it, which is what Paul said immediately: "It's got to have a chorus!" I was quite happy for it to have the detail of the verses and pay it off with just the title line, but he said, "No, you've got to develop that title line and repeat it musically. Then you end up with a song of more substance."

Before that it would have followed much more of a stock blueprint. Which I've done sometimes. On many songs on King of America I was writing after the patterns of a gospel or blues or country song. And it would only be the lyrics that would be unique to me. The melodies would be almost found. He doesn't do that. He would start with that and then add a melodic invention on top of it. Which is what the chorus of "That Day Is Done" is.
"That Day Is Done" was quite a personal story to me. I think that was a real test of whether we could really write together. Heaven knows we both know enough about songwriting that if we couldn't write a couple of things as good as "My Brave Face" and "Veronica" there'd really be something the matter. The real test was to write something with real feeling. That wasn't just plucked out of the air as an exercise in "What kind of tempo shall we work on today?" or "Should we go for a lot of shifts between major and minor?" I had a very strong idea about what the song should say, but I hadn't all the words. I just had the very opening of the song. Everything else was developed together and yet it remained true to the sentiment of a personal story about my not being able to attend a funeral. Whether it means something different to Paul when he sings it is the test of whether it's a good song. It should be possible to sing it with an entirely different emphasis and meaning and still make it work.

I had the story but I hadn't articulated it. So Paul and I sat and wrote down certain words that seemed to fit the mood of the song. Which is not a very regular way of writing lyrics. There were certain words that seemed to resonate within that song. I think it's something Robbie Robertson did early on. There were certain words that you could not imagine existing in his songs. It was almost as if he had a deliberately edited vocabulary. Not in the sense of being inarticulate, but in a sense of his trying to define a certain way of speaking to make it sound like it was coming from another time. That was an influence on the way we approached "That Day Is Done." We said, "It's got to be in this slightly arcane language." That's the way the rest of the lyric developed. I wanted it to have something of a Louvin Brothers Appalachian ballad about. Slightly mystical songs with very dark imagery.
So I knew roughly what I wanted the song to say but it took two people to get it out. It was a very personal topic and it actually helped having another person to articulate it.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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Review of the Costello/McCartney songs: http://wogew.blogspot.be/2017/03/flower ... e.html?m=1
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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Long interview with producers Trevor Horn, Steve Lipson, Mitchell Froom, and Chris Hughes about Flowers in the Dirt:
http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/inter ... -the-dirt/
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

Post by bronxapostle »

did everyone who cares see....the 2 cd version at BEST BUY comes with a 7" 45 of MY BRAVE FACE! or you have to acquire it afterwards somehow? THIS release is surely confusing on so many levels. i think i want the 2 LP version which looks EXACT to the 2 cd version. disc two ENTIRELY ELVIS!!! then, i will hope for the acquisition of any extraneous tracks from a friend who does go full throttle. or you know what...WHAT I DO NOT GET I SHALL NOT MISS! :lol: i would like the RSD cassette, nonetheless.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/mu ... -the-dirt/


How Elvis Costello Helped Paul McCartney Get His Mojo Back

Costello recalls collaborating with the former Beatle in 1987—songs that are newly released on a reissue of McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt.

BY JEFF SLATE
MAR 22, 2017

Elvis Costello is a very good foil for me," Paul McCartney told Q magazine's Paul Du Noyer in 1989 of the fellow Liverpudlian he'd teamed up with to write some songs with for his then-latest album, adding that Costello was opinionated, narrow-minded and full of himself. "But I like that in a guy!"

When the news had broken the previous year that the former Beatle and the enfant terrible of New Wave were collaborating, it was mooted that the two were recording an entire album together. After a rough 1980s—which saw a pot bust in Japan, the break-up of Wings, the assassination of John Lennon, a failed venture into filmmaking, a floundering recording career, public and private squabbling with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and Michael Jackson buying the rights to his beloved Beatles songbook out from under him—McCartney was hell bent on reclaiming his crown as the preeminent elder statesman of rock. And after an increasingly fractious relationship with his band and label, Costello was charting a new course as a solo artist. For fans of either artist, the pairing seemed a match made in heaven.

But the rumored album never happened, and the songs McCartney and Costello penned together ended up trickling out: four on McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt and two on its follow-up Off the Ground, two apiece on Costello's Spike and Mighty Like a Rose, and another on his final album with the Attractions, All This Useless Beauty, taking much of the steam out of the dream pairing.


But this week's reissue of McCartney's 1989 return-to-form Flowers in the Dirt, in pricey but spectacular deluxe and expanded form, includes a bonus disc of acoustic demos of nine songs by the pair, another disc of fully realized studio recordings amounting to the album that never was, and bonus downloads of an additional track, plus three rough and ready cassette recordings made in 1987—which will also be released for Record Store Day as a three-song cassette—in essence rewrites history.

"As to whether a record should come out, it has," Costello tells me, in his first ever in-depth interview about his songwriting partnership with McCartney. "This is it."

Costello explains why it took so long for these recordings to surface.

There was never a plan written with indelible ink. We went from writing the songs to recording sessions with Paul's newly assembled band. There was a rough and ready approach that was obviously not the way Paul ended up hearing that record.


I know I didn't want us to be staring at a blank sheet of paper, so I came prepared. We were quickly at ease: two guitars, a notepad, my hardbound, blank lyric book, a cassette recorder on the coffee table between us. I barely had time to take in [Elvis Presley's bass player] Bill Black's original upright bass propped in the corner of the room.

Not to mention their first recording sessions…

There wasn't really a "first session," in the sense that Paul just said, "Let's record this downstairs" after we'd finished one or other of the songs. Handy to have a 24-track studio on the ground floor. Before I'd had chance to think about it, we'd cut a couple of things. I think that's why they sound the way they do. You can hear a lot of laughter in the voices and a decent bit of one-upmanship: "You're going to sing like that? OK, I'm going to sing like this."

Even he recognizes that the original acoustic demos the pair recorded sound somewhat like the Beatles.

That's just what happened when we started singing. I naturally harmonize below Paul for the most part and learned two-part singing from listening to the Beatles, but it wasn't a conscious decision. I can understand Paul's wish not to be seen repeating himself, but as he's said since, if he can't reference a certain kind of harmony or cadence, who can?

Dividing up the songs just sort of…happened.

Once the first four songs appeared on Flowers in the Dirt, and "Veronica" and "My Brave Face" had been U.S. singles, I asked Paul if he minded if I cut "So Like Candy." It's a song that would have suited either of us, but I got back in the studio first. But I love the version of "So Like Candy" that we did with just the two of us. I think it beats either of our studio cuts.



Yes, you really can forget being in a home movie with Paul McCartney.


You'd think that you'd remember being in a home movie with Paul McCartney, but I had no memory of that footage (of Costello and McCartney working in the studio that's included in the Flowers box set) being taken. You can see we were larking around a lot, trying out sounds.


Recalling what happened to the two stand-out tracks that neither McCartney nor Costello ever chose to record, but that are highlights of the new box set.

"Tommy's Coming Home" is really a two-part harmony song. We just never got round to cutting it that way. I'd completely forgotten about the slower version of "Twenty Fine Fingers" that is seen in the video with the band (and included on the disc of studio recordings). It was a knockout tune that Paul and I wrote quickly after a couple of the more intense ballads.

Costello has favorite songs he wrote with McCartney, just like any other fan.

The most emotional song for me was "That Day Is Done." Like "Veronica," it was about something very specific—my maternal grandmother's last years and passing—but while I'd already arrived at the notion of writing a bright, hopeful tune about the horrors of dementia, "That Day Is Done" just came tumbling out in a lot of dense images that were very vivid and real to me, but perhaps not so comprehensible to the listener. Paul did something very subtle but crucial in making that song pay off to a big, plain spoken chorus, after I'd piled up all of these lines in the verses, including the one that yielded the album's title.


My favorite performance is Paul's vocal on the demo of "The Lovers That Never Where." I don't think you'd have the same impression of the song from the studio recording that eventually came out on "Off the Ground." I don't know why I ended up playing piano on that, but I remember thinking, "Just don't mess this one up!"

Needless to say, the demo version of "You Want Her Too" is a gas, because even though we were shadowing each other's voices, it was sung more as a conversation than in the final recording. It has a good couple of punch lines.

While Costello won't offer an assessment of his work with McCartney, it's clear he knows the songs are pretty great.

That wouldn't be for me to say. I think there are a couple of great tunes and some terrific performances, especially among the demos.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

Post by DeathWearsABigHat »

So there's the 9 tracks that are on Disc 2 of the Flowers in the Dirt re-issue + the 3 tracks that are only in the mega-pricy deluxe edition (and the RSD cassette).
Does anyone know if there are any other Costello / McCartney demo recordings that have ever surfaced?
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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Listening to the McCartney/Costello demos on my walk today - so unusual to hear Macca so hesitant & unpolished, kind of endearing. Elvis is nearly word perfect. It says a lot about both of their approaches to the project. Elvis gave it his usual full attention , Macca was just tinkering with it, taking what he wanted out of it. As was his right , even if it ended up making it way blander.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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Any comments on this release yet?
Is "I Don't Want To Confess" good or great?
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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sweetest punch wrote:Any comments on this release yet?
Is "I Don't Want To Confess" good or great?
I'd say good but not great. "Shallow Grave" is my favorite of the three cassette demos. I don't know if "Mistress and Maid" was poorly recorded or the tape was damaged, but it doesn't sound nearly as good as the other two.
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

Post by And No Coffee Table »

The "Paul and Elvis" segment on the DVD is great. It's 21 minutes of studio footage of work on "My Brave Face," "Twenty Fine Fingers," and "Tommy's Coming Home."
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

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Behind the Songs: Paul McCartney Shares Intimate Memories of Recording Flowers in the Dirt

“My Brave Face”

“I remember meeting up with Elvis and thinking, ‘Can we hit it off writing together?’ But we did, we enjoyed our time together. ‘My Brave Face’ was one of the early things we did, and it became a single. I felt that Elvis was pulling it in a little bit of a Beatle-y way—a Beatle-ist direction—but it was fine by me. And then I remember the video was quite crazy: some guy trying to steal my Hofner bass.”


“You Want Her Too”

“That was from the Elvis batch. He’s a great guy to work with, very focused. When you’re working with someone—instead of just sitting around and thinking, ‘Oh, what are we going to do?’—it’s nice when someone comes up with something and you get a kickstart. Elvis was good at that. He would come up and we’d talk stories about his Auntie Irene and various relatives of his and mine growing up in Liverpool. This song came out of that. It’s got sort of a sea-shanty feel. We didn’t take long to write them, they just kind of fell out.”

The only duet on the album, Costello echoes McCartney’s lyrics with acidic barbs.

“That’s a good old trick. We both love the art of songwriting, we’re still intrigued by it. Little things like having a cynical answer to a line—that’s the kind of thing I did a long time ago, like in [the 1967 Beatles song] ‘Getting Better’ where I sing, ‘It’s getting better all the time,’ and John sings, ‘It couldn’t get much worse.’ Otherwise you’re just writing a song straightforward. That’s good too, but it’s kind of nice to have little things that bounce off each other, that yin-yang thing.”


“That Day Is Done”

“Elvis was talking about a relative one day. We’d have some great conversations: ‘My god, this crazy old uncle of mine…’ ‘Well, there’s this crazy old uncle I’ve got who did this…’ I think this song originally came from Elvis telling the story of the funeral of his aunt [Costello writes in his 2015 memoir that it was his grandmother] and the effect it had on him. He had the idea on that one—so it was my pleasure to just go along and help write the song with him.”
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

Post by johnfoyle »

From a friend who got the Flowers In The Dirt box , this item in the package. Elvis writes to Paul, while in Dublin in 1987 when Cait is filming The Courier and Elvis is composing the soundtrack for the film.

Image

Image


See The Courier -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPgOHJ3nDcg
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Re: Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt Archive Collection

Post by sulky lad »

Can't imagine ( I meant that - geddit ?! :oops: ) John Lennon writing such a needy letter to Paul somehow !!!
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