The 1981 Listening Post - Stiff Little Fingers - Go For It

Stiff Little Fingers - Go For It #134 April 17 1981 Stiff Little Fingers Go For It Genre: Punk 4 out of 5 Highlights: Just Fade Away Hits and Misses Picacdilly Circus I know that all the punters in England were hanging out with Don Letts in the late 70s/early 80s and their musical shifts reflected that (Looking at you, “The Only One”). Here we see it affect Stiff Little Fingers on the very first track, a skittish, nervous cover of Bunny O’Riely’s "Roots, Radicals, Rockers and Reggae” and, well, we all know how I feel about opening your record with someone else’s tune. In this case, the track is excellent and right in SLF’s wheelhouse but that just has me wondering why they chose to open with someone else’s track, especially since, as often happens, the album explodes right after that the original “Just Fade Away” and I wasn’t expecting the title track to be a rambunctious choo-choo train of an instrumental. There is so much energy coming out of this record, it’s a shame no one talks about these guys anymore. https://music.apple.com/us/album/go-for-it-remastered/695460161