See That Girl Box Set

The brand new 8CD box set celebrating the career of Kirsty MacColl brings together 161 tracks recorded between 1979 and 2000, featuring 47 previously unreleased tracks including her 1983 unreleased second album ‘Real’. It also includes album favourites, extended versions, unreleased demos, live sets and a 60-page hardback book with new sleeve notes from her family and previously unseen photos. 

Jude Rogers has written the sleeve notes and penned a great article for The Quietus online.

We’ve seen the box set and the presentation is top quality, the new photos are great (as of course are the Terry Hurley live shots!) and the book is really well done.

https://youtube.com/shorts/tRItJjFAWLg

Release date was 27th October 2023.

Read the Excellent Reviews

Song Notes

We distil the enormous list of songs in an effort to put everything in context for you.

We uploaded full package details to discogs here

Disc 1: The Singles

features releases from 1979 – They Don’t Know, 1981 – Keep Your Hands Off My Baby, There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis, See That Girl and You Still Believe In Me, 1983 – Terry, 1984 – A New England,  1985 – He’s On The Beach, 1987 Fairytale Of New York (with The Pogues), 1989 – Free World (Radio Version), Days and Innocence (Remix, the single version), 1990 – Don’t Come The Cowboy With Me Sonny Jim!, 1991 – Walking Down Madison (7″ Mix), My Affair (Radio Edit, “get it up and wag it”) and All I Ever Wanted (Single Mix), 1993 – Angel (Single Edit), 1994 – Caroline, 1995 – Perfect Day (with Evan Dando), 1999 – Mambo De La Luna (Single Edit) and 2000 – In These Shoes?.

Disc 2: 1979-1983

features some tracks from the 1981 ‘Desperate Character’ album: Teenager In Love, Mexican Sofa and Until The Night, plus demo versions for Nothing To Do (The Clock Goes Round Demo), Falling For Faces and The Real Ripper.

Most notably it also includes the previously only rumoured final tracklisting for the famously abandoned second LP, ‘Real’ from 1983 – we think these are newly remastered versions, hence we have Bad Dreams*, Time*, Sticked and Stoned, Annie, Camel Crossing, Berlin, Man With No Name*, Lullaby for Ezra*, Up the Grey Stairs*, Roman Gardens – with tracks marked * previously unreleased in any form.

CD2 is completed by a collection of B sides and promos – Turn My Motor On, I Don’t Need You, There’s A Guy Works Down The Truck Stop Swears He’s Elvis (US promo single), Over You and Queen Of The High Teas.

Disc 3: 1983-1989

For most of the Eighties Kirsty was raising her family and released just a handful of singles before really getting started with 1989’s ‘Kite’ album, from which we get Fifteen Minutes, What Do Pretty Girls Do?, Dancing In Limbo and You And Me Baby.

There are the extended 12″ versions of Terry, A New England and He’s On The Beach.   Also some excellent mid eighties B sides in Quietly Alone,  Patrick, I’m Going Out With An Eighty Year Old Millionaire and Please, Go To Sleep.

More B sides from the Kite releases: Closer To God?, The End Of A Perfect Day (Original Demo Version), La Forêt De Mimosa, Happy, El Paso and Still Life.

There are a couple of unreleased demos in Trouble With People and Man Of Steel as well as Kirsty’s original demo version of One Little Lie, which was recorded by Frida in 1984.  Also, the She’s Having A Baby soundtrack version of You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby.

Disc 4: 1989-1992

The Electric Landlady era, with a lot of touring.  Previously circulating in bootleg form we get the radio broadcast from the 1992 Glastonbury festival: A New England, Innocence, You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby, Fifteen Minutes / Don’t Come The Cowboy With Me, Sonny Jim!, Happy, Tread Lightly, Train In Vain / Walking Down Madison, Free World and There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis.

1991’s Electric Landlady itself offers He Never Mentioned Love, The Hardest Word and My Way Home.  B sides from  that release cycle are Innocence (The Guilt Mix), No Victims (Guitar Heroes Mix), Clubland, Other People’s Hearts, One Good Thing, My Affair (Olive Groove Mix) and All The Tears That I Cried – B side of My Affair.

Disc 5: 1993-1996

Titanic Days, and the first ‘proper’ Kirsty compilation in Galore.  The 1994 album offers Soho Square, Last Day Of Summer, Can’t Stop Killing You, Titanic Days -and Big Boy On A Saturday Night.

B sides from this era are all from originally fairly obscure releases: Angel (Stuart Crichton Piano Edit) – from the IRS promo single, Fabulous Garden and Touch Me from an Australian promo single.  There are two later B sides from Galore time – Irish Cousin and The Butcher Boy; also a pair on previously released demos in King Kong and Dear John, and a couple of live recordings from the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, California – Free World and Miss Otis Regrets (Solana Beach).

The electric version of Billy Bragg’s As Long As You Hold Me from the Mad Love film soundtrack is here, also a previously unknown recording of Eu So Quero Un Xodo – a demo for a potential Brazilian covers album prior to Tropical Brainstorm (most famously by Gilberto Gil).  While diving deeper into Latin music, Kirsty co-wrote and recorded Siempre Tu Rosa (Always Your Rose) while on a songwriting workshop weekend.

CD5 also has room for some Tropical Brainstorm demos: In These Shoes?, Things Happen and the demo for Treachery – known at the time as Stalking A Fan).

Disc 6: 1999-2000

The final flourish, as Kirsty released Tropical Brainstorm on the back of some exuberant live shows.  While a couple of Jazz Café recordings have been issued as B sides, here we get the complete set from a heady night in London (Kirsty’s first live dates in England for many years): Here Comes That Man Again, Head, Celestine, England 2 Colombia 0, Designer Life, Days, Walking Down Madison, How Insensitive and My Affair.

From the much loved Tropical Brainstorm album we get Autumngirlsoup, Us Amazonians, Não Esperando and Wrong Again.  From CD singles, some B sides: Mambo De La Luna (Mint Royale Mix), In These Shoes? (UR Crazy Remix) from a rather rare German single, and a new studio track in Good For Me, a previously released demo for Sun On The Water and a previously unknown song in I Believe In Love.

Disc 7: BBC recordings 1981-2000

Kirsty was always an entertaining interviewee and did quite a few interview sessions for BBC radio, World Café, JJJ and many other stations.  Her BBC contributions are gathered here: Don’t Come The Cowboy With Me Sonny Jim!, What Do Pretty Girls Do?, Don’t Run Away From Me Now, Still Life, There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis, Walk Right Back and Darling Let’s Have Another Baby (with Billy Bragg), My Affair, A New England and He’s On The Beach.

Slightly later, from BBC GLR we have the previously unreleased Can’t Stop Killing You, Soho Square, Bad, Caroline and Free World.

A few selections from BBC TV appearances are also included: unreleased tracks from Something Else, I Don’t Wanna Play House, Queen Of The High Teas and You Can Have My Husband.

From her appearances on Later with Jools Holland we have Angel, In These Shoes? and Miss Otis Regrets with the 1st Battalion Irish Guards.

Finally a pair of live recordings from The Finsbury Park Fleadh – Tread Lightly and I Wanna Be Sedated.

Disc 8: Other People’s Songs (Guest Appearances & Collaborations)

A much valued backing vocalist, Kirsty was in high demand while she wasn’t pursuing her own career so firmly, many of these are from the Eighties.

Darling Annie (with Peggy Seeger) would seem to be the earliest recording featuring Kirsty.  Keeping it in the family is Ewan MacColl’s Manchester Rambler (though was this Kitty?).

Interestingly no Smiths tracks here, but Billy Bragg is present of course, with Greetings To The New Brunette (with Bragg &Johnny Marr) and the Fred Berk mini classic Darling Let’s Have Another Baby.

From the Stiff Age we get Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache (with Jane Aire & The Belvederes) and Tracey Ullman’s version of You Broke My Heart in 17 Places.

Being married at the time to the legend that is Steve Lillywhite, she was brought in to quite a few sessions including Hallelujah (the MacColl Mix) with Happy Mondays, Invisible To You with Mary Coughlan, Wishing You Were Here with Alison Moyet, Welcome To The Cheap Seats (Naked Mix) with The Wonderstuff,  Song For Someone with Engine Alley and Red Jeans with Anthony Thistlethwaite.

Some early Nineties work with Holly Johnson (Boyfriend ’65), Libertango (with Sharon Shannon), Randy Newman’s Sail Away (with Ghostland) and Shutting The Doors (with Jools Holland).

Finally a recording from her work with David Byrne with the Make Believe Mambo (Orisa), and with her touring bassist Chucho Merchán on People Uniting.

Recording Notes

Tracks 2-12 to 2-21 present the complete unreleased and long lost album ‘Real’.    We expect these to be remastered versions.

The live tracks were recorded:

  • “Something Else” BBC TV appearances on 23 October 1981
  • BBC Radio 1 Session 1 was for Nicky Campbell on 8 November 1989
  • BBC Radio 1 Session 2 was for Nicky Campbell on 26 June 1991
  • at Glastonbury Festival on 26 June 1992 (this set has been widely available as a bootleg previously)
  • Later … with Jools Holland, 1st appearance for BBC TV on 19 November 1992
  • Solana Beach live in California at the Belly Up on 1 December 1993
  • BBC Radio 1 Session 3 was for Simon Mayo on 7 March 1994
  • GLR – BBC Greater London Radio session 1 for Peter Curran on 7 March 1994
  • Later … with Jools Holland, 2nd appearance on 31st December 1994
  • GLR – BBC Greater London Radio Session 2 for Peter Curran was on 16 February 1995
  • BBC Radio 1 Session 3 was for Kevin Greening on 20 February 1995
  • Live at The Fleadh was in Finsbury Park, London on 10 June 1995
  • Jazz Café live in London on 12 October 1999 (a couple of tracks were previously available on a B side but this is the first time this full set has been released – Kirsty played 2 nights at the Jazz Café to get back into performing as she was fine tuning her Tropical Brainstorm return
  • Later … with Jools Holland, 3rd appearance on 14th April 2000


Book cover