Amy Taylor sings a John Prine song with Viagra Boys at FORWARDS in Bristol

Amy Taylor walked onto the Clifton Downs stage during the Viagra Boys set at FORWARDS in Bristol on August 30, and the two acts finally played a song they made together six years ago. In Spite Of Ourselves, written and originally recorded by John Prine, had never been performed live by the pair before.

Prine released it in 1999 as a duet with Iris DeMent, the title track of his 13th studio album, and it works on the same joke throughout: two people listing each other's faults and staying anyway. Viagra Boys and Taylor recorded a livelier, lo-fi version in 2020, which ended up on the Swedish band's second album, Welfare Jazz.

Frontman Sebastian Murphy has been clear about why he wanted her on it. He said the song made him want to cover it the first time he heard it, and that Taylor's voice made her the obvious person to take DeMent's part. "Amy is a goddess of punk rock and a very important part of music today," he said at the time.

Taylor came to Prine through the collaboration rather than the other way around. She has said Murphy is a country fan, that she is too, and that the duet turned her into a Prine listener. After the Bristol performance she posted a line from the song on Instagram, and thanked Murphy for the duet.

Prine died in April 2020 from complications related to COVID-19, aged 73, which puts the recording right at the edge of his life without either act having planned it that way.

Both bands arrive at the end of a busy summer. Viagra Boys released their fourth album, Viagr Aboys, in April 2025 and told NME backstage at Reading that they have spent the past year writing and recording demos, while cautioning that it is too early to describe what the next record is. Taylor's band, meanwhile, have a concert film and live album called Truth Or Consequence arriving, filmed at a Los Angeles restaurant and leaning country.

Guest spots between rock and punk acts at British festivals are common enough, though few of them are settling a six year debt. Elsewhere in punk this season, the Garden released Bootleg.