TAKING LIBERTIES
ORIGINAL ALBUM (51:37)
- Clean Money (1:59)
- Girls Talk (1:55)
- Talking In The Dark (1:54)
- Radio Sweetheart (2:29)
- Black & White World (demo) (1:50)
- Big Tears (3:08)
- Just A Memory (2:18)
- Night Rally (2:43)
- Stranger In The House (3:03)
- Clowntime Is Over No. 2 (3:44)
- Getting Mighty Crowded (2:10)
- Hoover Factory (1:45)
- Tiny Steps (2:41)
- (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea (3:07)
- Dr. Luther's Assistant (3:29)
- Sunday's Best (3:23)
- Crawling To The U.S.A. (2:52)
- Wednesday Week (2:01)
- My Funny Valentine (1:27)
- Ghost Train (3:06)
The most mysterious album planned for the Rhino reissue program is "an
expanded Taking Liberties,"
mentioned in both Billboard's initial article
on the reissues and a separate interview
with reissue co-producer Gary Stewart. Unfortunately, so far no details
have surfaced about what this collection would include.
The original Taking Liberties
LP was released in the US in 1980 and collected most of Elvis' non-album
tracks up to that point. A similar collection, Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Yer Fathers,
was released in the UK at the same time with "(I Don't Want To Go To)
Chelsea," "Night Rally," and "Sunday's Best" replaced by "Watching The
Detectives," "Radio, Radio," and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love
And Understanding."
Both collections were rendered obsolete by the Ryko reissue program,
which included all of the tracks among the expanded editions of My Aim Is True, This Years Model, Armed Forces,
and Get Happy!!.
Rhino's versions of those albums also contains all of these tracks
(although nitpickers might point out that "Radio Sweetheart" is
available only in an alternate mix on Rhino's My Aim Is True). While Taking Liberties certainly has its
fans, it's hard to deny that it is awfully redundant at this point. Is
this concept even marketable, let alone artistically worthy?
The answer to that question depends on exactly what the concept is, and
with no official details available, we can only consider the rumor and
speculation.
RUMOR
AND SPECULATION
Scenario #1: Disc 1 presents
the original Taking
Liberties (with or without the additional Ten Bloody Marys tracks). Disc 2 is
devoted to rarities otherwise unavailable on the bonus discs.
Scenario #2: The original Taking Liberties appears on disc 1,
with Out Of Our Idiot, the less
heralded 1987 compilation of additional non-album tracks, on disc 2. It
should be noted that most of the Out
Of Our Idiot tracks are already available on Rhino bonus discs,
making this concept nearly as redundant as a straight Taking Liberties reissue.
Scenario #3: The original Taking Liberties on disc 1, alternate
versions of the Taking Liberties
songs on disc 2. I consider this scenario particularly implausible,
since I doubt alternates even exist for many of these songs, and some of
the alternates which do exist have already turned up on other bonus
discs, such as "Stranger In The House (BBC version)" on This Years Model,
"Girls Talk (alternate version)" on Get Happy!!, and "Hoover Factory
(alternate version)" on Trust. Could there really be
enough alternates left over?
Scenario #4: The project has
nothing to do with the original Taking
Liberties beyond the basic concept of collecting stray tracks. Both discs are devoted to rarities
otherwise unavailable in the reissue program. "Taking Liberties" is
perhaps only a working title. This scenario is the most likely to please the hardcore collectors,
but it must be noted that Elvis himself told Entertainment Weekly in February
2002 that he didn't expect there to be enough worthy rarities to fill
such a compilation by the time the reissue program is over. Also, this
scenario does not really fit Gary Stewart's original description of "an
expanded Taking Liberties."
