Bootleg Retrospective


Bootleg Retrospective is a compilation album by The Slits. The album is officially untitled. It is also referred to as Y, Y3LP, Y3Lp—The Official Bootleg, , and, in Greil Marcus' book "Lipstick Traces," A Boring Life, or Once Upon A Time In A Living Room.
The album consists of lo-fi demos and live performances, mostly, in all likelihood from 1977-9, preceding the sessions for 1979's Cut album. Two recordings, "Face Place" and "Or What Is It?", are skeletal, incomplete sketches of songs which appeared in finished form on 1981's Return of the Giant Slits album. A 30-second section of "Bongos on the Lawn" appears at the opening of the promotional video for "Instant Hit" from the Cut album.
In spite of its rough and informal appearance, the album was an authorized release compiled by the Slits, who were signed to Y Records at the time. It was released by Y Records, on or around March 17, 1980, and was distributed by Rough Trade Records.

Track listing

All tracks written by Viv Albertine, Tessa Pollitt, Arianne Forster and Paloma Romero

Side one

  1. "A Boring Life"
  2. "Slime"
  3. "Face Place"
  4. "No. 1 Enemy"
  5. "Vaseline"

    Side two

  6. "Or What Is It?"
  7. "Bongos On The Lawn"
  8. "Let's Do The Split"
  9. "Once Upon A Time In A Living Room"
  10. "No More Rock n Roll For You"/"Mosquitoes"
A CD re-release by Japanese RCA Victor uses the wrong song titles on several of the tracks; this is verifiable by comparing the titles with other appearances of these songs on various studio and live Slits releases.
The performance titled "No More Rock n Roll For You" is a May 30, 1977 live encore co-performance with the bands Subway Sect and The Prefects, from the California Ballroom in Dunstable . This track is included on Vic Godard and the Subway Sect's compilation Twenty Odd Years as "We Oppose All Rock And Roll/Sister Ray"; it features extensive lyric quotations from the Velvet Underground song "Sister Ray".

Personnel