Elvis Costello’s 1977 debut album will be explored in expanded form this fall. My Aim Is True (49th Anniversary Edition), is a five-CD box set that will explore how Declan MacManus transformed into Elvis Costello. In addition to newly mastered version of the original album, this collection will draw together demos, masters, outtakes, live performances and interviews, most of which are previously unreleased.
Costello himself notes in the 72-page liners, “When first proposed, I thought the whole idea of celebrating a 50th Anniversary of My Aim Is True was preposterous. It made my teeth itch. It couldn’t just be set up like a venerable object in a glass case.”
Instead, the release reimagines the album across five discs.
First up is the remastered version of the album, along with “Watching The Detectives,” which was not on the original US version of the album.
The Blue Print, gathers 17 recordings from 1975 and 1976, including 13 previously unreleased.
The Stranger In The House contains 28 demos, outtakes and early band recordings, 15 of which have never been released, including every surviving outtake and demo from My Aim Is True.
Becoming The Attractions, opens with a solo performance of “Alison,” from Elvis Costello’s U.K. television debut to his first live appearances under his new name to the sudden velocity of America in late 1977 and 1978.
Covered In Clover, is a previously unreleased recording of Costello’s 2007 reunion with Clover at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall.
Costello also observes, “Making my first record seemed like the beginning of something that I’d imagined for a long time, before I had any sense of a potential audience, let alone the expectation and the assumptions of others about songs written and performed in mere minutes. Nevertheless, I raise a chaste glass to My Aim Is True and all who sail in her.”
My Aim Is True (49th Anniversary Edition), will be released on October 2 and is now available for pre-order.
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