Night of a Thousand Candles by Men They Couldn't Hang

Night of a Thousand Candles, the 1985 debut from the Men They Couldn't Hang, is folk punk with its boots muddy and its heart on its sleeve, and Nick Lowe produced it for Demon. The band that made it was Stefan Cush and Phil "Swill" Odgers trading vocals and guitars (Swill adding tin whistle and melodica), Paul Simmonds on guitar, bouzouki, mandolin and keyboards, Jon Odgers on drums and Shanne Bradley on bass.

Several of these songs were aired before the album ever hit the shops, in John Peel sessions taped on July 14, 1984 and January 22, 1985, and their take on Eric Bogle's "The Green Fields of France" had already climbed to 3 in Peel's Festive 50 of 1984. "Ironmasters" followed as the second single, and Melody Maker's critics ranked the whole record 10th on their year-end list for 1985. How Green Is the Valley came next.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.