Warren Zevon “Werewolves of London” charted

Werewolves of London Warren Zevon

Writer(s): LeRoy Marinell, Waddy Wachtel, Warren Zevon (see lyrics here) Released: January 18, 1978 First Charted: March 24, 1978 Peak: 21 US, 15 CB, 11 GR, 17 HR, 14 RR, 2 CL, 4 CO, 87 UK, 18 CN, 8 AU, 2 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 19.7 video, 105.23 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Rock singer/songwriter and musician Warren Zevon was born in Chicago in 1947. He worked as a session musician and jingle composer before recording his first solo album (Wanted Dead or Alive, 1970). After it flopped, he worked as a touring musician with the Everly Brothers. He finally found success when Linda Ronstadt covered several of his songs including “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” and “Hasten Down the Wind.” His third album, 1978’s Excitable Boy, benefited from the attention, reaching the top 10 and going platinum. It spawned the most recognizable songs of his career with the title cut, “Lawyers, Guns, and Money,” “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” and “Werewolves of London.” The latter was his only top 40 hit. It started as a joke by Phil Everly in 1975. He saw a television broadcast of the 1935 film Werewolf of London and suggested Zevon adapt the title into a song and dance craze. Zevon wrote a song in about fifteen minutes with LeRoy Marinell and Waddy Wachtel, but none of them took the song seriously. However, when Zevon’s friend Jackson Browne saw the lyrics, he thought it had potential and started playing “Werewolves of London” at his own shows. T-Bone Burnett also performed it during Bob Dylan’s 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour. WK Browne’s record company pushed for him to record the song, but he refused. However, he produced Zevon’s self-titled album in 1976 and Excitable Boy in 1978. While they opted not to put it on the 1976 album (Browne wanted to get some of Zevon’s more experimental work out there first), they did record it for Boy. The recording featured Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass. The record company chose it as the lead single for the Excitable Boy album, although Zevon thought it was more of a novelty song and preferred “Johnny Strikes Up the Band” or “Tenderness on the Block.” WK Kid Rock sampled the song for his hit “All Summer Long.” Resources: SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 2/3/2023.

3/23/1978: Genesis And Then There Were Three…

And Then There Were Three… Genesis

Released: March 23, 1978 Peak: 14 US, 3 UK, 11 CN, 12 AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.1 UK, 5.5 world (includes US + UK), 7.54 EAS Genre: progressive rock/classic rock

Tracks: Down and Out [5:28] Undertow [4:47] Ballad of Big [4:51] Snowbound [4:31] Burning Rope [7:31] Deep in the Motherlode [5:16] Many Too Many [3:32] (6/23/78, 42 CL, 43 UK) Scenes from a Night’s Dream [3:30] Say It’s Alright Joe [4:21] The Lady Lies [6:08] Follow You, Follow Me [4:01] (2/24/78, 23 US, 22 CB, 27 HR, 21 AC, 4 CL, 7 UK, 25 CN, 16 AU, 10 DF) Total Running Time: 53:35 The Players: Phil Collins (vocals, drums, percussion) Mike Rutherford (guitar, bass, backing vocals) Tony Banks (keyboards, backing vocals)

Rating: 3.457 out of 5.00 (average of 16 ratings)

About the Album On the eve of the band’s release of live album Seconds Out, Steve Hackett announced his departure from the band. Genesis used Daryl Stuermer in concert, but Rutherford stepped up to cover guitar parts in the studio. The trio “released the appropriately titled And Then There Were Three, which abandoned any efforts at progressive rock in favor of a softer pop sound.” BE The album gave them their first full-fledged taste of success in America with a gold album and a top-40 single in “Follow You, Follow Me.” “Adios to Steve Hackett’s lead guitar.” JP The new lineup, now “dwindled down to Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Phil Collins, a situation alluded to in the title,” AM “made its most anthem-laden album, with keyboardist Banks seizing the foreground.” JP “And Then There Were Three, more than either of its immediate predecessors, feels like the beginning of the second phase of Genesis.” AM There are still songs with “high-concept scenarios – one seems to be about a killer snowman – but the music sets aside most of the old digressions in favor of pop discipline.” JP Overall, “the group’s aesthetic was…shifting, moving away from the fantastical, literary landscapes that marked both the early Genesis LPs and the two transitional post-Gabriel outings, as the bandmembers turned their lyrical references to contemporary concerns and slowly worked pop into the mix” AM and making sure “the songs stay grounded in melody.” JP Never is the new pop sound more apparent than on Follow You, Follow Me. It gave Genesis “its first U.S. hit, even if old fans started to feel betrayed.” JP “Its calm, insistent melody, layered with harmonies, is a perfect soft rock hook, although there’s a glassy, almost eerie quality to the production that is also heard throughout the rest of the record.” AM “These chilly surfaces are an indication that Genesis don’t quite want to abandon prog at this point, but the increasing emphasis on melody and tight song structures points the way toward the group’s ‘80s work.” AM Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine JP Jon Pareles, Blender magazine (10/07). Pages 118-9. Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/3/2010; last updated 9/14/2025.

Bob Marley & The Wailers released Kaya

Kaya Bob Marley & the Wailers

Released: March 23, 1978 Peak: 50 US, 50 RB, 4 UK, 5 AU Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, 0.1 UK, 4.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: reggae

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Easy Skanking Kaya (2/71, --) Is This Love (2/25/78, 9 UK) Sun Is Shining Satisfy My Soul (5/78, 21 UK) She’s Gone Misty Morning Crisis Running Away Time Will Tell Total Running Time: 36:59 The Players: Bob Marley (vocals, guitar) Aston “Family Man” Barrett (bass) Carlton “Carlie” Barrett (drums, percussion) Tyrone Downie (keyboards) Alvin “Seeco” Patterson (percussion) Junior Marvin (electric guitar) Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt, Griffiths (backing vocals) Vincent Gordon (trombone) Glen Da Costa (trumpet) Winston Grennan (drums)

Rating: 3.454 out of 5.00 (average of 20 ratings)

About the Album: “Kaya continues what has become an unspoken tradition in the evolution of Bob Marley & the Wailers discography — blending western sounds and motifs with the icons and traditions from the very core of Jamaican society. In fact, the very word ‘kaya’ is synonymous with marijuana in Rastafarian culture. Likewise, the album Kaya could be easily construed as an open love letter or musical paean to the lifestyle that Marley so eagerly embraced and promoted.” AMG “Themes of commonality and unity pervade this release more so than previous albums. Likewise, the overt political stances that had become somewhat of a moniker for Marley and the Wailers are temporarily replaced by timeless compositions, such as the eternally optimistic Easy Skanking and Is This Love.” AMG “Marley had not — as some proclaimed — gone soft, however. The light, at times practically giddy, rhythms on Satisfy My Soul contrast the darker brooding sonic and lyrical images on Running Away.” AMG “The most pressings issues Marley deals with concern ever-increasing spiritual consciousness. Throughout Kaya, humble thanks is offered to, as well as guidance sought from, Jah — evidence that the spirituality that permeates the Wailers music is real and not lip service. Kaya could be considered the oasis before the political and personal eruptions that would inform and influence Marley and the Wailers next studio releases Survival and Uprising.” AMG Notes: “Kaya” and “Sun Is Shining” were first featured on Soul Revolution; “Satisfy My Soul” had also been previously recorded, but not featured on album. The 2001 "Definitive Remasters" edition of Kaya also includes "Smile Jamaica." Although initially issued as the flip side of "Satisfy My Soul," the song was recorded more than a year prior to this album.

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Bob Marley AMG All Music Guide review by Lindsay Planer First posted 3/26/2008; last updated 5/10/2021.

Bee Gees hit #1 with “Night Fever”

Night Fever Bee Gees

Writer(s): Barry Gibb, Maurice Gibb, Robin Gibb (see lyrics here) First Charted: February 3, 1978 Peak: 18 US, 18 CB, 17 GR, 18HR, 16 RR, 19 AC, 8 RB, 12 UK, 15 CN, 7 AU, 6 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 2.5 US, 0.5 UK, 3.15 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 168.1 video, 219.85 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love” was the first single from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and “Stayin’ Alive” is the one which endured to become the most iconic, but “Night Fever” was the biggest hit at the time. In the U.S., the first two spent a combined 7 weeks atop the chart, but “Night Fever” stayed there for a whopping 8 weeks. It was the biggest #1 of the year. Saturday Night Fever was such a juggernaut that “Night Fever” was knocked from its perch by yet another of the soundtrack’s songs – Yvonne Elliman’s “If I Can’t Have You.” The three Gibb brothers in the Bee Gees shared writing credits on all four #1 songs. Barry Gibb, however, also co-wrote “Love Is Thicker Than Water,” the song for his brother Andy that held the #1 slot between “Stayin’ Alive” and “Night Fever.” It meant that for the week ending April 1, 1978, Barry Gibb had a writing credit on five of the top 10 songs and four consecutive #1 songs. The song contributed to the name of the movie. Robert Stigwood, who produced the movie and the Bee Gees, was developing a film about the disco scene in the Big Apple. He was inspired by the article “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” in New York magazine about teens going to dance competitions. With the working title of Saturday Night, the movie’s star, John Travolta, rehearsed his dancing moves to the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing,” SF a #1 from 1976. Stigwood reached out to the Bees in hopes that they might contribute some new songs. He asked the group to write a song with that title, but they balked, thinking it was a dumb title. SF They did, however, already have a song called “Night Fever” and convinced Stigwood to use it and call the movie Saturday Night Fever. WK The final soundtrack featured five #1 songs by the Bee Gees – “Night Fever,” “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep Is Your Love,” the aforementioned “You Should Be Dancing,” and “Jive Talkin’” from 1975. Resources: SF Songfacts TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Pages 172-3. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 10/23/2020; last updated 4/12/2023.

Billy Joel “Movin’ Out” charted

Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) Billy Joel

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Big Star Third/Sister Lovers released

Third/Sister Lovers Big Star

Released: March 18, 1978 Recorded: Fall 1974 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Kizza Me (1978, --) Thank You Friends Big Black Car Jesus Christ (1978, --) Femme Fatale O, Dana Holocaust Kangaroo Stroke It Noel For You You Can’t Have Me Nightime Blue Moon Take Care Total Running Time: 41:42 The Players: Alex Chilton (vocals, guitar, keyboards) Jody Stephens (drums, vocals)

Rating: 4.117 out of 5.00 (average of 21 ratings) Quotable: “Perhaps the most innovative album the group ever recorded, and influenced many subsequent bands.” – Wikipedia Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers ranks among the most harrowing experiences in pop music; impassioned, erratic, and stark, it’s the slow, sinking sound of” JA “a band ready to implode any second.” PK “After the first two Big Star albums, 1972’s #1 Record and 1974’s Radio City, failed to achieve commercial success, Alex Chilton went back into Ardent Studios in late 1974 to make a series of recordings.” WK “Recorded with their label, Stax, poised on the verge of bankruptcy” JA the result was “a shambling wreck of an album.” JA This is “essentially a solo album from the messed up and somewhat deranged Chilton.” PK He’s “at the end of his rope, sabotaging his own music long before it can ever reach the wrecking crew of poor distribution, indifferent marketing, and disinterested pop radio.” JA It makes for “one of the most vividly emotional experiences in pop music or a completely wasted opportunity.” JA “His songs are haphazardly brilliant, a head-on collision between inspiration and frustration.” JA “Most of the pop hooks were traded in for a brooding, chaotic sound…Raw emotional stuff, but unforgettable.” PK The album is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, each song smacking of utter defeat and desperation.” JA Indeed, it“was deemed too uncommercial for release at the time, and only saw the light of day in 1978.” WK “There’s no denying Third’s magnetic pull – it’s like an undertow.” JA The album “takes the original Big Star sound and abstracts it, with synthesizers, strings and saxophones emerging from the mix.” WK It “included guitar work by Steve Cropper (on a cover of The Velvet Underground’s Femme Fatale).” WK While it “deals with bitterness, loneliness and emotional devastation, but does so in a way that retains some elements of pop music, as on Thank You Friends, which features female backing vocals reminiscent of those found on Elvis Presley recordings of the late ‘60s. Kangaroo and Holocaust have often been compared to some of the raw recordings of Yoko Ono and John Lennon. You Can’t Have Me is akin to a deconstructed song by the Who, and the halting ballad Dream Lover contains the famous line about ‘Beale Street green.’” WK “Although many critics regard Radio City as the definitive Big Star album, Third is perhaps the most innovative album the group ever recorded, and influenced many subsequent bands, including Primal Scream and His Name Is Alive. In addition, the album contains what are arguably Alex Chilton’s finest vocal performances.” WK “Although previously issued on a variety of different labels, Rykodisc’s 1992 release is the initially definitive edition of this unfinished masterpiece, its 19 tracks most closely approximating the original planned running order while restoring the music’s intended impact; in addition to unearthing a blistering cover of the Kinks’ Till the End of the Day and a haunting rendition of Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy, it also appends the disturbing Dream Lover, which distills the album’s messiest themes into less than four minutes of psychic torment.” JA Notes: The 1992 Rykodisc reissue adds five bonus tracks: “Nature Boy,” “Till the End of the Day,” “Dream Lover,” “Downs,” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Big Star JA Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide PK Pop Kulcher/Marc Fagel Greatest Rock & Roll Albums of All Time WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/28/2010; last updated 6/7/2024.

Elvis Costello released second album, This Year's Model, with the Attractions

This Year’s Model Elvis Costello

Released: March 17, 1978 Peak: 30 US, 4 UK, 26 CN, 21 AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, 0.1 UK, 0.6 world (includes US + UK) Genre: new wave

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. No Action This Year’s Girl The Beat Pump It Up Little Triggers You Belong to Me Hand in Hand I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea * Lip Service Living in Paradise Lipstick Vogue Night Rally * Radio Radio ** * U.K. version only ** U.S. version only Other Songs from This Era: Big Tears Tiny Steps Stranger in the House (with George Jones) The Players: Elvis Costello (vocals, guitar) Steve Nieve (keyboards) Bruce Thomas (bass) Pete Thomas (drums)

Rating: 4.428 out of 5.00 (average of 27 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

From Clovers to Attractions On his debut album, My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello employed the San Francisco-based band the Clovers, who worked with Huey Lewis. They gave the album an appropriately pub-band feel, but it took a new lineup – the Attractions – to provide Costello the “perfect creative foils” BL he needed. The Attractions were an “ad hoc band Costello had assembled for a tour.” BL They “were considerably tougher and wilder than Clover.” AM “Keyboard player Steve Nason aka Nieve was a teenage student at the Royal Academy of Music, while bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas were unrelated jobbing musicians. It proved a devastatingly potent combination.” CM When he brought them into the studio, they gave Costello’s second album, This Year’s Model, “a reckless, careening feel. It’s nervous, amphetamine-fueled, nearly paranoid music.” AM The Attractions “sounds like they’re spinning out of control as soon as they crash in on the brief opener, No Action, and they never get completely back on track, even on the slower numbers.” AM “They made a New Wave breakthrough, propelled by the frothing skinny-tie attack of Steve Nieve’s organ.” BL “His use of organ here was the most non-cheezy utilization of that (admittedly often cheezy) instrument since Manzarek’s psych embroideries in the Doors.” JSH He was “the real key to the success…and what made it such a stark contrast betwixt it n’ its predecessor.” JSH This was what New Musical Express’ Nick Kent called “uneasy listening.” CM “Costello and the Attractions never rocked this hard, or this vengefully, ever again.” AM Recording The album was recorded at Eden studios in London RD “in a total of 11 days and was squeezed between constant touring across the UK and the US on a diet of alcohol and speed, while Costello’s marriage was crumbling around him.” CM Costello described the album as “a ghost version of [the Rolling Stones’] Aftermath, the album to which I listened to more than any other at this time.” CM More Punk Than His Debut With My Aim Is True, Costello “was anointed the premier lyricist of whatever-the-hell-was-happening-these-days. He appeared to be a punk rocker the music establishment could understand.” “Where My Aim Is True implied punk rock with its lyrics and stripped-down production, This Year’s Model sounds like punk. Not that Elvis Costello’s songwriting has changed – This Year’s Model is comprised largely of leftovers from My Aim Is True and songs written on the road. It’s the music that changed.” AM “Costello and the Attractions speed through This Year’s Model at a blinding pace, which gives his songs – which were already meaner than the set on My Aim Is True – a nastier edge.” AM The album offers “pumped-up ‘60s sounds from across the spectrum, performances slick and sharp as you like – but it’s all at the service of writing and singing that turn pop music into an acid bath.” MJ Seething Songs “Of course, the songs on This Year’s Model are typically catchy and help the vicious sentiments sink into your skin.” AM “The songs are terse, snarky disembowelments of romantic clichés – Costello described the record as ‘more vicious overall’ than My Aim Is True, which is saying something.” BL “Elvis found his acidic groove. This wasn’t acidic as in Randy Newman acidic or Zappa acidic or even Johnny Rotten acidic…it was more overtly sexual than any of them.” JSH Costello said, “I was rapidly becoming a not very nice person. I was losing track of what I was doing, why I was doing it, and my own control.” CM He said, “the only motivation points for me writing all these songs are revenge and guilt…Love? I dunno know what it means, really, and it doesn’t exist in my songs.” CM “The heart’s ugliness, all the hate and harm, the cruelty and betrayal, are fair game.” RD “Revenge and guilt might scare off other songwriters, but among the anger and disgust Costello finds his truth.” RD Lipstick Vogue , Pump It Up, and I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea are all underscored with sexual menace.” AM There does seem to be a hint o’ misogyny…but it’s of the non-smarmy variety.” JSH Nearly “every track seethes with love unrealized, longing frustrated, decent human qualities twisted by rejection and jealousy. Whether the object of this pent-up humiliation is a distant beauty (This Year’s Girl and I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea) or a former lover…Costello’s relentless consistency of tone enthralls like a snake.” MJ He delivers “venom-dipped darts that he projects at just about everybody—women, managers, other musical contemporaries, and music biz smoothies of every description.” JSH “Even the songs that sound relatively lighthearted – Hand in Hand, Little Triggers, Lip Service, Living in Paradise – are all edgy, thanks to Costello’s breathless vocals, Steve Nieve’s carnival-esque organ riffs, and Nick Lowe’s bare-bones production.” AM Notes “The 1993 CD reissue standardized the sequencing of This Year’s Model on both sides of the Atlantic, restoring the album to its original British running order and adding six bonus tracks. The first three tracks are singles and B-sides, including the classic rant ‘Radio, Radio,’ the organ-driven ‘60s pop of ‘Big Tears,’ and the frenetic ‘Crawling to the USA.’ The remaining three tracks – ‘Running Out of Angels,’ ‘Greenshirt,’ and ‘Big Boys’ — are all demos.” AM On the 2002 double-CD reissue, another seven songs were added – alternate versions of “You Belong to Me,” “Radio Radio,” “This Year’s Girl,” and “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea” as well as the song “Stranger in the House” and the live covers “Neat Neat Neat” and “Roadette Song.” The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

No Action Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 3.21 streaming

This Year’s Girl Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 3/17/1978 (single), This Year’s Model (1978), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 4.27 streaming

The Beat Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 7.82 streaming About the Song: “The choppy ‘The Beat’ sees [Costello] wrestling with the guilt of a meaningless nightclub encounter.” RD

Pump It Up Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 6/10/1978 (single), This Year’s Model (1978), Best of (compilation, 1985), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989), Very Best (compilation, 1994), Best of the First 10 Years (compilation, 2007) Peak: 6 CL, 2 CO, 24 UK, 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 77.77 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: The last song written for This Year’s Model was “the monster beatfest ‘Pump It Up,’ which was cut in one take.” CM It is “a raucous crystallization of Costello’s new sound that’s driven by Steve Nieve’s monotonous organ and Pet Thomas’s snare-heavy backbeat.” TB In true Costello style, the punchy, catchy tune is topped by a barbed lyric about the perils of rock ‘n’ roll decadence, written in late 1977 while he was on tour with Stiff label-mates Ian Dury and the Damned.” TB According to Costello it questions ‘Just how much you can fuck, how many drugs can you do, before you get so numb you can’t really feel anything.’” CM The song’s “woozy stomp reflects the desperate and frantic rush of an evening of ‘assisted insomnia,’ as Costello euphemistically puts it.” RD Bob Dylan said, “It’s the song you sing when you’ve reached the boiling point. Tense and uneasy…The one-two punch, the uppercut, and the wallop.” This song “comes to you with a lowdown dirty look, exaggerates and amplifies itself until you can flesh it out and it suits your mood.” BD “Most of Costello’s singles, ‘Pump It Up,’ included, were not issued in the U.S.” TB but this has still become one of “the best-loved of his early new-wave hits.” TB It also says something about Costello’s appeal that despite the lack of success for singles in the U.S., “their parent albums invariably reached the Billboard Top 30 – no mean feat for such an idiosyncratically British artist.” TB

Little Triggers Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.42 streaming

You Belong to Me Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 3/3/1978 (B-side of “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea”), This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.42 streaming

Hand in Hand Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.20 streaming

I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 3/3/1978 (single), This Year’s Model (UK version, 1978), Taking Liberties (archives, 1980), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989), Very Best (compilation, 1994), Best of the First 10 Years (compilation, 2007) Peak: 27 CL, 10 CO, 16 UK, 22 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 10.52 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The icily staccato ‘I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea’ sees Costello tearing into self-indulgent posers.” RD It is “a miraculous mash of high fashion, low life, lunacy and lechery – just like Chelsea itself.” DT Costelo said the song “originally used the same stop-start guitar figure as the Who’s ‘I Can’t Explain (or for that matter the Clash’s ‘Clash City Rockers). Bruce and Pete came up with a more syncopated rhythm pattern and Steve found a part that sounded like sirens.” CM “Pete Thomas pounded up a storm on ‘Chelsea’ with its spastic reggae and staccato guitar as Costello spat out lyrics like ‘They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie’ – a putdown worthy of Dylan.” CM

Lip Service Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.41 streaming

Living in Paradise Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.24 streaming

Lipstick Vogue Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989) Peak: 13 CO Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 2.13 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The raging ‘Lipstick Vogue’ is hypnotic, as Pete Thomas’ athletic drumming shakes the whole song like a voodoo maraca.” RD

Night Rally Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (UK version, 1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.92 streaming About the Song: “The anti-Nazi Night Rally” MJ “touches on a bizarre fascination with fascism that would blossom on his next album, Armed Forces.” AM

Radio Radio Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 10/20/1978 (single), This Year’s Model (U.S. version, 1978), Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers? (archives, 1980), Best of (compilation, 1985), Very Best (compilation, 1994), Best of the First 10 Years (compilation, 2007) Peak: 7 CL, 1 CO, 29 UK, 10 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 17.98 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “On the cusp of global stardom, Elvis Costello wrote a song attacking mainstream radio, announcing, ‘I want to bite the hand that feeds me.’ It was perhaps his finest moment.” TC It is “one of the most dismissive songs ever written about what was, in the pre-MTV era, the single most important marketing tool any artist could have – and an especially effective one as well, given the medium’s propensity for playing any song that mentioned its name in the chorus.” DT The song was originally titled “Radio Soul” and “was a sentimental celebration of late-night broadcasts.” TC “Music and the radio were subjects dear to his heart.” TC He said, “People used to live their lives by songs…They were like calendars or diaries. And they were pop songs. Not elaborate fucking pieces of music…That’s why I like and write short songs. It’s a discipline. There’s no disguise. You can’t cover up songs like that by dragging banks of fucking synthesizers and choirs of angels. They have to stand up on their own.” TC

Big Tears Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 6/10/1978 (B-side of “Pump It Up”), Taking Liberties (archives, 1980), Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers? (archives, 1980), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989) Peak: 39 CO Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.64 streaming

Tiny Steps Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 10/20/1978 (B-side of “Radio Radio”), Taking Liberties (archives, 1980), Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers? (archives, 1980), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989) Peak: 39 CO Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.32 streaming

Stranger in the House Elvis Costello & George Jones

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Recorded: July 18, 1978 Released: Taking Liberties (archives, 1980), Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers? (archives, 1980) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.27 streaming

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine JSH Blastitude (2003). “A Loaded Proposition: Joe S. Harrington Picks the All-Time Top 100 Or…Who Pulled the Trigger?” by Joe S. Harrington BL Blender magazine (March 2005). By Douglas Wolk. Pages 156-8. RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 401. MJ Mojo. (January 2006). By Phil Sutcliffe. Pages 170-1. TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Pages 245-6. CM Toby Creswell & Craig Mathieson (2012). 100 Best Albums of All Time. Hardie Grant Books. Page 230. BD Bob Dylan (2022). The Philosophy of Modern Song. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 7-8. DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Pages 160 and 197. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 180. Related DMDB Pages: First posted 2/15/2010; last updated 4/24/2026.