Track Listing

1. Rollin' Mill Man
2. Smackwater Jack
3. Sweet September Morning
4. She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina
5. Bells
6. Helpless
7. Moratorium
8. Surfer
9. Song Of The French Partisan
10. Soldier Blue
11. Now You've Been Gone For A Long Time

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21156 in Music
• Released on: 1995-10-23
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Reissue of LP from 1971...
I bought this one as a present as the person I was buying for was a fan of the film 'Soldier Blue' (1971)- as Morrissey namechecked her a few years ago and the late Jack Nitzsche ('River Deep, Mountain High', Neil Young, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' - subject of a great compilation last year)produced this. 'She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina' ended up on my mp3 player and is certainly something I wished I'd discovered before - certainly one of those classic albums from the late 60s/early 70s from a female vocalist. File next to the revered culty likes of Judee Sill, Linda Perhacs & Laura Nyro - for some reason this album made sense alongside Cat Power's wonderful LP 'The Greatest.'

'She Used...' is a fine collection of songs, including political works - 'Moratorium (Bring Our Brothers Home)' which centres on Vietnam (but has pertinence regarding the 21st Century 'Nam, Iraq), 'Song of the French Partisan' (suggesting an allegiance between France & the US - the former helped free the latter from British imperial rule, while the latter freed the former from the Third Reich), and 'Soldier Blue' - which was the title song for the hippy-western of the same name (not a bad film, quite comic and satirical till the slightly dated denoument which doesn't seem that bloody now and errs towards exploitatation). The highlights for me are the cover versions of songs I knew - Carole King's 'Smackwater Jack' (from bestseller 'Tapestry'), Leonard Cohen's 'Bells' (one of the best Cohen cover versions I've heard, deserves to rank alongside Johnny Cash's 'Bird on a Wire', John Cale's 'Hallelujah', David McComb's 'Don't Go Home with Your Hard On', Jennifer Warnes' 'Famous Blue Raincoat' & Fatima Mansions' 'A Singer Must Die'), and Neil Young's 'Helpless'- recorded with Crosby, Stills & Nash, ripped off by Dylan for 'Knockin'on Heaven's Door' and also covered by the Bad Seeds. 'She Used...' is a fine collection and an album that has introduced me to the joys of this artist - fans of the producer should certainly track this one down...

Seconded!
Fully agree with tabbycat.

This is a super album with the worst sound I have ever heard on a modern album (well, it's still modern to me!)issued by a major label.

The original LP version is of a far higher quality. What's happened to the master tapes?

Come on Vanguard, you can do better than this!!

really bad sound quality
I bought this as I wanted to add the track "Soldier Blue" to my CD collection having given away my record collection some years ago. However, I was VERY disappointed when I heard the extremely poor quality of this song. It sounds like a bad tape recording from an old
record. I recently watched the film where the soundtrack is far, far better than this recording.