Music / Kirsty MacColl

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Kirsty Anna MacColl (10 October 1959 – 18 December 2000) was a British singer-songwriter known for humorous lyrics and a tendency toward Genre Roulette.

She died in December 2000 after getting involved in a powerboat collision.

Discography:

• Desperate Character (1981) — given an Updated Re-release as Kirsty MacColl in 1985
• Real (recorded 1983, released 2023)
• Kite (1989)
• Electric Landlady (1991)
• Titanic Days (1993)
• Tropical Brainstorm (2000)
• Also a number of significant non-album singles, including "A New England" (her biggest solo hit, from 1985) and the million-selling collaboration with The Pogues, "Fairytale of New York" (1987, and included on their album but not hers).

Electric Landtropes:

• Advertised Extra: Ewan MacColl's track "The Manchester Rambler" has appeared on compilations of his daughter Kirsty MacColl's work, on the basis that she sings backing vocals on it. If that's true, then it's historically significant as both Kirsty's earliest known recording, and a unique example of the two generations recording together — but that still doesn't mean you can actually pick her out from the other backing vocalists, and it's by no means certain that she's actually on it at all.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Zig-Zagged Trope in "Terry". Terry is "as tough as Marlon Brando" and "If he gets mad there's no telling what he'll do", and in the video is shown as a biker. But she also says he's "not the kind to mess around and change his mind", contrasting with the ex she's singing to (represented in the video by a nerdy Adrian Edmondson) who apparently takes her for granted. And then blown up completely in the video when on the line "Terry knows about karate" it's Edmondson who takes out the biker guy with a single blow, at which point MacColl starts dancing with him again. So maybe he was Terry all along?
• Anti-Love Song: "England 2 Colombia 0" is about the singer's anger at being deceived by a guy she met in a bar:
  You lied about your status
  You lied about your life
  You never mentioned your three children
  And the fact you have a wife
  Now it's England 2, Colombia nil
  And I know just how those Colombians feel

It ends with "Now you can go to HELL... I'm going to Brazil / Still it's England 2, Colombia nil"

• The Cover Changes the Gender: In her cover of Billy Bragg's "A New England" the first verse changes "People ask when will I grow up to be a man/But all the girls I loved at school are already pushing prams" to "People ask when will I grow up to understand/Why all the girls I knew at school are already pushing prams" and "I put you on a pedestal, they put you on the pill" to "I put you on a pedestal, you put me on the pill". The line in the chorus "I'm just looking for another girl" becomes "Are you looking for another girl?" She also wrote a third verse unique to her version - these days Billy Bragg often adds her verse to his own in tribute, but doesn't change the pronouns.
• "Dear John" Letter: The subject of the song "Dear John". It was considered too much of a tearjerker even for the gloomy Titanic Days album and was given to Eddi Reader instead, who had a minor hit with it.
• Double-Meaning Title: "My Affair" - meaning both "a romantic fling I am involved in" and "mind your own business".
• Elvis Impersonator/Elvis Lives: "There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis". Of course, he's lying.
• Everything Sounds Sexier In Spanish: First invoked in "My Affair" on Electric Landlady, and later on the Tropical Brainstorm album.
• Fell Asleep Crying: From the song "England 2, Columbia 0":
  So I got into a taxi and sobbed all the way home
  Called my friend up in Sao Paulo and cried down the phone
  I played some tragic music and I lay down to die
  But later I awoke and I hadn't stopped crying
• Genre Roulette: Even her small number of hit singles are all quite different in style, encompassing rockabilly, pop, balladry and hip-hop. That's before getting into the rock and Cuban influences evident on her albums.
• Gold Digger: "I'm Going Out With An Eighty Year Old Millionaire" is pretty self-explanatory.
  There's one thing that's better than an old millionaire
  That's a young millionairess, and I'm almost there!
• Greatest Hits Album: The first, "Galore", was released in 1995 and is her biggest-selling album. Since her death, a new one comes out every couple of years or so. Even with the expanded reissues of her proper albums, a Kirsty collection still requires at least one Greatest Hits Album to cover key non-album tracks like "They Don't Know" and "A New England".
• Heroic Sacrifice: She died saving one of her sons from an oncoming boat.
• Hypocritical Humor: In "England 2 Colombia 0", the narrator calls out a date for not mentioning he has children... then notes that she didn't mention she has kids either. ^note but she is free and single, while he's a lying git!
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: A variant in "In These Shoes";
  He said, "Let's make love on a mountain-top,
  Under the stars, on a big hard rock"
  I said "In these shoes? I don't think so"
  • ...Also a direct subversion, since the next line is "Let's do it here".
• Lyric Swap: "England 2, Colombia Nil":
  • The first chorus goes:
    You lied about your status
    You lied about your life
    You never mentioned your three children
    Or the fact you have a wife
    Now it's England 2, Colombia nil
    And I know just how those Colombians feel
  • The second and third change this slightly to:
    You/He lied about your/his status
    You/He lied about your/his life
    You/He forgot you/he had three children
    You/He forgot you/he had a wife
    Now it's England 2, Colombia nil
    And I know just how those Colombians feel
  • And the final chorus, once she's washed her hands of him, is:
    You lied about your status
    You lied about your life
    And I pity your three children
    And I pity your poor wife
    Now you can go to Hell, I'm going to Brazil
    Still, it's England 2, Colombia nil
• One-Woman Song: "Celestine"
• Oops! I Forgot I Was Married: The guy in "England 2, Colombia Nil", who "forgot he had three children, he forgot he had a wife".
• Pun-Based Title: Electric Landlady, a twist on Jimi Hendrix' Electric Ladyland. It was suggested by Johnny Marr, who was renting a room from MacColl at the time.
• Questioning Title?: "In These Shoes?", "Closer To God?"
• Secondary Character Title: "There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis" isn't actually about the guy who works down the chip shop, he's just someone the real protagonist gets compared to.
• Self-Backing Vocalist: She used this technique regularly throughout her career. Her multitracked harmonies are often compared to The Beach Boys.
• Shout-Out: Electric Landlady was named after a Typo on the Cover on some prints of Jimi Hendrix's album Electric Ladyland.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: in "Walking Down Madison". It has a rap bridge by Aniff Cousins. He doesn't entirely appear out of nowhere though - he also gets the spoken line "would you like to see some more?" in the chorus.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: "Don't Come The Cowboy With Me, Sonny Jim" is essentially telling the addressee of the song that he might think he's "supposed" to act like an asshole, but he isn't and he's not.