Nothing Can Stop Us

Signing to Rough Trade in the early 80s, on the understanding from his former label Virgin that he wouldn’t release any LPs for a while, Wyatt released a series of singles of cover versions. The set was recorded with a straight, simple, beauty informed by the experience of geopolitics just as the term was being invented. ‘Arauco’ drew on the street ‘mass songs’ of a Chile protesting at the imminent arrival of Pinochet. ‘Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’” was a playful resurrection of a barbershop quartet that sincerely, and unbelievably, aligned the USA with the Soviet Union. Most startling of all was Wyatt’s version of Chic’s ‘At Last I Am Free’. Breathless and hymnal it gave pause for thought for anyone who liked to use the words personal and political in the same sentence. - Ensuring the UK was represented in his survey of the New World Order, Wyatt paired a version of his old friend Ivor Cutler’s ‘Grass’ alongside a collaboration with the Bengali group Dishari that encouraged Bengali workers to join a trade union. Whilst his beard and directly to the left stance suggested agitprop and protest, these tracks highlighted his incredible gift as an interpreter of the world around him.