In Print

Hymns to Her

There is an excellent listing for Kirsty in Martin Strong's Great Rock Discography book (it was removed from the 1998 edition, marring an otherwise essential buy for anyone interested in who released what and when, but the 2002 edition restores her place). The 4th Edition of the Virgin Encyclopaedia of Rock updates Kirsty's entry to include Tropical Brainstorm. Of course, all the information you need 80s is contained within freeworld.

In addition, Daniel Blythe's Encyclopaedia of Classic 80s Pop has a nice entry relating to Kirsty. It also recommends freeworld (sadly with the now obsolete old URL, and incorrectly hyphenated at that by the dreaded auto-wrap) as a "great site". More anorak type references in this book, which notes Denise Gyngell's 17 places cover. Of Tracey Ullman he writes "They Don't Know was a Kirsty MacColl song, and so you'd have to do something really defiantly stupid to cock it up". Worthy of a quick browse at the very least. Daniel says that the URL will be corrected before the paperback run of the book, which is good news.

Kirsty has a chapter in the Karen O'Brien's book Hymn to her, which is a collection of articles by women in music: Carla Bley, Rosanne Cash, Sheila Chandra, Neneh Cherry, Angelique Kidjo, Evelyn Glennie, Nanci Griffith, Janis Ian, Monie Love, Kirsty MacColl, Yoko Ono, Jane Siberry, Tanita Tikaram, Moe Tucker, Suzanne Vega. Publisher: Virago, 1995.

Karen also wrote a fairly average biography of Kirsty, published in 2004. cover Kirsty MacColl: The One and Only was touted as "the definitive biography. Written with the full support and co-operation of her family and friends, the book features interviews with Kirsty herself, together with new interviews with Steve Lillywhite and her partner, James Knight, who talk publicly for the first time about their lives with her, alongside stars such as Bono and Billy Bragg (who has written a foreword for the book). The book also chronicles the tragedy in Mexico, its emotional aftermath and the legal fight launched by the Justice for Kirsty campaign, which is rapidly gathering momentum and media attention."

Overall however, reviews were less than ecstatic. We think it is worth reading though as it does lay out the essential facts of Kirsty's life on a timeline. It does spend an awful lot of time on Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, whose relevance is definitely overstated, and dips into other matters of related interest such as the Cuban Revolution and the Palestinian Crisis. Not a whole lot of warmth or feeling though. A missed opportunity, in freeworld's opinion.

September 13 1996: Goldmine magazine (Vol. 22, No 19, Issue 421) in the US included a detailed article and UK/US discography. The article was very similar indeed to the UK based Record Collector article, but added a few additional insights, particularly relating to the American market.

Labour of Love

Electric Rentbook was the witty title of a fanzine which was issued free to fans during 2000, and was later compiled into a collectors' edition glossy book with a specially written foreword by family friend Holly Johnson. Graham Scaife put lots of work into producing a really classy publication. "Twelve pages of lovingly created Kirsty homage".

I Should Be So Lucky

In October 1999 The Poetry Library hosted a photo exhibition: 'Pop Stars on Poetry' at the Royal Festival Hall, London featuring songwriters and their favourite poems, among them Patti Smith, Asian Dub Foundation, Marc Almond, saint etienne, Billy Bragg, Nick Cave, Laurie Anderson, Tom Robinson, Kate Rusby, Julian Cope, Kirsty MacColl, Richard Thompson, Paul Brady and Jah Wobble. Sorry, we're not sure which poems were selected.

Chemistry Tonight

Abba In 2000, Kirsty agreed to contribute to a book being written about the lives and times of Abba, detailing her involvement with Frida. The book was put together as an "official" release with full cooperation from the various band members. 'ABBA On Speaking Terms' (Fredric Tonnon & Marisa Garau). This book "consists of interviews with people who worked closely to ABBA" - Kirsty "speaks frankly about her collaboration with Frida, while producer of the sessions Steve Lillywhite also contributes." Reviews of this book in Abba web sites don't treat it favourably, and question its use of interview quotes and general balance. Their opinion is that the authors seem to view Agnetha as the (only) talent behind Abba, which seems somewhat unfair. Approach with caution, but if anyone has read it please let me know if Kirsty's interview was indeed used.

Also, The book "ABBA to Mamma Mia (the official story)" by Anders Hansen and Carl Magnus Palm there is a photo Kirsty and Steve, and brief mention of Frida's "Shine" album, including the fact that Kirsty co-wrote "That's tough" as a B side with Frida's son Hans.

An Irish Connection

The audio cassette version of Patrick McCabe's novel The butcher boy features Kirsty's version of the "trad." song.

The Other Side of the Notebook

Kirsty interviewed Ruben Gomez in June 2000 for German media - the Puerto Rican singer celebrated, in North America and South America as well as Asia, numerous successes and sold, more than 30 million copies. In contrast to the more famous colleague of that time, Ricky Martin, Ruben Gomez after the end of Menudo put his music career on ice to finish high school.

A Man with an Ear for a Catchy Tune

Pete Waterman's autobiography I wish it was me includes some brief comments about Kirsty: "One of the best singers and songwriters, not just on the label, but that Britain has ever produced, was Kirsty MacColl. She wrote a song called They Don't Know About Us for Tracey, and Dave had me polishing it off at the studio in the middle of the night, with me getting Kirsty and Dave's wife Rosemary to add Shangri La-type backing vocals. It was the best song Tracey ever recorded and Dave gave me something like £30 for doing it.

The day after I'd first played it to him, I went into Dave's office and he said he'd decided not to release it because it didn't 'swing along'. I explained that everything didn't have to 'swing along' and that housewives everywhere would be singing along to it when they were doing the ironing. I sent of the Dave an ironing board painted gold when it got to Number Two." Source: Crease/AG

Thank You for the Days

Kirsty rates a tiny mention in the book by Neville Marten & Jeff Hudson on "The Kinks" - just how she made it a hit twice and it became more poignant after her death.There is a book by Kingsley Abbott all about The Beach Boys Pet Sounds. In his chapter on cover versions of the album's tracks he writes very warmly of Kirsty's take on You still believe in me, citing it as his all time favourite cover, and there is a photo of the single sleeve. Source: BP

Author Ali Smith told 'Metro' that among her 6 tracks "for her iPod" were Pizzicato Five, Dusty, Ivie Anderson, saint etienne, Serge Gainsbourg and Soho Square. She said "I'm torn between this and her version of Days but it's MacColl's own sardonic romantic lyrics, her harmonies with herself and the broken triumphant feel of this song that make it a classic for me. I love the line "I don't know the reason why, I'll love you 'til the day I die". Nobody else sounds like her. She could even take winter and make it warm." Source: CV

Word magazine (Feb 05 issue) featured a Top Ten of 'Records You Can Read' and Galore is one of the albums
mentioned as having "wonderful lyrics". It is only a brief mention but very complimentary. David Hepworth makes the pertinent point that Kirsty wrote lots of songs that '...would have attracted critical idolatry had she been either a
bloke or self important'. Source: JL2

Kirsty Forces Lemmy to his Knees

Motorhead rock legend Lemmy writes briefly of Kirsty in his autobiography White line fever, "I flew over to Germany to perform on a TV show (Musikladen, #85 - 26 Jan 1984) with Kirsty MacColl (rest in peace: she was a really great bird). I was on guitar, dressed in shades and a teddyboy outfit, and I sank to my knees during a guitar solo - actually, I had no idea what I was playing." The song in question was Terry.

Later he recalls "(At a party) Kirsty MacColl came by with her new husband, producer Steve Lillywhite. Kirsty was a good friend of mine - I was in a video of hers once. So I gave her a big hug, and Wurzel turned to Steve and said 'Who's that old boiler that Lemmy's got a hold of?' Steve gave him this look and replied 'That's my wife actually.' 'Ah' says Wurzel, 'Could I have some more coffee please?'

Then, about half an hour later he was standing by the bar next to Ronnie Wood. Jo Howard walked past and everything was moving, you know what I mean? And Wurzel leered 'Eh, I'd like to **** her, wouldn't you?' And Ron said, 'I do actually. She's my wife.' Talk about putting your foot in your mouth - Wurzel had both feet in up to the knees." Source: JL2

Feeling Elvish?

The 1994 book Soul Music by Terry Pratchett contains an ongoing joke about the main character (the first rock and roll musician of the Discworld) looking 'a bit elvish'. Source: Rachel

"Want some fish?"
"I'm not really hungry thanks."
"It's really good. Not stale like it used to be."
"No, thanks."Gloria gave her another nudge, "Want to go and get your own then?", she said leering behind her beard. "Why should I do that?"" Oh, quite a few girls have gone down there today", said the dwarf. She leaned closer. "It's the new boy working there, she said, I'd SWEAR he's Elvish."

On Creativity

Kirsty was interviewed by Jenny Boyd (sister of George Harrison's wife Patty) for a book called Musicians in Tune, published in 1992 by Simon & Schuster. The book is divided into the following categories: Nurturing Creativity, The Drive to Create, The Unconscious, The Collective Unconscious, The Peak Experience, Chemicals and Creativity, and The Creative Potential. A light read, then.

Pretentious? Moi?

When a Tunisian teacher (Ali Catterall) decided to use pop to teach his class English, he realised how pretentious and incomprehensible a lot of it is. However, well produced and well enunciated material was well regarded, including Bob Marley's Redemption Song, Morrissey and his "perfect diction" and the "peerless Kirsty MacColl", whose Days introduced "a bit of credibility." The article appeared in the Guardian in April 2005.

Source: CI

The Last Word

Justine Picardie's book If the spirit moves you is in diary format covering the period April 2000 to April 2001. Primarily concerning the death of her sister, the book is of interest because Justine's husband is Neill MacColl, Kirsty's half brother. As you will know from the dates it was a devastating time for Neill too. Not an easy read. Source: CR (and BP)

Kirsty will be the final entry in the first new Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) for a century.The huge work, extending to 60 volumes with 60m words and being compiled by Oxford University Press, will provide "updated biographies of noteworthy (deceased) figures from the dawn of British history until the end of the year 2000". It will also include a bigger proportion of women than past editions. The stories of these lives--told in substantial, authoritative, and readable articles--will be published simultaneously in 60 print volumes and online in September 2004

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