If you want to make the weather then you have to take the blame.

Continuing my journey across the output of The Bard Of Barking...

Mr Love & Justice (2008)

And we're back - after a hefty six year break. I did listen to this back in the day and I remember thinking it was OK, but I don't think I ever went there again - although I have heard him play the odd track live over the years. I'm looking forward to revisiting it, not least because it's got to be better than his last one, hasn't it?

1. I Keep Faith
Oh yes, an immediate improvement. A simple enough tune with some plaintive yet uplifting lyrics - it's all along the lines of "even if you don't believe in yourself, I believe in you because you believe in me" which is kinda heartwarming.

2. I Almost Killed You
This is OK, but unnecessarily complicated with loads of pointless clapping on it - I just have a suspicion that The Blokes are not helping matters here.

3. M for Me
"Take the M from me and the Y from you out of FAMILY and it all falls through" - yeah, we're definitely back on track here

4. The Beach is Free
This is the first one that I think is improved by all the extra instruments - it would fit nicely onto Don't Try This At Home

5. Sing Their Souls Back Home
Whereas this is more a Mermaid Avenue kinda sound, but in a good way (unlike most of Mermaid Avenue).

6. You Make Me Brave
This is another nice "awww, I love ya" song.

7. Something Happened
This is another one that isn't improved by all the faffing about.

8. Mr Love & Justice
This one is nice enough without being anything amazing.

9. If You Ever Leave
Ditto.

10. O Freedom
This is back to Political Billy - decent lyrics, but it really doesn't need all the faffing.

11. The Johnny Carcinogenic Show
This is a bit clumsy - I think most people knew cigarettes were bad by then. I guess he gets brownie points for managing to get "carcinogenic" to work in a song at all though.

12. Farm Boy
A decent enough track to end the album with a nice bit of Hammond organ on it.

All in all, this was a massive improvement - they're all decent tracks, with my only negative comments being about all the musical faffing provided by The Blokes. In places they add something, but they seem to be determined to get involved everywhere and Billy should have just said "Oi - Blokes! NO!" for a lot of the album. But... 

...Wikipedia tells me the CD was also released in a double album format with a second one being just Billy and his guitars, so I had to check that out. And generally, I'd say it's all a vast improvement with "Something Happened" and "O Freedom" in particular being soooo much better for going back to his roots (although I'm not entirely convinced by his completely unaccompanied version of "You Make Me Brave"). So for the playlist I'm going to split it across both versions - I'm going to take "The Beach Is Free" and "Sing Their Souls Back Home" from the Blokes album because I think these are improved by the faffing and "I Keep Faith" and "Something Happened" from the solo album (although the original version of "I Keep Faith" is also good).

Wikipedia tells us very little other than the title came from a 1960 novel by Colin MacInnes. The critics were in firm agreement that this was his best thing in ages, with some thinking it was a step forward and others still bemoaning it wasn't as good as his early stuff - I'm with The AV Club who said it "doesn't scale the heights he achieved on earlier albums, at least the mountains are visible from here". Unusally, there's no word on commercial performance but it made #33 in the UK - it's probably safe to assume it didn't do anything elsewhere.

This is a massive return to form for me - even in the original version because they're decent tracks and done well (unlike the mess that they made on the previous album). But if you're a Billy fan and you've not heard the solo version then I thoroughly recommend checking it out - I was really pleased to be introduced to it.

England, Half English - Just not very good