Daring Adventures by Richard Thompson (1986).

Thompson was among the English folk revival of the 1960s and 70s that included Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention (of which Thompson was a member). This album is a fairly typical collection of his solo work, including many catchy numbers with wit and style.

"Valerie" and "Baby Talk" are guilty favorites of mine; they are both up-tempo, cleverly written songs, but they both demonstrate a strain of misogyny that sometimes creeps into Thompson's songs.  In "Valerie," a frustrated suitor details his loved one's expensive and pretentious tastes.  At the opposite end of the romantic spectrum, "Baby Talk" describes a suitor frustrated with his lover's habit of lapsing into childish patter when they make love.  I like them both because they're fun to play and sing, which should be said of all folk music.

"Dead Man's Handle" and "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" illustrate Thompson's ability to create a time and place with stark imagery and a kind of atavistic masculinity.  The former is about a railroad car out of control, racing to oblivion as the conductor desperately tries to stop it.  I think it's an allegory about my credit cards.

Al Bowlly was a British lounge singer in the years between the World Wars.  He was killed in the London Blitz in 1941.  This song is in the voice of a World War II veteran who finds life after wartime depressing and empty.  You might rent the Meryl Streep film Plenty to get the feel for this song, but I won't take the blame for the consequences.  But this song teaches a lot of appreciation for veterans.

It's necessary for men to understand what other men go through.  I suppose that's true of women too, but I don't presume to speak for them.  This song reminds me that veterans have seen and done things so that I won't have to see and do those things.  As sympathetic as I am to leftist anti-war sentiments, like all good leftists I retain sentiment for the fodder at the front.  This song starkly depicts their lot in civilian life.