if words unsaid could sway

And some men carve a statue of Isambard Brunel
A small, happifying thing: the very day I was kvetching about having "A Map of Morocco" by the Men They Couldn't Hang stuck in my head with no way to actually listen to it, I checked emusic and found that my 2 favourite TMTCH albums (Silvertown and The Domino Club) were available for download! Awesome. Why didn't I replace them on CD ages ago, you ask? Sheer folly, I guess, because 20 years on Silvertown is as awesome as the first time I heard "Company Town" while waking up to CHRW in high school.

ETA: for anyone to care about this, I guess I should endeavour to explain why I think TMTCH rule so hard. Which is always tough. When I play them for people, the reaction is often "This sounds like the Pogues!" Wellll.. yes and no. That basic British Isles folk-punk thing, fast and melodic and sort of shouty and ass-kicking but in a sensitive, left-wing way, is there for sure; but by contrast with the Pogues' heart-on-the-sleeve Irishness (albeit London Irishness), the Men They Couldn't Hang are really, really English. Both melodically and lyrically. Their first single, "Ironmasters", was a mile-a-minute anthem about union organizing during the Industrial Revolution, ending in a vicious broadside against Margaret Thatcher, with the tune lifted from the trad song "Flowers of the Valley".

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