23 August 2006

"She's Got a New Spell" by Billy Bragg



Shuffle of the Day for 8/23/2006
"She's Got a New Spell" by Billy Bragg from Workers' Playtime

Billy Bragg is one of the most underappreciated songwriters in rock music and Workers' Playtime is one of the most underappreciated albums of the 1980's. Unlike Bragg's reputation and the album's title, Workers' Playtime has very little politics (except for the classic "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards"), but instead the album is populated by nearly perfect love songs. Most of them are sad love songs, and "She's Got a New Spell" is one of them, a song about, well, getting dumped. The song is built off a base of gentle guitars and an infectious melody as Billy spins a yarn about discovering that his woman seems to have changed, and probably not in a good way. The song itself is almost 20 years old now, but it still maintains its timeless sound as a lot of Billy Bragg's works seem to be able to do. It is truly one of those hidden gems of a song on a hidden gem of an album.

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Another day, another Red Sox loss. *sigh*

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1 comment:

Jesse said...

I haven't heard much Billy Bragg stuff, but the Billy Bragg/Wilco cover album/joint venture from a few years ago remain some of my favorites.

Who were they covering - Woody Gutherie? I forget.