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Born in the U.K.

album by Badly Drawn Boy

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ4945899 ↗
Source-derived summary

Born in the U.K. is the fifth album released by the singer-songwriter Badly Drawn Boy, real name Damon Gough, released on 16 October 2006. The album's title is a reference to Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 album Born in the U.S.A.. Gough is a big fan of Springsteen, citing his work as an inspiration for his music.

Born in the U.K. was Gough's first album on his new record label EMI (his contract with his previous label XL Recordings collapsed in 2004) and is co-produced with Nick Franglen, one half of the acclaimed trip-hop/electronica outfit Lemon Jelly, another XL Recordings artist. The majority of the record recalls his 2002 album Have You Fed the Fish? due to its polished, heavily orchestrated sound.

The album is a reflection on the artist's life in the United Kingdom. Gough wanted to "capture something about being British or English". "I want to stand up and say I'm proud to be English. And it seems that that right's been taken away from us for some reason… being proud of where you're from is part of being a human being".

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Born in the U.K.” is album by Badly Drawn Boy. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Born, album and Badly, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006, 1984, 2004, 2002—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2006. For this dossier, Born, album and Badly is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “album by Badly Drawn Boy” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4945899. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 1984, 2004 and 2002.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Born in the U.K.”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Born in the U.K. primary sources, Born in the U.K. archive and Born research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Born in the U.K.”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Born in the U.K.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.