Thea Gilmore – My Own Private Riot 2008-2015

What does it sound like?:

The Cherry Red website describes this as an ‘Extensive seven-CD box set following the career of English singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore.’ Well, up to a point Lord Copper. It’s actually a collection of 7 of Thea’s albums covering the years 2008 to 2015, presented in full, with a handful of extras on some of the discs. It’s not a career retrospective, but it’s a fascinating slice of one.

It also shows how eclectic that career has been. The seven discs cover three studio albums of original songs, a live album, a Christmas album of originals and covers, a track by track take on Dylan’s John Wesley Harding, and a best-of / new songs mash-up including several re-recordings of her own songs with guest artists. In the middle of all this she also recorded Don’t Stop Singing, an album of recently discovered Sandy Denny lyrics set to her own tunes, which is not included here.

Even for me, a fan of a couple of decades standing, it’s a lot to take in, over 100 tracks. Given the scale of the project, I’m sure you’ll forgive me for restricting myself to thoughts and memories on each album in the comments below, rather than exhaustive track by track exegesis. I’ve tried to respond to the music as I find it and haven’t dug out any old write-ups I may have done at the time, so references to gigs and venues may not be strictly accurate but they’re what feels right to me now.

Disc 1 – Liejacker [Studio album]

Thea’s first two studio albums were spiky, teenager-with-a-guitar affairs. They were followed by a trio of singer-songwriter collections (still the first I would direct a newcomer to, though they fall just before the period covered by this set). By Liejacker her tone and point of view had changed. She was less likely to be challenging and political; the themes of her songs were more domestic and geared towards consolation rather than confrontation. As she observes in the liner notes, ‘As I’ve grown older and had children, there’s certainly more acknowledgement that you need light.’
The opener Old Soul and Icarus Wind are just gorgeous, and the disc also has the pick of the extras – a terrific little rocker called Honesty Box, previously only available on a CD single sold at gigs. Old Soul, not yet recorded, was the opening song at a gig at Dingwalls on Camden Lock, and I remember being stunned by it on first listening. As a collection Liejacker is a slow burn and it isn’t the first album I would suggest to anyone unfamiliar with Thea’s work.

Disc 2 – Recorded Delivery [Live album]

I remember talking to Nigel Stonier (Thea’s ex-husband, and then producer and musical partner) after a gig in Brighton when a refreshed gig-goer crashed the conversation and insisted that what he really wanted was from Thea was a live album. Nigel said something non-committal in response, and in the notes Thea writes that capturing ephemeral live music on record is like ‘putting a butterfly in a jar’, but Recorded Delivery arrived not long after. Thea can be a mesmerising live performer, especially in her more recent completely solo performances, though she admitted to still having stage fright in a recent Word in Your Ear podcast.
I was at one of the shows recorded for this set, at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London, but at this distance I’d be hard pressed to tell you for which tracks. They would be in the acoustic ‘side one’ though. Stripped of studio polish the acoustic songs in particular expose Thea’s voice and songs as treasures which don’t require embellishment. Of the dozens of songs in My Own Private Riot the opening tracks here are the ones I would play to someone who wanted to know why I am such a long standing fan.
If you’re looking for the box set’s title song My Own Private Riot, originally released on 2000’s The Lipstick Conspiracy, this is where you’ll find it in all its snarling power, on the ‘electric’ side along with a wonderful, clattering run through of This Girl is Taking Bets, possibly Thea’s most celebrated song.

Disc 3 – Strange Communion [Christmas album]

For someone who ‘can construct misery quite well,’ as she puts it herself, Thea gives excellent ‘festive’. The Christmas gig at Bush Hall when this album was released was an absolute belter, as, to be fair, were other Christmas shindigs at The Half Moon in Putney and Tooting Tram Shed. This album started off as a response to a conversation with Janice Long when Janice complained of not having any new Christmas songs to play. Thea Gilmore’s Midwinter Toast was the response, and the album followed.

Although That’ll Be Christmas is a toe-tapper, and a rousing take on Elvis Costello’s The St Stephen’s Day Murders will get any party started, the highlights are quieter numbers. Her take Yoko Ono’s Listen the Snow is Falling is as delicate and hushed as snowflakes drifting through streetlamp light outside a cosy bedroom, and her own composition December in New York was given a deserved wider audience. December in New York is one of my favourite Thea tracks ever and its only previous album release was hidden away on an out takes collection called Loft Music, and even then only if you hunted down the 2 disc special edition.

Disc 4 – Murphy’s Heart [Studio album]

Murphy’s Heart shifts up a gear from Liejacker. Although songs of consolation are still present in the form of How the Love Gets In and more, there is a return to angrier lyrics with God’s Got Nothing on You and Love’s the Greatest Instrument of Rage. She also tackles sex, a subject she had largely steered clear of previously, in Teach Me to Be Bad and Jazz hands. There is a clear attempt at commercial appeal too with You’re the Radio, a song seemingly designed for day time Radio 2. In the liner notes Thea describes the range of her material like this:

Love’s The Greatest Instrument of Rage is much more me: fierce, slightly spitty aggression, definitely two camps who buy my music: People who want more aggressive, rapid fire, state-of-the-union stuff. Then, the others who are there for the mellow, gentle, quite feminine stuff. I like being able to offer both. I like surprising people and not fitting into boxes. It’s got to be fun – if it’s not, what’s the point?

Of all the albums in this box Murphy’s Heart is the one that surprised me most with its range and how much I enjoyed revisiting it. By now you’ll know that I won’t miss a Thea gig in easy reach of me, and the 2010 shows were at Dingwalls again and an afternoon set at Cropredy. To be honest I have hazy memories of both, though there are plenty of videos from Cropredy on YouTube for me to catch up with.

Disc 5 – John Wesley Harding [Cover of the Dylan album]

I like to think I’m at least partly responsible for this album existing. Many years ago, Thea recorded a version of I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine for an Uncut cover mount CD. Sometime later I was browsing the web and followed a link which promised to reveal ‘What’s on Bruce Springsteen’s iPod’. Among the Boss’ selection was that Thea cover. Thea is a huge Bruce fan, so I forwarded the link to Inverigo, a now defunct fan-board. I guess word reached her and made it on to her press release because for years after every Thea article I read started ‘She’s on Bruce Springsteen’s iPod …’
Meetings with Bruce followed and may have been the spur behind a one-off Thea gig of the whole of John Wesley Harding at Union Chapel, and then this unusual record. I can only think of a handful of times when one artist has faithfully recorded a whole album by another. There is this, Ryan Adams/Taylor Swift … any more? One for another thread perhaps.
I confess that JWH is far from my favourite Dylan album, and at the gig I would have preferred Thea to have more fun with the songs and bash them around a little, they’re robust enough to take it. Instead, she reverted to a habit of hers when covering songs by the greats (Dylan, Young and so on) of becoming hushed and reverential. Mind you, she does the same to rockier material too. You can listen to her cover of You Spin Me Round … , a bonus track on the first disc for evidence, and Ever Fallen in Love on her 2004 covers album Loft Music invented John Lewis Christmas ad music before John Lewis Christmas ads were a thing.
Anyway, the studio takes have more gusto, thanks in part to Robbie McIntosh’s guitar. The whole project still strikes me a little eccentric, but Thea fans had learned by now to expect eccentricity and to follow her wherever her muse dictated.

Disc 6 – Regardless [Studio album]

Regardless sets its stall out in the opening number, Something to sing about. The lyric makes it clear that Thea was determined to make her stand and shout it out to anyone willing to listen. It swings too, as do the gentler title track, Start as We Mean to Go On and the thrilling Love Came Looking for me. If it’s consoling crooning you want head to I Will Not Disappoint You.

As a collection of songs showing Thea’s admirable range Regardless is comparable with Murphy’s Heart, but it’s the sound which makes it distinct. Nigel Stonier’s arrangements and production, always multi-layered and lush, add more strings than ever before. At the London gig on the tour, Kings Place in Kings Cross as I recall, I think there were at least 10 musicians on stage including a string quartet.

Disc 7 – Ghosts & Graffiti [Re-recorded best of album]

This one is a quirky addition to the Gilmore catalogue, a selection of older songs re-recorded with a range of special guests plus some new ones, including the lovely opener Copper (‘I am the Lightning looking for the earth / You are the copper, for what it’s worth’). The new songs are welcome, but I’m not convinced that any of the older numbers benefit greatly from either re-recording or collaboration. The sound is full, but the album suffers more than most from Nigel Stonier’s tendency to throw the kitchen sink at the production desk when a stripped-back approach would have let her voice and songwriting shine even brighter.

The guests include some well-known names from Joan Baez to John Cooper Clarke. No Bruce Springsteen though. Maybe next time?

What does it all *mean*?

If Thea Gilmore hasn’t written the finest British songbook of the 21st century I would like to know who has. This collection is a riot and a lullaby, an angry snarl and a consoling whisper, a shout of defiance and a toast to companionship. It’s Thea Gilmore using her voice with wit, grit, and grace. This box set might not be the whole story, but it’s a generous chapter.

Goes well with…

Headphones and a nice glass of red. On second thoughts, leave the bottle. There’s a lot to get through and you’ll be here a while.

Release Date:

31 October 2025

Might suit people who like…

I have to wonder who it is for. Newcomers would be better served by streaming a playlist then cherry picking from her 20+ albums. Those of us who have been along for the ride for some time will already have these records in their original form. If it’s not for newcomers or diehard fans, who would want to take such an immersive dive into a section of a career?

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