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Music

eliza blows up

ELIZA CARTHY at the Horseshoe (370 Queen West), Monday (March 26), 9 pm. $8. 416-598-4753. Rating: NNNNN


After the blue dye job, multiple piercings and various electronica dabbling, there wasn’t much left for Britfolk rebel Eliza Carthy to do that would shock traditionalist fans of her parents, Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson. Still, her recent major-label turn, Angels & Cigarettes (Warner), a full-on singer/songwriter pop album complete with a Van Dyke Parks string swirl, suggests that she hasn’t stopped trying.

The opening line from the tune The Company Of Men, which goes, “I’ve given blow jobs on couches to men who didn’t want me any more” certainly raised a few eyebrows. As for Dad? Well, he’s all for it, since he co-wrote the thing.

“We were fooling around with the ragtimey bit at the beginning and I was thinking that it could definitely be a song. So I went off and wrote some lyrics and gave the intro to my dad to add something, saying, “Strings, you… off you go.’

“It wasn’t until he came back and tried singing my words to his melody, “I’ve given blow jobs on couches,’ that we all noticed how some people might think it was, um, strange.

“The funny thing is, the bloody chords my dad put in are so hard to figure out, we haven’t been able to perform it yet. People probably think, “She won’t be singing the blow-job song if her parents are in the audience,’ but really I can’t do it unless my dad’s onstage playing it with me.”

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