Squeeze - East Side Story (1981)

Squeeze's 1981 album 'East Side Story' was conceived as a double album, with four sides of vinyl each produced by some of British pop/rock’s greatest names at the time: Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds. Ultimately, McCartney had to bow out, and sessions with Lowe and Edmunds produced very little of value outside the superb Edmunds-produced opener, 'In Quintessence', but Costello, who according to legend gave The Attractions copies of 'Argybargy' to emulate, was enthusiastic to work with Squeeze. He would produce nearly the entire album with his engineer Roger Bechirian, and while many of Squeeze's prior sessions were punctuated by frequent trips to the pub – all the better to draw inspiration for Difford’s lyrics – Costello in fact proved to be a stern taskmaster during the sessions, even suggesting changes in diet. He also pushed the band outside their comfort levels, urging them to record tracks like the country-tinged ballad 'Labelled With Love', and he was proved right when this was the album’s biggest hit, reaching No. 4 in the U.K. Costello also made the crucial decision to give Carrack lead vocals on 'Tempted', a soulful tale inspired by unfaithful feelings while on tour. Carrack's lead and organ, all these years later, still make this the go-to song to jog someone's memory when discussing Squeeze, but it's just one of more than a dozen keepers on the album, with Difford and Tilbrook crafting little musical slices of life on 'Is That Love', 'Piccadilly', 'Woman’s World', 'Mumbo Jumbo', and 'Someone Else's Heart'. The album became a landmark of its time, with devout Squeeze fans across the world hailing it as the band’s crowning achievement: singable, iconic, diverse pop/rock helmed by a band in full control of their powers, and a famous producer willing to coax the absolute best from them. Though key track 'Tempted' was never a hit on either side of the Atlantic, it stands as one of the band’s signature songs, although that's hardly scratching the surface with two other singles and a host of key tracks at play. Although we can do nothing about that fact that Costello produced the majority of the released version of the album, we can add various out-takes and Tilbrook demos recorded at the same time but which never made the cut, plus the Smash Hits freebie 'Wrong Way', which was recorded just a few months earlier, to stretch the record out to double-album length. I've slotted the new tracks into a revised running order, and housed the whole thing in a variation of the original sleeve.   

Track listing

Disc I
01 In Quintessence
02 Someone Else's Heart
03 Depression
04 Tempted
05 Piccadilly
06 I Don't Like Love
07 The Axe Has Now Fallen
08 There's No Tomorrow
09 Holiday Makers
10 Heaven
11 Mumbo Jumbo

Disc II
01 Is That Love?
02 Trust
03 Woman's World
04 Wrong Way
05 Misunderstood
06 Looking For A Love
07 Someone Else's Bell
08 Yap, Yap, Yap
09 F-Hole
10 Labelled With Love
11 Vanity Fair
12 Messed Around