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The Impossible Song & Other Songs

album by Roddy Woomble

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 revisionFeb 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ7741593 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Impossible Song & Other Songs is the third solo album by folk musician and Idlewild vocalist Roddy Woomble, released on 21 March 2011 on Greenvoe Records.

The album's artwork is by author and illustrator Mairi Hedderwick, noted for her series of children's books featuring Katie Morag.

The album entered the UK album chart at #73.

Background and recording

In the spring of 2008, Woomble moved to the Isle of Mull with his wife, Ailidh Lennon. Woomble notes: "We moved to Mull for the space, for the environment, but it's actually been the people that have been so important. My wife has family there. At first I knew no one at all, but the songs I've written have definitely been shaped by the people I've met. Sometimes I think it's odd how these songs came together quite quickly, then I think, well maybe it's not been quick at all, maybe it's taken me 34 years to get here and I just didn't realise it."

The album was recorded over four months at Mull's local arts centre, An Tobar, with Woomble enlisting thirteen musicians to assist in recording. Former Idlewild bassist Gavin Fox appears throughout the album, alongside Phil Cunningham, Lau's Aidan O'Rourke and Michael Marra.

Track listing

All songs written by Woomble/Maclean, unless otherwise noted.

Editorial summary

“The Impossible Song & Other Songs” enters the record as album by Roddy Woomble. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Impossible, Song and Other can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2011, 2008—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2011. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Impossible, Song and Other.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Impossible Song & Other Songs” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Impossible, Song and Other provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7741593. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011 and 2008.

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.

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  2. Expand the search: follow The Impossible Song & Other Songs primary sources, The Impossible Song & Other Songs archive and Impossible 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.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Impossible Song & Other Songs” 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.