I recorded this in America in Vermont at Barking Dog records with Claudine and Rod and Graham and Camille. It was recorded at Rod's studio during the fall and winter and it was so wonderful to watch the maples glow in their autumnal colours and then shed their leaves and reappear as a grey mass of skeletal leaf coat hangers. Then came the snow and we recorded in their log cabin next to a log-burning stove. The control room was upstairs and there was no intercom so communication was by regular jaunts up and down the studio stairs. But, you know, this is a great record all round. Sound wise and instrumentally top. They kept sending me bits they’d done over from America so I could give it the go-ahead. Nowadays you can do this at the flick of a switch but not then. All credit to these wonderful people for doing this album for me. Thanks so much. I love you all.

1. The Love of Love
Listen to this and you will see why I am a believer in the need for a republic and why anybody with any common sense should be.

2. Johnny Was a Collier
This tells the story of my family living through two world wars, enormous hardship and poverty and is therefore a reflection of millions of working class families used by the monarchy, the aristocracy and the bankers etc. to do their dirty work and fight their stupid wars. They have to go.

3. You So Pretty (also known as Born and Raised in England)
By this time I’m getting pretty clued up on this country’s sorry history.

4. Lament for the Gypsy
I wrote this days after Jack my second child was born, so sometime in January 1991. I’d been watching a documentary on discrimination against Irish gypsies for which Christy Moore had done the music and I felt the need to write a song to help counter this discrimination, much of which I’d seen when I was a kid in Earl Shilton. It’s a song I’m very proud of.

5. I’m the One that they Call Georgie Davenport
Another historical song but George Davenport again. An extremely difficult song to write but I did it.

6. Farewell to the Blackbirds
A very subtle little tune this. I wrote it after watching the blackbirds build their nest in our front hedge and then produce eggs and then the baby birds. Then one day next door’s cat had killed the mother blackbird and the babies had all died in the nest. Oh aren’t cats cute? It was also part of my preoccupation with writing melodies I could play on the guitar. Always when I play these tunes I get the fear of God in me thinking it's all going to fall apart.

7. Squire de Lyle
This arrogant member of the landed gentry closed off a part of his land to the ramblers arguing that they would damage his property. It was a right of way through High Sharpley in Leicestershire. What he failed to mention was that he allowed the Quorn Hunt and E.E.C. Quarries to use Sharpley High. No danger there then Squire. The days of doffing the cap to the likes of you have gone mate.

8. Cracker Man
A song about the slave trade in America. Whenever I sing this I am reminded of where all our wealth came from.

9. Nobody’s Free
I wrote this after the breakdown of my first marriage and it never ceases to surprise me how this song lyrically hits the right spot. People are always asking me to play it.

10. 'Til the Indian was No More
After the slave trade they then steal the land from the Indians. And still it goes on with their undermining of governments whenever they can't get their own way with access to oil or whatever resource they feel they should have. Oh and they’re all so Christian.

11. Piannerfortey (Monologue)
A light hearted look at the joys of trying to teach your own kids an instrument.