Handful of Earth

When this album was released in November 1981, the year had already seen riots in Brixton, Toxteth and Moss Side, the death of Bobby Sands, the birth of the SDP and Murdoch's purchasing of The Times newspapers – all indicators of the tumultuous socio-political battles that would be lost and won, carving deep channels that our society still flows down today. As such, the politics and protest, as well as the storytelling and passion embedded in Gaughan's Handful of Earth, remains a potent force, not a museum curiosity, at a time when our politics, in the broadest sense, seem on the poise of significant change.

As for the music and the performance, it's among the best and most successful of all his releases. His guitar and vocals are as powerful instruments as any – you can imagine the bite and anger of ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ tearing down the walls of social iniquity as if they were paper-thin. Alas, those walls still stand. But so does the passion and the tenderness of his wonderful account of Burns' ‘Now Westlin' Winds’ or the pairing of ‘Lough Erne’ and ‘First Kiss at Parting’.