Sunday Samples 45
This last week I ran across Tracey Ullman’s autobiographical show Live and Exposed on television. Most people probably remember her from her series on the then-nascent Fox network, which launched The Simpsons in a collection of interstitial animated sketches. She also later had a series, Tracey Takes On on HBO, which like the earlier one centered around her diverse characterizations. She’s also carved out a bit of a niche as a character actress here and there.
But before all of that, she actually had a recording career on the (in)famous punk label, Stiff Records (”If it ain’t stiff, it ain’t worth a f___”), though her style was more a comedic take on the new romantic sound than punk proper. One of her biggest hits was actually a cover of fellow Stiff-er Kirsty MacColl’s “They Don’t Know”. She used the song as the theme for Tracey Takes On, and sang it again as the intro and outro for the aforementioned show. Unfortunately, what came across most of all was how large a toll the last twenty years have taken on her voice.
Still, her performance back in the ’80s was as irrepressibly fun as most everything else she does. Light and fluffy, a veritable meringue of pre-retro retro, and off of her 1983 all-cover debut album, You Broke My Heart in 17 Places, Tracey Ullman’s version of “They Don’t Know” even satirizes itself in its video, giving a poignant undertone to its bubblegum lyrics. Be sure to catch the cameo near the end!
Baby.
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