tracks

A New England
Fear Is A Man's Best Friend
Love Gets Dangerous
Like Soldiers Do
The Man In The Iron Mask
The Saturday Boy
A Lover Sings
Between The Wars
A13, Trunk Road To The Sea
There Is Power In A Union
Days Like These
Scholarship Is The Enemy Of Romance
Greetings To The New Brunette
Ideology
The Warmest Room
She's Got A New Spell
Valentine's Day Is Over
The Short Answer
Rotting On Remand
The Few
Accident Waiting To Happen
Tank Park Salute
Brickbat
This Gulf Between Us
Goal Hanger
The Boy Done Good
From Red To Blue
The Busy Girl Buys Beauty
It Says Here
Lonesome Traveller
Goodbye, Goodbye
Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key
No-One Knows Nothing Anymore
Levi Stubbs' Tears
Why We Build The Wall
I Ain't Got No Home
The Space Race Is Over
St. Swithin's Day

notes

"Work in progress. That's how John Peel thought of his evening sessions, offering artists the opportunity to try out new songs in the studio environment. That's how I looked at them too. The confirmation of a Peel session date was a signal to get my ideas together, to define material that had hitherto been little more than words scribbled on a page or a tune thrashed out during a sound check.

That's why some of the tracks here have a different phrasing and arrangement to that which appeared on record. The songs were so new, you can hear I'm still feeling my way into them. Several were conceived and written the night before the session. In one case, I actually composed a song from scratch while the show was on air.

That rawness was always a key component of my BBC sessions, the thrill of putting something out there for the very first time. And here I've collected all the best moments across 36 years of my ongoing work in progress." Billy Bragg

(p) 2019 BBC Licensed courtesy of BBC Studios
(c) 2019 Billy Bragg under exclusive licence to Cooking Vinyl Limited.

1-1 to 1-3 John Peel Session - Maida Vale 4, 27th July 1983
1-4 to 1-6 David Jensen Session - Studio 4, 22nd December 1983
1-7 & 1-8 John Peel Session - Maida Vale 5, 18th September 1984
1-9 Saturday Live - Live Studio 2, 13th October 1984
1-10 & 1-11 John Peel Session - Maida Vale 5, 20th August 1985
1-12 Janice Long Live - Studio 2, 18th December 1985
1-13 to 1-15 John Peel Session - Maida Vale 5, 2nd September 1986 (Studio not identified for 1-13)
1-16 to 1-19 John Peel Session - Maida Vale 4, 30th August 1988
2-1 to 2-3 John Peel Session - Maida Vale 3, 12th May 1991
2-4 & 2-5 John Peel Session - 13th October 1995
2-6 to 2-8 John Peel Divas Bar Live - 1st May 1997
2-9 & 2-10 Janice Long Live - Paris Theatre, October 1999
2-11 John Peel Session - 8th December 2004
2-12 Phill Jupitus Live - 30th March 2007
2-13 Bob Harris Live - 6th May 2012
2-14 Latitude Festival Live - 18th July 2014
2-15 Glastonbury Festival Live - 26th June 2015
2-16 Tom Robinson Live - 21st January 2017
2-17 Radio 2 Folk Awards Live - 5th May 2017
2-18 & 2-19 Tom Robinson Now Playing "Billy Bragg Takeover" - 14th July 2019

Initial copies from Billy Bragg's online store included a signed CD insert and an enamel badge.

Packaging: 6-panel roll-fold card sleeve with slots in inner left and right panels for discs.

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