From Monday 5th September 2011
In 1988, you weren’t supposed to pay anymore than 99p for this 7″ single:-
mp3 : Billy Bragg – She’s Got A New Spell
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Must I Paint You A Picture (extended version)
In 2011, I paid £1.50 which I don’t think is too bad. The single and sleeve are both in very good condition.
The thing is, I had no reason to buy it other than I could and I wanted to. The A-side is no different to the version found on Worker’s Playtime, while the extended b-side I have from buying both Billy Bragg box sets a few years back. But the fact of the matter is that this blog-writing malarkey has re-ignited a passion for vinyl.
I had a fair collection back in 2006…and while I haven’t added all that much in the way of LPs, the number of 7″ and 12″ singles has grown enormously. As I said back in a very early posting that one of the ideas behind the blog was to try to make available some otherwise unavailable bits of music – stuff long out of print or never released on CD, and still I go round all sorts of places looking for bits of vinyl….not necessarily featuring songs you can’t get anywhere, but simply because I like them and wished I had bought the bit of plastic back in the day (or else re-purchasing it to replace something lost or stolen).
One of the other things I’ve tried to consistently do is offer other less-known recordings of the songs in the hope someone might find something new to enjoy or perhaps pick up something they might have been looking for. Not sure if this falls into either category, but I think it’s worth a listen:-
mp3 : Billy Bragg & The Blokes – Must I Paint You A Picture
This is taken from a CD picked up quite a while back now at one of Billy’s tours which features 12 songs (10 of them Woody Guthrie tracks from the Mermaid Avenue project plus two 2 of Billy’s original songs). As you can hear, this is a live performance….a simply beautiful rendition made ultra-special by the incredible skills of Ian McLagan on the Hammond organ……
Wipe away those tears now…..
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 