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