is immediately evident with the distorted guitar riff that begins the opening song "You’ve Got to Change (You’ve Got to Reform)", a dance track with a lengthy jam section. "Stay Away" is a delve into progressive rock, and is stretched out by unusual electronic experimentation, and tape delay. A cover of a Neil Young song, "Birds" is an exercise in smooth soul, while "The Flower Song" and "Smilin'" are instrumentals which have been compared to the music of Booker T. & the MGs. "Soul Island" was inspired by the band's trip to Trinidad, where they performed with the Mighty Sparrow, and was considered by Palmer to be the group's most reggae-like song to that point, citing the "chunk-a-chunk bass and guitar unisons and basic organ lead" for melodically and texturally evoking "the music of the Islands." Idris Walter of Sounds deemed it a "New Orleans reggae" song with similarities to Unit 4 + 2's hit "Concrete and Clay" (1965). A "chunky dance novelty", "Do the Dirt" has a similar aesthetic and instrumentation to "Soul Island" but slides into a "North American soul groove" during the bridges. Written by Nocentelli, the rock-oriented "Lonesome and Unwanted" is sung by Neville and built around a chant-aided hook. The album's title track "Cabbage Alley" was inspired in part by Professor Longhair's "Hey Now Baby", which was recorded around 1950 but not released until earlier in 1972. The song is characterised by Neville's rolling piano and, according to Joe McEwen of The Real Paper, "a stuttering rhythm track two years ahead of its time." Louder Than War writer Craig Chaligne wrote that the track showed the group's increasing confidence in vocal arrangements. Neville felt that listeners from outside New Orleans would not "understand" the song, noting that it "has the Dixieland heritage, the second line feeling, even more than anything else we've written. If you born here, you just gonna have it, that's all." Release and reception Cabbage Alley was released in the US by Reprise in May 1972, and was also the group's first album released in the United Kingdom, issued to coincide with their tour of the country. The title track and "Do the Dirt" were both released as singles. The record was named for a small back street in New Orleans that had been recently demolished to make way for a footall stadium. Described by Timothy Crouse as "the poor black's version