Most Influential Single: A New England Kirsty MacColl By Tim Sandle (timsandle@aol.com) (highest chart position no.

.7, 1985) In the mid-80s, with the help of a sing-along tune and lyrics of hope and longing written by socialist singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, Kirsty MacColl burst through into the UK charts and the world heard one of the finest voices in pop music (Bragg). A New England was originally written and sung by Bragg in an acoustic folk style (injected with the anger he heard from The Clash) on his album Lifes A Riot For Spy vs. Spy. It is a song about youth, relationships and the optimism surrounding love. Also, as you would expect from Barkings finest, a splattering of social commentary. A perfect song for those who were too young for punk but not ready to embrace the sharp decline of pop following the corruption of the New Romantics. Working with Bragg, MacColl added new dimensions to the song and carried it to a wider audience. With the help of an extra verse and a change of emphasis on gender, MacColl added a bitter-sweet dimension to the song, most notably with the sense of longing that touches unrequited love in lyrics like: Saw two shooting stars last night / I wished on them but they were only satellites / Is it wrong to wish on space hardware / I wish, I wish, I wish youd care, against a jangling pop backdrop. There are very few who havent experienced that sense of frustration. Musically the song is feel-good, with the rising crescendo to the chorus of I dont want to change the world, Im not looking for a New England, and a catchyness to delight any pub sing-song. Added to this are MacColls vocals, which manage to combine a little girl lost feel with an edge of weariness that signifies the working class youth that the song seems to portray. Talk of young girls, stripped of their best years, pushing prams is held in the thoughts of the singer as one of the inevitable turns that life could take 1980s Tory Britain, but she stills waits for the phone to ring and knows that shell have to grow up one day (Im twenty-two now but I wont be for long). The song became an essential part of both MacColls and Braggs live acts and both often encouraged the crowd to join in (as if they could have prevented it). On a few occasions they performed it together, sharing vocals and enlivening it with great humour. Many will behold Kirstys collaboration with the Pogues Fairytale in New York as the signature tune to remember her by. But with New England theres no better introduction to MacColls breathy voice, her own commitment to social and sexual politics, or indeed, to Braggs.