Paul McCartney/Elvis Costello Demos to Be Released for Record Store Day
In the late '80s, Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello wrote a handful of songs that resulted in the biggest hits both of them had had in years. Now, demos of three of those tunes -- "I Don’t Want To Confess," "Shallow Grave" and "Mistress and Maid" -- will be released on Record Store Day -- April 22 -- on cassette.
“The demos are red hot off the skillet and that’s why we wanted to include them on this boxed set," McCartney said in a press release. "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.”
"I Don’t Want To Confess" is the only one of the three that has yet to be released on a studio album. "Mistress and Maid" found a home on McCartney's 1993 record Off the Ground and "Shallow Grave" wound up on Costello's 1997 effort All This Useless Beauty. You can hear brief snippets of all three songs in the teaser embedded above.
McCartney is also including them as part of a digital download of bonus tracks for the Deluxe Edition reissue of Flowers in the Dirt, which is arriving March 24. That record, released in 1989, offered takes of four songs he wrote with Costello, "You Want Her Too," "Don't Be Careless Love," "That Day Is Done" and the Top 40 single "My Brave Face." Earlier that year, Costello's Spike featured their "Veronica," which reached No. 19, and "Pads, Paws and Claws."
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