Any Kirsty McColl fans here?

[PRW]

Someone introduced me to her music a little while back ... horrible story about what happened to her; it will be 20 years in December ... and I'm on my way to buying her entire catalog.

I know her stuff ... especially the early records ... may be a bit poppy-sounding for folks around these parts, but even with those tunes, her lyrics are just fantastic, utterly barbed and wicked, and they got better as the years went along, plus she was practically the female Brian Wilson as far as her production skills in layering vocals in the studio.

She also worked with folks like Keith Richards, Johnny Marr, Robert Plant and Talking Heads, cut a cover of "I Want to Be Sedated," and she personally set the album running order for "Joshua Tree." (She was married to Steve Lillywhite at the time.)

 

[A-Bone]

She also made a perfect, irreplaceable contribution to the song I rate as the greatest contemporary Christmas tune:

 

[El Vee]

"In these shoes?" used to be a favorite when a girl I knew would sit in and sing.

 

[PRW]

She co-wrote this one with Marr, he's playing guitar:







Toward the end of her life she got into Latin music, particularly Cuban and Brazilian ... the lyrics of this one are, like I said, barbed and wicked:

 

[PRW]

For those who don't know what happened to her, she was diving with her two kids in Cozumel, in a place that was off limits to boats, when a boat came roaring through like a bat out of hell. She saw it in time to push one of her kids out of the way, but the boat hit her and the propeller ... let's let it go right there, no need to draw a picture. Turns out the boat belonged to some rich guy, who got one of his employees to cop to driving the boat (later he admitted the rich guy made it worth his while) even though witnesses said he wasn't. He wound up getting out of the short prison sentence he received by paying a fine of about $90 US, then was allowed to pay a whopping $2,150 US to Kirsty's family in restitution.

 

[Don Vito]

She also wrote They don’t know which made Tracy Ullman. Johnny Marr also lived in her house before the Smiths.

 

[Litterick]

She was the daughter of Ewan MacColl, the Scottish folk singer:

 

[PRW]

She was the daughter of Ewan MacColl, the Scottish folk singer:

Again, great lyrics, especially given that she was about 22 when she wrote them.

 

[Spooky Action]

I still get butterflies hearing her version of They Don't Know.

 

[Tony Done]

I'm a long-time fan of her father's music, but I wasn't even aware of his daughter. You live and learn.

 

[PRW]

I still get butterflies hearing her version of They Don't Know.

I'm going to don Kevlar here and say that I prefer the production on Tracey Ullman's cover ... which Kirsty was involved in, BTW, and that's her "BABY" before the final verse because Tracey couldn't hit the note ... but this is a perfect pop song, that was her first attempt at writing a song, when she was 15 freaking years old.

The thing that's impressed me in finding out more about her is that she was highly skilled and intimately involved in all aspects of the production of her music, she wasn't just a cute chick some pop moguls stuck in front of a microphone. Hell, she played not just acoustic and electric guitars but freaking lap steel on some of her tracks.

I actually found a bootleg of Kirsty from a concert in Chicago in 1995, before she sings this she hollers out, "Thank God for Tracey Ullman!" I bet Tracey (a tremendously talented woman in her own right) contributed large to her bank account and probably helped fund a lot of her work that followed.

 

[Spooky Action]

I'm going to don Kevlar here and say that I prefer the production on Tracey Ullman's cover ... which Kirsty was involved in, BTW, and that's her "BABY" before the final verse because Tracey couldn't hit the note ... but this is a perfect pop song, that was her first attempt at writing a song, when she was 15 freaking years old.

The thing that's impressed me in finding out more about her is that she was highly skilled and intimately involved in all aspects of the production of her music, she wasn't just a cute chick some pop moguls stuck in front of a microphone. Hell, she played not just acoustic and electric guitars but freaking lap steel on some of her tracks.

I actually found a bootleg of Kirsty from a concert in Chicago in 1995, before she sings this she hollers out, "Thank God for Tracey Ullman!" I bet Tracey (a tremendously talented woman in her own right) contributed large to her bank account and probably helped fund a lot of her work that followed.

The early Stiff Records cuts had tinny production values. The Tracy Ullman version sounds better, I just like Kirsty's overdubbed team of Kirsty' singing the song. I love both versions of the song.

Tracy Ullman's version gives me warm fuzzy cute girl feelings, and Kirsty's version makes me think of the girl who will punch you in the jaw and then make out with you vibe.

 

[PRW]

The early Stiff Records cuts had tinny production values. The Tracy Ullman version sounds better, I just like Kirsty's overdubbed team of Kirsty' singing the song. I love both versions of the song.

Tracy Ullman's version gives me warm fuzzy cute girl feelings, and Kirsty's version makes me think of the girl who will punch you in the jaw and then make out with you vibe.

Tracey still sounds pretty good, this is from last December.

 

[Zelja]

She was the daughter of Ewan MacColl, the Scottish folk singer:

One of the best song titles ever!

Such a talented woman with an terrible tragic end. Made aware of her initially by her cover of Billy Bragg's "New England" (where Billy wrote some additional verses for her) & songs like "On The Beach". Agree with A-Bone about "Fairy Tale Of New York" being the best ever Christmas song. Another link to The Pogues is that her father wrote "Dirty Old Town" which is pretty synonymous with Shane McGowan & Co.

She also & sings & features in the song/video below from The Wonderstuff, an overlooked band (1st & 3rd albums are both great).