Track Listing

1. I've Forgotten What It Was In You (That Put The Need In Me)
2. To Miss Someone
3. Am I The Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way?)
4. Nobody's Child
5. Panic Beach
6. Can't Pull The Wool Down (Over The Little Lamb's Eyes)
7. More Than A Heart Can Hold
8. This Property Is Condemned
9. Breathe
10. Has He Got A Friend For Me?
11. Drinkin' In My Sunday Dress

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9806 in Music
• Released on: 1999-03-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds
• Running time: 45 minutes

Customer Reviews

More Than A... line... Can Hold; This Property Is... listed
This album did not change the world. This album did not change my life; it is unlikely to change yours... but you may feel empathy, you may feel heartsick, you may feel like you've been put through an emotional grider, you may feel giddy at the anthemic swoops of 'Panic Beach', you may sense the fragility portrayed by the singer. This is not an album that is best judged by 30 second clips or one straight listen. Take time to get to know it, let it into your soul. 'I've Forgotten...' is a nice reversal of the more common cry from a lover who feels their partner has lost passion - here it is the singer that has lost the feeling... "Oh honey please don't cry, I'm sorry and ashamed" is a pitiful admission that more of us can relate to than would admit. 'To Miss Someone' is lyrically along the lines of 10cc's 'I'm Not In Love' but admits more vulnerability, and has been covered by Feargal Sharkey (Maria wrote his UK number one, too). The next track was covered by The Dixie Chicks, but try not to let that put you off, a cry from the lonely and rejected - "I'm smothered by this emptiness". 'Nobody's Child', co-written by Robbie Robertson puts in an appearance before the glorious epic of struggling performers that is 'Panic Beach'. The album then falls away to merely very good until the exquisite love song, 'Breathe'..."I was scared when you came into my room, the walls became the sea, your voice was the moon"... pause to visualise it. The album originally ended with a Richard Thompson number to which Maria's voice is well-suited, but in the days of adding tracks to make you buy the CD format 'Drinkin' In My Sunday Dress' was added; very good as such added tracks go, but programme your CD player to move it to the middle of the album! This a great album from a singer-songwriter who seemed to be at the peak of her powers, although if you like your music loud try a later album.

A fragile, beautiful masterpiece
One day, I bought a copy of the New Musical Express (NME) and it carried a review of the debut album by the one-time Lone Justice singer. I had never before heard of Maria McKee. In truth, I have barely followed her career since.

Such was the impact of the review (awarding it 10 out of 10) that I hunted down this album. What I heard was not entirely what I expected (despite what I had read!), but I quickly fell deeply in love with it. And her.

A glowing review was one thing, but the fragile beauty I saw on the cover (and in the photo that accompanied the review) really did it (and continues to do it!) for me.

Somewhere in my house is my old vinyl copy in a protective plastic sleeve and inside sits the review, lovingly cut out of the NME to remind me that sometimes - just sometimes - even the most jaded hack can be right (and if you wrote the review, I mean no offence...).

This is a work of utter quality and must-have album in every collection.

Real gone kid with a real good debut album
Blustering Scottish band Deacon Blue wrote a song( "Real Gone Kid") about Maria Mckee. Based around her incendiary stage presence with the band Lone Justice the song spoke of a personality hard wired to the extreme all of which made her debut solo album such a revelation. By turns tender, wracked, vulnerable, desperate, effusive, spiteful and lots of other stuff in-between Maria Mckee , the album is a hugely mature (McKee was only in her mid-twenties when the album was released) rumination on the travails of the human heart. We should not be too surprised about this , however. This is an artist that wrote the song "A Good Heart" for Fergal Sharkey when she was only nineteen.
The album was released in June 1989 in a truly tremendous year for albums. The Blue Nile released the greatest album of all time "Hats" The Pixies "Doolittle", The Stone Roses debut album came out as did "Club Classics Vol 2" by Soul To Soul and "United Kingdom" by American Music Club. The point being that Maria McKee was more than fit to sit in such exalted company.
Collaborating with artists like Robbie Robertson-who co-wrote the tremulously superb "Nobody's Child", keyboard player Bruce Brody , Gregg Sutton, Mitchell Froom who produced the album , fiddle player Steve Wickham from the Waterboys and Richard Thompson whose "Has He Got A Friend For Me ?" she covers so wonderfully McKee produced an album of eleven dazzling songs. To label this music simply as country-rock is to do it a dis-service in one respect as it's far more expansive and expressively effusive than mere labels can ever convey.
From out and out belters like "I've Forgotten What It Was In You(That Put The Need In Me)",or the on the verge of slightly hysterical "Can't Pull The Wool Down ( Over The Little Lamb's Eyes)" McKee not only showcases huge song writing talent she uses a voice that could sandblast barnacles off an ocean liner with admirable control. However it's the ballads on this album where Maria McKee's colossal talent shines. "To Miss Someone" is, as the title would suggest ,is a song about loss, but is beautifully balanced between poignancy and wavering devastation. "More Than A Heart Can Hold" is a glorious swelling of pent up emotion while "Breathe" is just extraordinary. With most female vocalists a song like "Breathe" with it's elongated notes would be an excuse for hysterical caterwauling and showboating screeching but McKee holds the notes to the edge of breaking and it's just breath taking to hear.....no pun intended. "Nobody's Child" based around a tender organ melody and electric bursts of guitar is one of the most wondrously shattering ballads about isolation you will ever experience.
Maria Mckee had chart success with "Show Me Heaven" , a song she has since disowned apparently , but has never really enjoyed the commercial success her talent and song writing deserves, though the critics have feted her work. Subsequent albums have inevitably contained moments of startling brilliance but for sheer blinding consistency her debut album remains her greatest triumph.