Buying Music and Maintaining Image

[liadnan]

I was taking advantage of the fairly large discounts in Virgin today: large even before an extra 10% for waving a festival wristband in front of the cashier's nose. Bought all sorts of things, but I also seem to have acquired a copy of the greatest hits of Tracey Ullman. Ooops. And now I seem to be listening to "They Don't Know About Us" instead of all the credible stuff I bought. What I hadn't realised was that it was actually by the late, great, Kirsty MacColl, who probably, much as Tracey amuses me, sang it a great deal better. (She also always sang Billy Bragg songs a good deal better than Billy Bragg does, but that's another story.)

Never mind. Bought yet another recording of Mahler 1 & 2, which probably compensates. In some strange universe.

Comments

[dr-lovely.livejournal.com]

She did she did. Like the one about being "22 now but I won't be for long," right ? Is soo good.

[djm4]

Kirsty MacColl did sing it better, obviously, but I always thought Tracey Ullman didn't do a bad job. She came back to the UK specially to sing it at the Kirsty MacColl tribute concert at the Roayl Festival Hall, and brought the house down, walking on stage an announcing: 'Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in fifteen years, I'm going to sing my hit'. As she pointed out, Kirsty wrote her the song that got her noticed in America, which led to The Tracey Ullman Show, which led to The Simpsons, so we really have Kirsty to thank for Bart, Homer at al.

There's a rumour that it's Kirsty singing 'Baby!' on the Tracey Ullman version, because Tracey couldn't hit the high notes, but that may well be bollocks.

[liadnan]

That one in particular. Which I heard Bily singing last weekend.
I've always been confused by the very similar Simon and Garfunkel lyric.

[liadnan]

It's certainly not bad at all.
As for the high notes thing, I hadn't heard that... it may well, as you say, be bollocks, but another Ullman cover f a MacColl song on the same album apparently put Ullman's vocals over MacColl's backing.

[dr-lovely.livejournal.com]

Yes there is some Paul Simony type similar lyric isn't there... but I can't remember it exactly either. Billy Bragg pain in bum actually. Am still amused about Billy Bragg being in Adele's house talking to her boyfriend and playing the guitar and her coming downstairs and telling him to be quiet and go home because he was making too much noise and it was annoying her, and when he said "don't you know who I am" her saying "yes, but I'd like you to go home now."

[liadnan]

It's the "I was 21 years when I wrote this song" line itself, which is a word for word life from S&G "Leaves that are Green"