B is for B-sides #9

With today's single, I'm kind of cheating. It's not actually performed by the original composer, but the composer's performance isn't too great. It's Girls Talk, written by Elvis Costello, performed in this case by Dave Edmunds.

It's an extremely catchy number, and it's not surprising it made #4 (and stayed on the chart for 11 weeks, according to my incredibly helpful book British Hit Singles). Dave sings in a very Costello-esque manner, which could either be interpreted as displaying influence, or simply being unoriginal. Either way, the slight whinyness of the vocals suits the song right down to the ground, being about a man's annoyance and paranoia. With an perfectly horrible key change right at the beginning, you can tell it's cheese from the word go. However, it was written by Elvis Costello, who is yet to write a bad song. It may be cheesy, but it's brilliant.

Pictured above are the regular and limited clear copies of the single, both with the B-side "Bad Is Bad." We'd expect Bad Is Bad to be a song in a similar style to that of Girls Talk, but in fact, it's nowhere near. It's a great rock 'n' roll track, about as far from the nice new wave on the A-side as you can get. Jerry Lee Lewis could have easily written it, but he didn't; it was actually Huey Lewis. You just can't get rid of him can you? Well, it's not all too bad. It also is a catchy tune, but being rock 'n' roll, it's barely any different to the other millions of tracks like that. If you don't listen to a lot of rock 'n' roll, you'll probably enjoy it. But if you've got a lot of rock 'n' roll on your iPod, you're better off giving it a miss: while it's a very good song indeed, you've heard it all before.

A-side: Dave Edmunds - Girls Talk (mp3, 3.2mb)
B-side: Dave Edmunds - Bad Is Bad (mp3, 3.7mb)

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Dave