Man Out of Time

"Man Out of Time" was released as a UK single on July 23, 1982 on F-Beat, 5:26, with an alternate "Town Cryer" and "Imperial Bedroom" on the B-sides; it reached number 58. Wikipedia dates the recording to 1981 and 1982 at AIR Studios with Geoff Emerick, while the Costello wiki places the album version in November 1981, at 5:25 with a 4:18 DJ edit, and a solo demo on August 21 and 22, 1981 at Pathway Studios in London, with Costello playing every instrument and producing; both the demo and an alternate November 1981 AIR version (3:41) were issued on the 2002 reissue. Costello conceived the central lyric on a tour bus in Sweden in 1981 and wrote the rest in a Scottish hotel.

He first pushed the band to play aggressively, and Emerick edited that original arrangement into the opening and closing sections; the main body came from a single take, Emerick used Fairchild valve compressors, and Costello insisted on a slower tempo, giving a bigger, more open sound. The Guardian describes it as concerning a cabinet minister hiding out from a sex scandal; Costello said it blends a personal and a public meaning, his own self-dissatisfaction framed in political intrigue and a real English scandal, and that none of his songs is literally about one event. NME ranked it tenth-best song of 1982, AllMusic's Rick Anderson called it lush and heartbreakingly pretty, and some critics call it his best song.

The first known performance was on August 29, 1981 in Gateshead, and the Costello wiki counts 552 known performances. A live version by Costello and Nieve, recorded on May 14, 1996 in Los Angeles, is on Costello and Nieve (December 3, 1996, 4:56). Ulf Lundell recorded it in Swedish as "Man av idag" on Sweethearts (1984), and Naked Eyes covered it on Fumbling with the Covers (2007). Which version our upload is has not been verified.