Occasional Albums Thing 034 - Kirsty MacColl “Free World: The Best Of 1979-2000”

If you read my blog post about The Wonder Stuff’s “Never Loved Elvis” (and if you didn’y you’ll find it here https://www.whiterabbitrecords.co.uk/blog/read_206548/20234-albums-thing-423-the-wonder-stuff-never-loved-elvis.html) you’ll already know I’m a confirmed Kirsty MacColl fan. In fact even before Kirsty, myself and Miles were bought up hearing the music of her Dad, Ewan, as our own Dad had a flirtation with the folk scene, via the labour movement, in the late 50’s, so songs like “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Dirty Old Town” were familiar to us at a very young age.

I’m sure there will be someone out there who tuts, and rolls their eyes at this but the first time I became aware of Kirsty was via Tracey Ullman’s cover of Kirsty’s debut single “They Don’t Know” which, apart from still holding a torch for Tracey, I will also argue long into the night about why her version of “They Don’t Know” might well be the perfect pop single. Kirsty sang backing vocals on it and if you listen carefully, at 1 minute 51 seconds, that’s Kirsty singing the high pitched “Bay-bee” cos Tracey couldn’t reach that note !

Then a year or so later Kirsty had a hit single with her cover of Billy Bragg’s “A New England”. It was a song I already knew from Billy’s album “Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy” but Billy wrote an extra verse for Kirsty and, these days at Billy Bragg gigs, it’s amusing to see the confusion on some people’s faces when he doesn’t sing Kirsty’s 3rd verse. If there’s one regret about this album (pardon the pun) it’s that it doesn’t include Kirsty’s wonderful version of Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets” which was on the 1995 CD Best of “Galore”, and there’s honestly a couple on here I’d have foregone to make room for it.

Kirsty went on to make a slew of great Pop records, “There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis”, “Walking Down Madison”, “My Affair “, “Days”, hell she even made a Smiths song (“You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby”) listenable ! She also lent her prodigious vocal talents to many other artists records, foremost among them the quite wonderful “Fairytale Of New York”. This is where my path crossed very briefly with Kirsty when The Wonder Stuff were recording “Never Loved Elvis“ at the (sadly now no longer there) Townhouse Studio in Shepherd’s Bush. Miles bumped into Kirsty while traversing the long corridor between the studio and he “facilities”. Conversation ensued, she came into the studio to hear what they were doing, promised she’d come back tomorrow and add some vocals and we never expected to see her again. But there she was next day and the result was “Welcome To The Cheapseats”.

Kirsty was a huge talent, a fantastic and clever songwriter plus her voice was a wonder to behold. She was taken away from the world far too soon.

He’s On The Beach - https://youtu.be/oh8pzH_xZaM?si=9smsdtAsH1ESaozb