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8 June 2016

Peanut - Home Of The Brave/ I Wanna Hear It Again



Label: Pye
Year of Release: 1965

We've discussed Peanut on this blog before - we have, you know - but unlike "I Didn't Love Him Anyway", this is a track from earlier in her career before her paths crossed with Mark Wirtz.

Wirtz's absence means that this version of Mann and Weil's "Home of the Brave" has fewer bells and whistles, or to be more precise, a much less elaborate arrangement, but it's still a fine piece of work. There's a rawness to it which actually suits the subject matter very well, and Peanut (aka Katie Kissoon) has a pleading, yearning voice which cuts straight through to the point. The fact she failed to score a hit in the sixties is still baffling to me, but she more than made up for this later on in her career. 

"Home of the Free" itself is lyrically cut from the same kind of cloth as R Dean Taylor's "Let's Go Somewhere", taking the fight against the dominant expectations of "The Man" and turning it into powerful soul music. Top notch stuff.


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