Ten Favorite Debut Albums: My Aim Is True (#5)

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Hip hip hooray! It's Friday!! I feel weird because all of my work is done for a change (after four days of pedal-to-the-metal to make sure our project was completed on time). That's a good feeling at the end of the month or the end of the week! And, speaking of good feelings, here's another one of my favorite albums that was a debut release. #5: My Aim Is True - Elvis Costello Oh, man, what an album. Amid all of the snotty punk and the disco there were things that were so easy to pick out as not only different but greatly different. If I close my eyes I can still see my bedroom in Daytona Beach where we lived when I was 17 and first heard this album. Oh, "Alison"! Not just a well-written song, but a delivery that makes the lyrics mean what they say. Consider when Linda Ronstadt covered the song, her version's interpretation made the line "my aim is true" sound like she meant "my intentions are good." When Costello sang it, you can see the gun in his hand. (That's part of Ronstadt's greatness in interpreting songs, but that's for another time.) @teamfreak16 used "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" in his countdown of favorite songs with parenthetical titles. Costello is good at those...but then, as the tiny letters in the checkerboard background on the album cover say, "Elvis is king." The real Elvis died shortly before this album came out in the US (shortly after in the UK), but I think he would have approved. This album is as earth shaking as that 1956 Presley debut in every way. My Aim Is True Recorded by Elvis Costello Produced by Nick Lowe Released on Columbia Records, 1977 Favorite cuts: "Welcome to the Working Week;" "Watching the Detectives;" "Alison," "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes." AND all the rest (but I limited the "favorite" list to four songs), such as this song from side one: