Billy Bragg

I lost a lot of interest in Billy Bragg through the 90s, not because I felt like he lost his convictions, but simply because his music lost a lot of its edge. Still, I look back at those early albums (especially up through Talking With the Taxman About Poetry) and I'm amazed.

People who write love songs are often sappy and people who write protest music are often humorless and cold. Billy Bragg writes both and is none of those things. Take for example these lines from "A New England":

"I loved you then as I love you still,
Though I put you on a pedestal, they put you on the pill."

and

"I saw two shooting stars last night,
I wished on them, but they were only satellites."

It's a song about love and loss, but his mention of birth control and technology add an element of social commentary (this is more obvious if you listen to the whole song).

Even when he sticks strictly to politics as on "Ideology" or "Which Side Are You On," it's clear that his positions are based on much more than just ideology, they're based on a love for humanity. This is true across the board for Billy Bragg. Even later in his career when he abandons the raw honesty of his "just a singer and his electric guitar" approach, he never abandons his cause which is so clearly and firmly rooted in a love for people. Check out "Everywhere" where Bragg is critical of the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII not by making a political argument, but by telling the human story of two American friends, one, of European descent, who dies in the war and another, of Japanese descent, who takes his own life after not being able to deal with the disillusionment of being rounded up by his own country's government. He doesn't ramble on about how wrong it was and why, he simply tells the story and it's obvious.

Billy Bragg wrote love songs that made me want to be an activist and political songs that made me want to fall in love. He recognized that without the human element, protest means nothing. After all, without love and confusion and dreams and frustrations, what are we fighting for?

Here's a selected discography of my favorites:

• Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy (1983) - Billy Bragg's first EP, this is his rawest and arguably best work. A friend taped this for me about 20 years ago and I've never grown tired of it. It stirs up many of the same emotions at 34 that it did at 14.


• Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (1984) - This second album is a little more polished, but just as honest.


• Talking With the Taxman About Poetry (1986) - This is Bragg's creative peak. There's a little bit more instumentation, but it's still sparse and doesn't affect his ability to convey his ideas and emotions. It's a toss-up between this and Life's a Riot for best album.


• Back to Basics (1987) - This package includes Life's a Riot, Brewing Up and the strong, but short Between the Wars EP. Unless you're buying old vinyl, this is the only way to get that stuff.


• Workers Playtime (1988) - Billy started to lose me here, trading his punk edge for more traditional folk, but it does contain what I believe to be his best song, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forward."


• Don't Try This at Home (1991) - This isn't a great album, but it does contain a great single in "Sexuality" (which is also a great example of what I tried to explain above) and the already mentioned "Everywhere."


• Mermaid Avenue 1 and 2 (1998-2000) - Billy Bragg and Wilco put music to lyrics Woody Guthrie wrote but never recorded. It's appropriate, because he is probably Guthrie's most clear descendant, writing intelligent protests based on a simple love of humanity.

Since the lyrics here are as important as the music, you can check some of them out here.