David Vance SubstackRead More
It was on this date in 2000 that Kirsty MacColl was killed whilst on holiday in Mexico. I still remember hearing the news on the car radio and being absolutely devastated. Why? Let me take you on a little journey.
It starts in 1979 when she released her first single “They don’t know” and I bought it, in fact I still have it!
She was 19 and I thought that she looked as great as she sounded! Her single did not chart because, unbelievably, there was a a distributors’ strike at that time. Years later, Tracey Ullman did a cover of it that was a big hit (still not as good as the original, mind)
Two years passed and then, in 1981, Kirsty had a novelty hit with the epic “There’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis” Here it is…
This showed her ability to coin a sharp and funny lyric and yes, I was fully hooked on her! In subsequent years she did have a hit with her cover of Billy Bragg’s “A New England” and then came 1987 and she achieved a sort of musical immortality when she shared the vocals of “Fairytale of New York” with Shane Magowan in that massive Pogues hit which has now become a Christmas perennial.
After that, her songwriting blossomed further and she released more albums in the 1990’s, one in particular containing a song called Soho Square, which I will return to shortly.
Now Kirsty was painfully shy and didn’t like touring. But on 13 October 1999, she played Belfast and I was there to see her. She was great and had a fantastic band to help her recreate the songs on her new album “Tropical Brainstorm”. It was a small venue and it was so memorable to me. I didn’t know that she would dead, killed in a speedboat “accident”, just over a year later.
Which brings me back to Soho Square.
In her song of that name there is a line…
“One day I’ll be waiting there, no empty bench in Soho Square.”
A group of fans decided to finance a bench in Soho Square in her memory. I am proud to have been one of them. Soho Square is just off the bottom of Oxford Street, btw.
Here is the bench…
In the years after, when in London, I would take myself off to seclusion of this little oasis of peace and sit on the bench, watch the pigeons and just reflect a little on Kirsty and the loss to music of her passing
I will leave you with the song behind the bench..
She was so talented, a voice like an angel and a wit that was sharp.
I still miss her. 25 years ago today.
