Listen to the sound of marching feet

I won’t delve too deep into the history behind “Ghosts of Cable Street” - wikipedia and the like do a far better job. I’m intrigued at how much better the live version of this song is and why it had to be relegated to a B-side of a questionable single. “Great Expectations” was a decent enough song from 1990’s The Domino Club but somehow it got released as a single twice. The first release was the obvious enough ‘lead into the album release’ approach with a nice studio B-side and a lovely live version of “Green Fields of France” done at what sounds like a small pub gig because I swear you can hear the clinking of glassware and tables.

Then two years later a remixed version was pressed with an album cut and two live tracks. Why wait two years to re-release the same song? It made no sense. Even stranger is how terrible the remix version is. The basics of the song are there but they’re shifted around just enough to make it feel awkward. The vocals for the chorus are pushed so far up that it sounds like someone literally forgot to bring the levels in line when finishing the mix. After hearing this version I was going to pass on the single entirely but heard the two live tracks, “The Colours” and “Ghosts of Cable Street” are two of TMTCH’s better songs and the live versions here are outstanding. The ‘dirtier’ live sound suits the band far better and “Ghosts” loses a questionable horn section from the album version that always smacked of too much studio tinkering. In the end it was worth the few bucks to get the live tracks.

The Men They Couldn’t Hang - Ghosts of Cable Street (Live)