The New Briton Gazette: Contemporary British Songs

The husband-and-wife folk duo of Scotsman Ewan MacColl (1915–1989) and American Peggy Seeger (b. 1935) sing a collection of original “contemporary British songs.” Many of MacColl and Seeger’s songs, which utilize traditional and original folk melodies, focus on the economic and political struggles of the working class in mid-20th-century Great Britain. Of note are Seeger’s songs “The Crooked Cross,” about the reappearance of swastikas on synagogues in Germany in the 1950s, and “There’s Better Things For You,” an anti-nuclear-bomb marching song. Song lyrics are in the liner notes.

Track Listing

101	Come Fill up Your Glasses	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	04:16
102	Ballad of the Carpenter	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	04:52
103	The Ballad of Springhill	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	03:53
104	The Lifeboat Mona	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	04:27
105	The Trafford Road Ballad	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	02:17
106	The Fireman's Not for Me	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	01:43
107	When I Was a Young Lad	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	02:46
201	The Crooked Cross	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	02:18
202	There's Better Things to Do	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	02:33
203	Brother, Won't You Join in the Line	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	02:38
204	The Space Girl's Song	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	03:14
205	Come All You Gallant Colliers	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	02:22
206	Come Me Little Son	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	03:30
207	The Fitter's Song	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	01:47
208	The Exile Song	Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl	01:28