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Cheeky Boy

The opening couplet from Billy Bragg's A new England is directly lifted from a Simon & Garfunkel song called Leaves that are green, which was on the 1966 album Sounds of Silence. Remember? "I was 21 years when I wrote this song, I'm 22 now but I won't be for long." Nice one Billy.

Pogued by the Pets

Do you remember what kept Fairytale of New York off the number 1 spot back in '87? It was the Pet Shop Boys, with Always on my mind. A fun number, but without the natural longevity of the Pogues & Kirsty! Still, could have been worse... Chris Lowe told Word magazine in 2006 "I just don't like it. Is it meant to be jolly? I find it depressing." and Neil Tennant concurred, "It's two drunks shouting at each other". They may have missed the point, bless them.

Tracey Ullman's They Don't Know was denied by Culture Club's catchy Karma Chameleon.

Great Rock & Roll Moments

The party hooter kazoo sounds on the BBC Sessions album are reminiscent of those defining rock & roll moments, Bobby's Highway 61 Revisited and Heroes and Villains by the fabulous Beach Boys. Talking of whom ....

Kirsty's favourite albums as listed in 1994 were
1. THE BEACH BOYS ... Pet Sounds
2. IGGY POP ...Lust For Life
3. THE SMITHS ... Strangeways, Here We Come
4. XTC ... Black Sea
5. STEELY DAN ... Pretzel Logic
6. THE COCTEAU TWINS ... Heaven Or Las Vegas
7. KID CREOLE & THE COCONUTS ... Tropical Gangsters
8. BOB MARLEY ... Live
9. DAVID BOWIE ... Station To Station
10.FRANK BLACK ... Teenager Of The Year. Source - GB

Sadly Kirsty did not live to witness the resurgence of Brian Wilson in 2002, as she would surely have loved to see him playing Pet Sounds live after all these years. She was a big fan of Eminem's first album, then again who wouldn't be?

She attended classical concerts from time to time with Billy Bragg. The Fauré Requiem was Kirsty's favourite piece of music ever, and it was played at her funeral (at Mortlake Crematorium in London) alongside Good Vibrations, Good for Me and disco floor filler Remember Me by The Blue Boy, which embodied the party spirit of Kirsty in full flow.

Kirsty and Mark Nevin are credited as Baboon Farm on the credits for Titanic Days. At one point, they had considered forming a proper band of that name to record the album. They had chosen the name after seeing it in a Danish newspaper during a promotional visit, and finding it "hilariously funny" according to Nevin.

Giving Bono & Kim a Helping Hand

Kirsty programmed the running order on U2's classic Joshua Tree album. Brilliantly. She claimed that it was easy, all she did was put her favourite song at the beginning, then her next favourite song, and so on. Whatever, it worked.

Meanwhile Kim Wilde recalls, "One of the writers who inspired me was Kirsty MacColl. She was only a year older and I remember them playing They Don't Know on the radio. I thought if Kirsty can do it I can do it. I met her when we were both dating blokes in the same band. She was an angel. I thought she was a really gutsy girl to tackle such a male-dominated industry."

According to the Guiness book of Rock Stars, at the launch of Virgin Radio Kirsty sang Mott the Hoople's Roll away the stone with OMD's Andy McCluskey (the man who later brought us the mighty Atomic Kitten!). This took place at the Piccadilly Theatre in London. Source: BP

Celebrity Fans

The "Tracks of my years" section of the Radio 2 website reveals that when Andy Bell (of Erasure) did his he chose Cowboy. (DM) Andy said "Without a doubt one of the most talented, prolific, underrated writers in British pop. A loose cannon, gutsy, anti establishment, the red-haired diva. Sorely missed and never forgotten. Had the honor of
washing the lady's hair in the toilets at a Bjorn Again (ABBA tribute band) concert (she did backing vocals for Frida on There's Something Going On)... " "Andy was in the audience (and backstage after) at Kirsty's gig on December 15, 1991 at the Borderline, in London." Source: TH

Brian Kennedy chose Angel as one of his, and Mike Oldfield and Robin Gibb have both chosen Fairytale of New York (DM) - Fatboy Slim also named it as his favourite Christmas single. Scottish author Iain (M) Banks included Walking down Madison on his commercially released eclectic compilation CD Personal effects. Politician Gordon Brown selected Days as part of his Desert Island Discs in 1997. Legendary British TV commentator John Motson included Galore as one of his favourite albums in an interview with S2 magazine in 2004. (BK)

Pre-owned Songs

Samples anyone? We are unaware of anyone sampling Kirsty's records (apart from here at Freeworld in idle moments) but we know of two interesting duplications - In these shoes? samples the Willie Bobo recording of Spanish Grease, which is also used in the soundtrack of Out of sight, originally noticed by an unknown contributor (it was so long ago but it took us a while to identify the track!).

Also, Nelly Furtado includes the same sample of "It's a very popular song" in her hit Shit on the radio - Kirsty used it at the beginning of Não Esperando.

The only credited samples which Kirsty has used are the Bobo track, Sazonando by Chappottin (in Mambo de la Luna), Avance Juvenil by Israel Lopez (also Mambo), Yo Soy El Punto Cubano by Celina Gonzalez (Treachery) and Tendras du Castigo by Conjunto Casino (England 2 Colombia 0).

Singalongakirsty

In these shoes can be found nestling in the midst of a curiosity called Sing Latin!, which is a "Vocal Book with Backing CD - Sing Along With The Best!" including a specially recorded "Soundalike CD - with full lyrics and music". Other songs honoured include Ain't It Funny (Jennifer Lopez), Lambada (Kaoma), Mi Chico Latino (Geri Halliwell) and Whenever Wherever (Shakira).

Hmmm.

Somebody Got Fired

The 2000 release The Key from Texan soul singer Eloise Laws featured the song Last Days Of Summer - credited to Kirsty and Mark Nevin though it is clearly an entirely different song. The only thing it has in common with Kirsty's is the title phrase. So assuming Kirsty and Mark didn't write a wholly different song with the same name, my guess is that there was an error on a database (or something like that) that was perhaps utilized by Ms. Laws or her people. Source: JE. Wonder where the royalties went?

Sleeve Notes

The sleeve for the second Propaganda album (anyone remember the briefly great 80s group of Dr. Mabuse and Duel fame?) includes a list of thank yous - and top of that list is Kirsty MacColl! Kirsty is mentioned on the sleeve notes to World Party's album Bang!. "All thanks be to Kirsty MacColl." Why thank you, Mr. Wallinger. In her sleeve notes for Each little thing, Sharon Shannon thanked "an amazing singer ... a mighty admirable lady."

The Real MacColl

We can assemble much of the unreleased Real album based on information from a variety of sources: The track listing we can speculate about but definitely included Annie, Berlin & Roman gardens (surfaced on Kirsty MacColl), Camel crossing & Sticked and stoned (both to be released on the Box Set From Croydon to Cuba). Man with no name and Sleepless nights surfaced on a promo version of the Kirsty MacColl album. Sleepless nights is a version of Please, go to sleep with a more electronic backing track.

The 1982/3 session with Jools, Pino Palladino, Rico, Dick Cuthell and Lu Edmonds yielded five songs co-written with Alan Lee Shaw: Shutting the doors (rerecorded by Jools Holland in 2003 using Kirsty's demo vocal), Germany, Goodnight Paris, Don't ask me and A boy like that (with backing vocals by Gary Holton and Mick Rossi).

Then there was Lullaby for Ezra (never released, I have heard it though, a decent track), and three songs which are included in the online Union Square licensing catalog: Jamie, Man of steel and Trouble with people.

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