Category: Billy Bragg

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

006 – BILLY BRAGG – ‚The World Turned Upside Down’ (Go! Discs, ’85)

Hello friends,

before I started writing this, I was wondering whether there are many bands or artists which I have seen live more often than I saw Billy Bragg. The answer is: a handful, if at all. The Ramones come to mind, so do The Jesus & Mary Chain and New Order.

But today it is Billy Bragg and there are many reasons why I enjoyed his performances so much back in the mid/late eighties and early 90’s. I think that he, a bit like The Clash, more or less managed to express exactly my views. Views of politics and also views of unreturned love. His records included lyric sheets, which, with English not being my first language, should be made a compulsive thing to do for every artist worldwide! I hung on every word he sang and felt entirely what he felt. Even today I know every single word as well from ‘Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy’ as from ‘Brewing Up With Billy Bragg’, his first two albums from ’83 and ’84.

So when I first had the chance to see him live, I went of course. This was before he was accompanied by The Blokes or any other backing combo, I should add – just Billy and his guitar in a small Cologne club. And he blew me away, there is no other way of describing it! God knows, Billy Bragg is not the most talented singer on earth, but sure enough he is one of the funniest persons you have ever witnessed:

In between his numbers, he always had some anecdote to tell to the audience, some political stuff, but mostly little funny things which made you laugh out loud. If memory serves correctly, there weren’t two songs which he would have segued into another – there was always his little speech: I thought it was awesome!

Years later I saw him performing a big open air festival in Belgium along with The Cramps, The Buzzcocks, Nick Cave and others. It was held on an abandoned aero field. Just rectangular concrete with no shade whatsoever, and it was a thousand degrees there in the sun. Billy entered the stage in the late afternoon and played his heart out. And still, after five or six years, he had this habit of telling his little stories, which I hadn’t expected, but I thought was great … perhaps even better than some of the songs he wrote at that time. One poor guy, most probably no longer entirely sober, was spotted by Billy from stage when pissing against a fence at the very back of the audience. So Billy yelled at him at the top of his lungs and made everyone in the audience turn around to watch this poor fellow putting his dick back to where it belongs in sheer desperation …. priceless!

By and large I lost interest though after ‘William Bloke’ … the album had its moments, but I wasn’t totally convinced. But Billy Bragg meant so much to me, it would not have been possible not to have one of his singles included in the box with the 111 best singles in the world. I chose the ‘Between The Wars’ – EP, his second single, which comes with four tunes, in fact: the title track, ‘Between The Wars’, ‘Which Side Are You On’, (a version of) ‘It Says Here’ and the one I went for, which is a cover of a Leon Rosselson song. If you didn’t know that though, you wouldn’t detect he is covering the tune – I always thought he sings it as if it was his own composition.

mp3: Billy Bragg – World Turned Upside Down

Which song would you have chosen?!

As usual, enjoy!

Dirk

He’ll the first to admit that he’s never really been one for trying to set the singles chart alight, but Billy Bragg must look back over his career and wonder why so many great 45s flopped in the most spectacular of manners.

He went Top 20 very early on with the Between The Wars EP, and other than a charity double-sided single with Wet Wet Wet that went to #1 in 1988, only three more of his singles ever made the Top 40, two of which came from the 1991 LP, Don’t This At Home.

One of those was Sexuality, and the other was a different version of another song originally made available on the album:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Accident Waiting To Happen (Redstar Version)

This reached #33 in early 1992, thanks in part to the record label going for the multi-format approach with a 7″, 12″ plus two CDs being released. You’ll have to make do with the three tracks that came with the 12″:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Sulk
mp3 : Billy Bragg – The Warmest Room (live)
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Revolution

Yup, it’s a cover of a Beatles song, although at less than 2mins in length it’s a bit of a trash-through than anything else. Sulk is a great ‘lost’ song of Billy Bragg – one that would have not been out of place at all on the LP. Not sure where exactly the live track is taken from – there’s no information on the back of the sleeve or on the label, but it’s from the period when Billy first toured with a band – The Redstars. I know it was an extensive and ambitious tour, and the gig I was lucky enough to see at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh was hugely enjoyable, although I recall thinking at the time that Billy seemed to often forgot that he had a band onstage with him as he delivered his ever-entertaining monologues for up to 5 minutes at a time that had the other musicians looking around for something to do in the meantime.  It’s not the greatest version as Billy’s vocal limitations are very much on display as he struggles to reach some of the high notes…..

The other hit single was Take Down The Union Jack, which reached #22 in June 2002.  It was recorded by Billy Bragg & The Blokes, originally found on the album England, Half-English.  Its success could also be put down to multi-formatting, with 3xCD singles, all released at the same time and available to be packaged up at a discounted price, in the week that Billy wanted to try and get an anti-establishment song into the charts in the week the UK was celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the reigning monarch.

As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of Raith Rovers Football Club and the past week has been, without any question, the darkest period in our long history.  It’s been all over the media if you want to learn more.  The chorus of Accident Waiting To Happen is dedicated to those at the club who took the decision.

JC

This is one of those songs where, no matter how hard I try, I can never come up with the words to do it justice. Maybe because it is the saddest song I’ve ever heard

mp3: Billy Bragg – Levi Stubbs’ Tears

From Talking With The Taxman About Poetry, the one that Billy called ‘The Difficult Third Album’ on the front of the sleeve.  The only difficulty I have with it is trying to accept that it was released 35 years ago.

JC

Ripping Badgers CDs
The nearly finished A to Z Charity Shop CD Challenge #2

Workers Playtime (1988, Go! Discs)
Bought from Oxfam, Teignmouth for 99p

JC writes…

Quite clearly, I wasn’t in Teignmouth when Badger and SWC found themselves in the Oxfam Book and Music Shop when this, along with albums by Apollo 440, Cornershop and Dinosaur Jr were purchased. But that small matter didn’t stop me from offering to write up today’s piece.

Workers Playtime was, at the time of its release, something of a shock to the system for those of us who had followed the fortunes of Stephen William Bragg over the previous few years.  I’d be lying if I said anything other than it was his political songs that had got me on board, and it was these, along with the hugely entertaining and often highly educational monologues in-between the songs that made him such a great live experience. Yes, the love songs were lovely to listen to, especially for the fact that they were far removed from being soppy, often tinged with a sense of self-deprecation and humour, or, in the case of Levi Stubbs’ Tears, (the stand-out track on 1986’s Talking With The Taxman About Poetry), written from a perspective that was thought-provoking and ultimately, incredibly moving.

Come 1988, and Billy Bragg was, to all intent and purposes, a pop star, thanks to his take on She’s Leaving Home spending time at #1 in the UK singles charts.  OK, so it did piggyback on being the double-A side of With A Little Help From My Friends by Wet Wet Wet, with both taken from the compilation re-recording of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band pulled together by the NME in aid of the charity Childline.  The fact remains that while the single was at #1, with maybe 95-99% of the airplay and subsequent sales being due to the Scottish pop/soul combo, it still led to Billy Bragg appearing in the Top of The Pops studio where accompanied by Cara Tivey on piano, he was lauded as being responsible for the best-selling single of the week.

A few months later and Workers Playtime hit the shops.  It came at a time when I was newly married, and although I realised from fairly early on that it wasn’t likely to last, I was in a mindset of being happy and joyous about how life was treating me at the age of 25 – a decent job with a career to build on, a nice house in an attractive small town just outside of Edinburgh, and I’d also reconnected again with a mate from my university days after a few years apart after he left early to try and make it as a footballer while I finished my degree.  I didn’t completely warm to an album filled with slow-paced and anguished songs, albeit the rabble-rousing and joyous track which closed proceedings certainly had something going for it.

I remember at the time Billy saying that he wanted his new record to go in a different direction, partly as a response to the disappointing way that British politics had not moved away from years of Tory rule, but also as he wanted to build on some of the best experiences from Taxman and deliver an album which he would record mostly with a band.  It was only after really enjoying the songs on 1991’s Don’t Try This At Home did I really revisit Workers Playtime, by when my marriage was over and I was in a much different place having been on a real emotional rollercoaster for a long time.  Its songs connected with me so much better.

Many years later, and the Andrew Collins biography of Billy Bragg told the wider and largely unknown story of many of the songs on Workers Playtime, namely that the songs had come from personal and bitter experiences, something that the very private Billy Bragg hadn’t gone into when the album was released. It’s an album written by someone who had fallen deeply in love only for it all to end very badly and for reasons he hasn’t been able to fathom, and in ways he never saw coming.

mp3: Billy Bragg – Must I Paint You A Picture

Thirty years on and the great man, having later found love, happiness and contentment can now make reference to the era when he plays the songs from the album in the live setting. He stands on the stage as if to say to his audience that he knows the answer to the time-old question, ‘What Becomes of The Broken-Hearted?’

I would imagine that, as the years have passed, many people have thanked Billy Bragg for these songs, as they surely have resonated with all of us at some point in our lives.

There’s something inside that hurts my foolish pride
To visit the places we use to go together
Not a day goes by that I don’t sit and wonder why
Your feelings for me didn’t last forever

If these had been written for a Motown artist in the 60s, they’d be held up as amongst the greatest of all time:-

mp3: Billy Bragg – The Price I Pay

He writes elsewhere of falling in love with a little time bomb; of hating the arsehole he becomes when he’s with her; of thinking that fate has been against them from the very start.

The thing is, Billy Bragg a few years earlier wrote Love Gets Dangerous, one of the tracks on his 1983 debut Life’s A Riot…., in which he accepted that falling head over heels is very very scary, and it was the penultimate and very autobiographical song on Worker’s Playtime which proved that very point, especially when things fail so miserably:-

mp3: Billy Bragg – The Short Answer

In among all this, Billy still found time to do the politics – with Tender Comrade, an acapella song about the life and times of a post-conflict soldier, and Rotting On Remand in which he questions the morality of aspects of the justice system.  He also returns to the subject of domestic abuse, with the haunting and majestic Valentine’s Day Is Over.

But the best is left till the end, and I’ll simply repeat the words I used in September 2015 when I pulled together a Billy Bragg ICA.

‘If I was ever asked if there was one song in the world that I wished I had ever written, it would be this.

And here’s a wee confession….without fail it activates my tear ducts despite the fact that it’s not a sad song whatsoever. But it’s a song that makes me think about death for the simple fact is that I want it to be played at my funeral as the mourners depart the service…and I want them all to laugh out loud at the point Billy shouts ‘beam me up Scotty.” You’ll all be welcome to attend.

The best closing song to any album….ever.’

mp3: Billy Bragg – Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

Looking back, it is clear that while there had been evidence on the previous albums, it took until Workers Playtime to really confirm to any doubters that Billy Bragg was way much more than a big-nosed, big-mouthed lefty whose was best at lecturing us with shouty songs about making the world a better and safer place.  This is is when the personal songs began to heavily outweigh the political, both in quantity and in quality, laying the foundation for the remainder of his outstanding career as a musician and entertainer.

Which is why, if asked, I’ll now name Workers Playtime as my favourite Bragg album of them all.

JC

I’ve mentioned before, on many occasions, how much of a fan I am of Billy Bragg. I haven’t gone out and bought absolutely everything he’s ever issued, but I’ve all the albums, a handful of compilation CDs, the stuff with Wilco, and some officially sanctioned live CDs, there are over 400 different songs or takes on songs sitting on the hard-drive.

Browsing in a second-hand shop the other week, I picked up the 12″ release of Sexuality, a single from 1991, written in partnership with Johnny Marr on which Kirsty MacColl sang backing vocals.  The single went all the way up to #27 in the UK charts and was the first to be released from the album Don’t Try This At Home. I genuinely can’t think why I didn’t buy Sexuality at the time – I certainly have long had a 12″ copy of You Woke Up My Neighbourhood, the second and final 45 from the album, dating from the time of release.

I was surprised to see that the two additional tracks on Sexuality weren’t already on the hard-drive, which made handing over the £2 a very easy decision. I did think that all his b-sides had been collated on compilations or included in the subsequent boxsets, so this felt like a bit of a find, albeit I know it’s not a particularly difficult piece of vinyl to track down on the second-hand market. I’ve since checked and picked up the info that the b-side of the 7″ has been included on compilations, but not the 12″ tracks.

I was a little bit disappointed when I got home and discovered that the vinyl wasn’t in the greatest of condition but it didn’t stop me playing and enjoying these two new bits of music:-

mp3: Billy Bragg – Sexuality (Manchester Remix)
mp3: Billy Bragg – Sexuality (London Remix)

Yup…..Billy Bragg going down the remix route. The Manchester effort is the work of Owen Morris, who just a few years later would become one of the best-known in the business from his work with Oasis, The Verve and Ash.

The London remix is credited to Adam Peters and Vic W. I knew the name Adam Peters from a couple of things, including his work on Ocean Rain by Echo & The Bunnymen on which he played cello and arranged the orchestral parts, and also his partnership with David McComb of The Triffids, with the two of them hooking up to contribute their version of Don’t Go Home With Your Hard-On to I’m Your Fan, a rather wonderful tribute album to Leonard Cohen. What I hadn’t realised, and what becomes obvious with one listen to the London Remix, is that he was, in the early 90s, pursuing a path that involved keyboards and left-field electronica. In more recent years, he has become increasingly better-known for his work as a composer of film and documentary soundtracks.

On the other hand, I have no idea who Vic W is…..

For completeness, here’s the two songs on the 7″ (lifted NOT from poor quality vinyl):-

mp3: Billy Bragg – Sexuality
mp3: Billy Bragg – Bad Penny

Billy has been known to amend the lyrics to the song when playing it live, including ‘I look like Boris Becker, I drive a big red double-decker’ and my own favourite – ‘I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade – he said some things are best left unspoken but I’ve left your auntie and ran off with the postman’

JC

As I said in the previous entry in this series, some songs make for the very saddest of short stories. Particularly when they are true.

Between Marx and marzipan in the dictionary there was Mary
Between the Deep Blue Sea and the Devil that was me

If ever anyone could help me with my obsession with
The young Suzannah York
It was Mary

In my pink pajamas she asked me for something
I gave her the short answer

She read our stars out loud
And I knew then that we should have gone sailing

But we stayed home instead
Fighting on the water bed
Like the honeymoon couple on drugs

Me and Mary

What happened in the past
Remained a mystery of natural history

She should have been the last
But she was just the latest

If she wanted to be a farmer’s wife
I would endure that muddy life
I would dig for victory

And the sound of happy couples
Coupling happily in the dark
While you and I sat down to tea
I remember you said to me
That no amount of poetry
Would mend this broken heart
But you can put the Hoover round
If you want to make a start

All my friends from school
Introduce me to their spouses
While I’m left standing here
With my hands down the front of my trousies

I just don’t know what’s to be done
I wonder sometimes how did Dad meet Mum
And how did they conceive of me

Tell me Mary

The boys who came to the shop
Always made her laugh much more than I did

When I told her this must stop
She didn’t bat an eyelid

She said you know honey it’s such a shame
You’ll never be any good at this game
You bruise too easily

So said Mary

Her two brothers took me out
Of circulation for the duration

So we went our separate ways but does she still love me
She still has my door key

Like a bully boy in a Benetton shop
You’re never happy with what you’ve got
Till what you’ve got has gone

Sorry Mary

mp3 : Billy Bragg – The Short Answer (Peel Session)

The opening line is just genius. The remainder are incredibly moving, with just the right mix of nostalgia, regret and an understanding that some things, in the long run, are for the best. We’ve all been there, haven’t we????

JC

It’s election day here in the UK.  I’m dreading the outcome with the expectation that the people will give the keys to 10 Downing Street to someone who has taken the art of lying to a completely new level. I have worked for, with and alongside politicians, of varying abilities and talents, for 35 years and at times I have been party to misrepresentations, spin and efforts to deflect and distract – to some extent it has always come with the territory.

But Johnson is the first of a kind – someone who can stand in a room full of people and say things that he and everyone present knows to be absolute nonsense. We are hours away from confirmation that you can win an election by lying and lying and lying and lying and lying without stopping.

And then I remember that Trump achieved likewise in the USA and that the PM of Australia seems to have a similar reputation. It’s despicable.

Just before flying off to the recent holiday, I bought a magaine that looked back at the life and work of R.E.M. through the various media interviews they gave over the years to the music press here in the UK. It’s a fascinating read as there’s no effort to edit anything that was said (or asked) at the time, and there’s a few moments where the views and opinions do leave the band members looking or sounding a little bit odd and quite removed from reality. One thing said by Michael Stipe in 1988, on the eve of the election of George Bush Snr, that hit home in response to a question about apathy when it comes to politics and politicians:-

“It’s a real problem because the country is so huge that things can’t really be focussed on except through the media, which completely abuses or overdramatises events according to their whim.”

30 years on, and while the media is now much more than newsprint and TV, it is even more of a problem about the abuse of its power and the way it overdramatises events. Just google the words ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ and ‘Election 2019’ to get the idea.

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards (2019 version – live)

Taken from footage of Billy lending his support to striking university lecturers on a picket line in Birmingham, England on 5 December.

Tomorrow could well be the blackest of all black Fridays.  This blog won’t be reflecting at all on the election outcome. It’ll be in the hands of a guest with a very good ICA.

JC

The thing is, if this song had been in existence a few years earlier, my life would have been a lot easier:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Greetings to the New Brunette

Falling in love with a feminist at university in 1984 wasn’t the cleverest thing I ever did. Of course I was attracted to her because she was good-looking, but I wouldn’t dare tell her that was what it was all about. She was smart, articulate and incredibly aware and sure of her politics, and I did learn an awful lot from her. But I was, at heart, a boy who loved his football, his music, his dancing and, yes, the company of mates who were prone to boorish and occasionally offensive behaviour.

I tried my best, but I couldn’t be perfect and the relationship really was doomed from the outset.

Greetings to the New Brunette came up on a podcast thing I was listening to a few days ago, and it was probably the first time in three or four years I had heard it right through. I had forgotten how wonderful a tune and song it is (with a tip of the hat to Kirsty MacColl and Johnny Marr) and I got a little bit misty-eyed with the nostalgia of it all, with the realisation that I was fortunate to grow up in the era I did, not just for the great music I was exposed to, but the opportunities that life has afforded me, from not having to take a job on leaving school to meeting incredible people at every stage of my life.

I’ve got this on 12″ vinyl. Here’s your b-sides:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Deportees
mp3 : Billy Bragg – The Tatler
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Jeane
mp3 : Billy Bragg – There Is Power In A Union (instrumental)

The first of these is a cover of a Woody Guthrie song, inspired by a tragic incident of which I had no inkling until writing this post. Click here.  Billy is very ably assisted on this one by Hank Wangford.

The second is a cover of a track that is best-known from its version by Ry Cooder but which in fact dates back to the 1930s as the work of Washington Phillips, an American gospel and gospel blues singer who, in an oversight, doesn’t get any credit on Billy’s release on this single.

The third, as has been mentioned before on this blog, is a stunning version of an early Smiths b-side, while the last track is exactly as it says on the tin, an instrumental take on one of Billy’s best-known political songs.

JC

Today’s another example of time catching me out as I’d never have guessed it is now 20 years since Mermaid Avenue, the collaboration between Billy Bragg and Wilco in which music was put to previously unheard lyrics by the late Woody Guthrie, one of America’s most revered folk musicians.

The project had been a number of years in the making, its origins lying with Nora Guthrie, who was the director of her father’s foundation and archives. Woody had been a prolific lyricist and his archives contained more than a thousand sets of lyrics to which music had never been put and it was her dream/ambition that they be offered to a contemporary artist who could put a late 20th century slant on things, with the hope that her father’s work and legacy would reach a newer and wider audience. Billy Bragg was the person to whom she turned, but in doing so she wanted the songs not to simply be a pastiche of her dad’s sound.

The singer/songwriter was extremely honoured but unsure if he could do the project full justice and in turn he asked Wilco, a then relatively new(ish) band from Chicago with its roots in indie and country rock, to consider lending a hand.

The results were surprisingly good. The efforts of all concerned did justice to the brief insisted on by Nora with it being a genuine collaboration for the most parts with Billy often being backed by Wilco (in much the same way as he had enjoyed recording with The Red Stars and various guest musicians in the early 90s and would do again with The Blokes in the noughties) while the band itself drafted Billy in on acoustic guitar and backing vocals on the lyrics to which they were writing the music. Billy’s tunes were recorded in Dublin and Wilco’s tunes in their home city. A number of other musicians, such as Natalie Merchant, Bob Egan and Eliza Carthy came on board as guests, adding further layers of authenticity class to the finished product. The critics reacted positively to Mermaid Avenue, sales were quite decent and all seemed to be good.

The following year, a 90-minute DVD was released in which the story of the venture was told, including great studio footage and interviews with all concerned, during which a few tensions were revealed, particularly around who got to choose which lyrics and how best they should be recorded. There was also a bit of angst over the fact that the song selected by the record label for the single didn’t really feature Wilco and indeed was probably the closest to a Woody-type recording rather than a contemporary interpretation. The fact is, however, it is the most striking and memorable track on the album:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg & Wilco – Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key

I’ve no doubt that Billy, upon seeing the refrain ‘ain’t nobody who can sing like me’ was desperate to grab this one for himself. It’s one that really does lend itself to his gentle acoustic side, while the violin accordion and backing vocal from Ms Merchant turn it into a thing of genuine and moving beauty.

There were two previously unavailable tracks added to the CD single:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg & Wilco – My Thirty Thousand
mp3 : Billy Bragg & Wilco – Bugeye Jim

Both are tracks in which Billy wrote the music, which sort of gave the impression that Wilco were a junior partner in the collaboration, a situation which understandably annoyed frontman Jeff Tweedy.  Listen closely to the former and you’ll hear the tune is very much based on Battle Cry for Freedom, from which Billy had composed Power In A Union on his 1986 album, Talking With The Taxman About Poetry.

Interestingly, when Billy went out on the road with The Blokes to perform the songs from Mermaid Avenue, he took a completely different tack with Way Over Yonder…..

mp3 : Billy Bragg and The Blokes – Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key (live)

JC

The second in this occasional series in which Jacques the Kipper and my good self will offer some observations on Billy Bragg‘s LPs.  If you need a reminder, or indeed missed it when it appeared some four months ago, here’s what we said about the debut.

Jacques is going to get things going this time around……

I’ll start by clarifying any misunderstanding from my assessment of the first album. I have been an avid purchaser of and attender at all things Bragg since way back when he was shouty. I love the first album. I am a fan. (Although I am struggling with his new single. Love the politics, not so keen on the tune.)

With that, I move on to album number two in this occasional series, Brewing Up With… First, a HUGE admission. This may be the Bill album that, in its entirety, I’ve listened to least. Possibly surpassed, or underpassed, by Mr Love and Justice in recent times, but that’s about it. JC won’t be happy but I had to look back at what tracks were actually on it. This album harks back to being on the dole with no money and thus buying power. I did buy it at the time – I had after all plenty time to hunt round the many (sigh) record shops to look for it at the cheapest possible price. Truth is though, at that particular time, my friends and neighbours were not in the main listening to this particular pop-folk. Instead we were favouring men and women who banged on metal piping and the like. And Dead or Alive. (No worries though, I was about to see Buba and the Shop Assistants.)

Anyhow, on checking track listing, imagine my surprise to learn how many of my absolute favourite songs reside on this album. I must have listened to these as individual songs hundreds of time over the years and have heard most of them live tens of times. It seems therefore only fair to abandon, for 40 minutes or so, Breakfast Muff’s new release to revisit an album that I didn’t realise I loved so much.

It says here we start with It Says Here. As said above, I’ve heard this so many times that I’m finding it hard to critique. Simple but effective summary of everything that is distasteful about the Press. Prescient too given what was to happen in subsequent years with the exposure of various UK tabloid papers abhorrent practices.

Love Gets Dangerous definitely would not have gone down well with my mates of that time. Bit too conventional singalong pop. Never a favourite of mine either.

The Myth of Trust is a lyrical mini masterpiece though. JC will describe it better than I ever can.

Guitar frenzy From a Vauxhall Velox. It’s kinda over before you even knew it had properly begun. A metaphor for my love life at the time if ever there was one.

Pause. I’m about to say something that many, almost certainly most, of you will disagree with. The Saturday Boy is one of the finest songs ever written. In another Vinyl Villain piece I selected a different Bill tune as a favourite. However, this may well be THE favourite. I’d swap this for all that Bob Dylan or McCartney/Lennon have ever written. Perfect. In every way. That is all.

Then there was the one about Bill’s time in the army. The fact that he’d signed up rather than sign on used to be considered quite controversial by some in a highly political audience. There were a few spats. Oh to be so virtuous as to never have made a mistake, career or otherwise. For the record, this is an anti-war song. Nice guitar thrashing.

St Swithin’s Day soppy stuff. Lovely.

Like Soldiers Do. Nice metaphorical wordplay. Not one I often listen to. And I’d forgotten the Clash style ending.

This Guitar Says Sorry in which Bill hints at the Woody Guthrie obsession that would eventually surface.

Somewhere between the Clash and the Jam, Strange Things Happen.

As they say in that Friends thing that none of us have ever seen – this is the one about Adam and Steve. A Lover Sings is the anthem that Bill didn’t know he’d written. Still a live favourite and one we’ve all sung along to. What a fantastic way to end.

Okay, so that’s my conventional take on Brewing Up With… An album I didn’t remember I liked so much. Now, like you, I’m about to read what JC said. I’m sure he’s summarised things more eloquently and informatively. And there’s bound to be a moment (or three) where I think I should have said that…

(Addendum – there was.)

JC adds……………

Twelve months after the success of the debut album, it was time for Billy Bragg to test the waters with the follow-up. In some ways it was the same as before with left-wing politics mixed in with some incredibly personal observations on love and romance. But in other ways it was different as this record was more than just Billy thanks to some trumpet playing from Dave Woodhead and some keyboards from Kenny Craddock.

It wasn’t just the fact that he’d been getting good press that had raised his profile – the entire first half of 1984 was spent on the road most often as support for high-profile and chart acts. These included The Style Council on their first ever UK tour, and notwithstanding my brief glimpse in Edinburgh the previous August, that March 1984 gig at the Glasgow Apollo would have been the first time I saw and heard Billy Bragg in the live setting. There was also an increasing number of benefit gigs for a number of important causes that saw him on bills with the likes of The Smiths and The Redskins.

The second album was recorded in July 1984.  In the time between its completion but before its release, Billy would undertake his first tour of America as support to Echo & The Bunnymen, evidence again that he was having an impact on some of the most important and hip musicians of the era.  He, however, was determined to do things his way and not to fall for the trappings that often come with being a success in the music industry and where others sought six and drugs to accompany their rock’n’roll, our hero launched into even more benefit gigs, often to support the increasingly bitter Miners’ Strike.  These events saw him perform alongside some very fine exponents of folk and traditional music, and would go onto have a huge impact on his own songwriting and his stage manner.

Brewing Up With Billy Bragg was released in October 1984.  It contained many songs that had been written around the same time as those on Life’s A Riot but they benefit from a more confident sounding singer, a lot of which can be put down to how often and how well the songs had, literally, been road tested.

That he was seen increasingly as a political activist and agitator made it a sound and sensible decision to open the new album with one of his most obvious rabble-rousing songs.

mp3 : Billy Bragg – It Says Here

A scathing attack on the tabloid and gutter press that still resonates strongly today. It was however, one of only three outright political songs  with the other two were about life in the armed forces and the impact of the Falklands War.  The remaining eight songs on this new record were love songs; and were some of the best love songs that my then 21-year old ears had ever had the pleasure of listening to.

One of the songs really resonated with me.  And I’m sure it did similarly with any bloke who listened to it.

Everyone at some point during their school days suffered pain and misery with the opposite sex.  It was part of growing up.  Even if you were lucky enough to have the person you were besotted with pay you some attention, it was destined to end in tears and it was only years later that you realised you just hadn’t been grown-up or mature enough to really deal with it all.  But until now, nobody had ever really captured it so perfectly in words and music:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – The Saturday Boy

Even if he’d have quit the music industry there and then, Billy Bragg would have left a legacy that we would still be talking about and praising to the high heavens thanks to the 18 songs on the first two LPs, but in particular The Saturday Boy with its story of a love that grew in double-history and its tune that incorporated the coolest trumpet solo since the days of Louis Armstrong .

The album proved also that love songs can be played at the speed and with the energy of punk:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Strange Things Happen

And Billy demonstrated that old punks can write the most stunning of break-up songs while owning up to being, literally, a wanker:-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – St Swithin’s Day

I really could very happily put all 11 songs up with this posting and make a case as to why they are essential listening for one reason or other.  It’s an amazing album that has more than stood the test of time – but what I do recall from 1984 were reviews that suggested Billy should stop with the love songs as he didn’t have the voice or technical ability to really do them justice.  Other writers said they admired his personal stuff but given there was a need for a highly motivated and talented political songwriter to fill a huge void then they’d rather he concentrated on the songs he that went down best at the benefit gigs for the miners, students or, CND or got the loudest cheers when he entertained tens of thousands who marched in protest at the Thatcher government’s proposal to abolish the democratically elected Greater London Council for the crime of it being a different political hue than that of Westminster.

Some even asked why, at a time of the most bitter industrial and class dispute in living memory, a song that Billy Bragg was performing to great ovations at the benefit gigs had been left off Brewing Up With.  This was the beginning of a hint at a backlash among some music writers, particularly on the hard-left, but events of 1985 and beyond would change all that.  That however, is for the next time round….

JC

PS : Today marks the beginning of my annual trip to Westport in County Mayo, Ireland.  If I’ve messed anything up in this or the next few days worth of postings then please let me know in the comments and I’ll rectify things on my return.  Just thinking that I’ve used Billy’s songs over the years to help me through some really tough and emotional times……

JC writes

After all these years I now and again find myself struggling for something to write about. It’s one of the reasons I have deployed so many series looking at the singles from a particular group or singer as it provides a bit of discipline as well as taking care of a certain number of postings. They’ve also, for the most part, proved to be popular features with, amongst others, The Jam, The Style Council, James, Altered Images, The Clash, Buzzcocks, Morrissey and The Undertones all being given the treatment while of course I’ve recently started looking at XTC.

It seems natural to turn my attention to albums, especially when the singer or band in question has enjoyed a long career without ever really setting the singles charts on fire all that often or indeed in recent years releasing any 45s in physical or digital form. It won’t be a series that will appear on any given day….it will be sporadic and when the mood takes.

It’s going to kick off with Billy Bragg and I’m delighted to say that the series will benefit greatly thanks to some contributions from Jacques the Kipper. The love for the Bard of Barking was one of the things that really kick-started a friendship that is now heading towards the best part of 30 years and we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy one another’s company at a few of his live gigs in Glasgow and Edinburgh over that time. Some of the pieces in this series may be solo but others will likely involve a joint contribution. I can’t promise it will live up to the quality of Echorich and JTFL’s efforts on NYC but we will give it our best shot.

This journey into sound will begin with Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy (1983) and end at last year’s release in tandem with Joe Henry, the well-received Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad. There will be many stops en route, occasionally including some officially sanctioned live releases, box sets and compilations. I’ll be upfront about it – there might be some stuff missing as I don’t claim to have everything he’s ever released, but I reckon looking at the shelf of vinyl, CDs and the bit of the floor where I keep the box sets, it’s on for something like 23 separate postings, although it might be a couple of these will be amalgamated.

Hope you’re up for it. So here’s part one of ACTIVE WITH THE ACTIVIST.

1983. The year during which I took leave of my teens. A time when, thanks to what was proving to be a highly educational course at University, both in terms of the lectures and the extended social mix of people I now mingled with regularly, I was becoming more acutely aware of what was right and what was wrong with the world.  1983. The year I got active in student politics taking part in my first marches, demonstrations and sit-down protests.

I began it still living at home with my parents and sharing living space with my two young brothers but my sense of adventure was growing and I was feeling confined by immediate surroundings. Looking back now, I realise that I wanted so much to happen but couldn’t quite articulate what it was, why I wanted it and how I was going to achieve it.

In August I moved into my first student flat with two friends. It was the very first time in my life that I had an entire space to call my own. I spread out accordingly, buying more records, books and an increasing number of music papers given that I could now make as much mess as I wanted and never worry about being nagged at, or, even worse, one of my younger brothers chucking something out before I’d finished with it.

I was able to absorb so much more including the increasing number of mentions of a singer called Billy Bragg. I knew he had an album out as I’d seen a few copies of it in a handful of shops in Glasgow but I hadn’t been drawn to give it a listen. Strange as it may seem, the fact it had a budget price was off-putting; my brain associated that sort of offer with poor quality recordings. I was also aware that it was just him and his guitar and quite frankly, the punk wars had been fought to get rid of the likes of those.

One day I saw a photo of Billy Bragg in a music paper. I realised that I had seen him before a few weeks earlier, albeit briefly. He had been playing on the street in Edinburgh during the annual Festival and Fringe but I had hurried past thinking he was just another busker. Looking back, I realised that he actually had attracted a more than decent sized crowd around him on that Edinburgh street but I was too enamoured with trying to find an afternoon show where there was the off-chance of a young actress taking off her clothes as part of the production to have paid him any attention.

The increasing press coverage was always positive. There were mentions of him being the perfect sort of act for the era, an antidote to the increasingly slick production values being deployed. He was then interviewed for a more in-depth feature and right away I could tell that I liked the cut of his jib. He was saying what he wanted to happen, why he wanted it and how he was going to try and achieve it. He talked of a love of The Clash and an admiration of Paul Weller which were other big plusses as far as I was concerned.

It was revealed that he was moving to a new record label with one of the first outcomes being that his debut LP would be re-released and made more widely available. By this time, the first of what would turn out to be a series of Peel Sessions had been recorded; it had been taped by someone who came visiting our flat and he insisted we give it a listen.  It turned out thayt one man and his guitar wasn’t such a bad thing after all and so I ended up getting myself a copy of Life’s A Riot with Spy vs Spy in the months leading up to Xmas 1983.

Once I got over the mistake of playing the first ten seconds at the wrong speed (it was a 45 rpm album!) I found myself warming to it very quickly. It was fairly rough and raw (but not as much as I had thought beforehand it would be) and you certainly couldn’t imagine Billy Bragg being thought of as a talented vocalist. However, punk/ new wave had taught us that it wasn’t about the singing or the playing; the emotion, energy and the attitude were all much more important and it was clear from the outset that this new kid on the block had all of those in abundance.

I wasn’t alone in falling for the record. The music papers fawned over it, particularly the NME which made it #3 album of the year, behind Elvis Costello and Tom Waits and immediately ahead of Soft Cell and Michael Jackson. Billy was soon on TV, appearing on The Tube on Channel 4 , all of which led to this debut LP, recorded at minimal cost and which hadn’t taken off for six months until its re-release, going top 30 in the charts in early 1984.

It’s an album with just seven songs that, between them, come in at under 16 minutes. It contains some of the best things he would ever release and demonstrated that he was someone equally at home writing frank and honest love songs as the political anthems which many in the music press were increasingly saying was his forte and calling in life. It’s an album with probably his best-known and most famous song but that wouldn’t come to pass for a few years yet until it was given the cover treatment by a wonderfully talented and hugely under-appreciated female singer.

The really scary thing is that so little has changed in society since he penned these words:-

Up in the morning and out to school
Mother says there’ll be no work next year
Qualifications once the golden rule
Are now just pieces of paper

Just because you’re better than me
Doesn’t mean I’m lazy
Just because you’re going forwards
Doesn’t mean I’m going backwards

If you look the part you’ll get the job
In last year’s trousers and your old school shoes
The truth is, son, it’s a buyer’s market
They can afford to pick and choose

Just because you’re better than me
Doesn’t mean I’m lazy
Just because I dress like this
Doesn’t mean I’m a communist

The factories are closing and the army’s full
I don’t know what I’m going to do
But I’ve come to see in the Land of the Free
There’s only a future for the chosen few

Just because you’re better than me
Doesn’t mean I’m lazy
Just because you’re going forwards
Doesn’t mean I’m going backwards

At twenty one you’re on top of the scrapheap
At sixteen you were top of the class
All they taught you at school was how to be a good worker
The system has failed you, don’t fail yourself

Just because you’re better than me
Doesn’t mean I’m lazy
Just because you’re going forwards
Doesn’t mean I’m going backwards

mp3 : Billy Bragg – To Have and Have Not
mp3 : Billy Bragg – A New England
mp3 : Billy Bragg – The Busy Girl Buys Beauty

Jacques’ slightly different take:-

Okay, so I’ve read what JC has said. Clearly I’m much younger than him, always have been. At least in my own head. Anyhow I have a completely different perspective on the first Bragg album. Let’s cut to the chase – musically it is RUBBISH.  Lyrically up there with the best, of that I am sure. But musically, it would take him many years to master these songs and sing and play them the way that a better musician would have intended.

But, but, BUT. That is exactly what is so brilliant about this album – the counterpoint of lyrical beauty, anger, humour, love, not to mention the politics, floating above a badly played, not that well recorded, scratchy mess of (simple) chords. Did I mention the awful singing? For me back then the reality of Billy was better than my expectation. Here was a man that sang and played it as badly on record as he did live. And didn’t care.

Listen to the mature manner in which he has reinterpreted these songs over the years. Marvel at what damn fine, all round crooned tunes these now are. I love these reinterpretations. But thank whatever Deity takes your fancy that this was not the way back in 1983. Would he now be the nation’s favourite beardie leftie had he not grabbed us by those proverbial bollocks back then with that squall of noise? I think not.

Nuff said. None of your old man extended play JC article. That’s it. Cheers and goodnight.

JC adds….

If having read that you had this particular image of the two of us in your head….give yourself a pat on the back!!!!!

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards (live at the Barbican)

I know it’s a lazy posting, but I’m only contracted to provide a blog post 365 days per year. Consider yourselves fortunate.

Besides, there’s a bonus posting appearing later on.

As promised yesterday.

I feel I have to mention that there’s nothing featuring later than 1996 but want to stress that this is not a reflection on the songs and music that has been released since then. It’s simply down to the fact that there is so much to choose from in that initial thirteen-year burst of activity when Billy Bragg was without any question the foremost singer-songwriter in the UK. I’d never seen anyone quite like him before.

And then there’s the live experience…whether just him and his guitar, or with a band, he never fails to entertain. His songs are great, but quite often the monologues are even better.

SIDE A

1. Greetings To The New Brunette

There is just now way I can allow an imaginary compilation not to open with something that features the talents of Johnny Marr and Kirsty MacColl so prominently. I was tempted to go with an alt version that is basically just Billy and Johnny but Kirsty’s typically wonderful backing vocals won me over.

2. Which Side Are You On?

This track was synonymous with his live shows in the early-mid 80s when the UK was in the middle of what felt like an unprecedented and prolonged period of politically motivated civil unrest. I was astonished to learn that the song was already 50 years old when Billy started performing it – evidence indeed that some things never change.

3. The Space Race Is Over

From angry ideologist to caring, sharing and loving dad in the blink of an eye. It’s a story which resonates with many of my closest friends and this one is dedicated to all of them.

4. The Saturday Boy (live)

If anyone ever mentions that they don’t like Billy cos he is a one-trick pony only capable of singing protest songs then this is my way of coming back at them. A stunning tale of love and rejection. And a reminder of what exactly la la la la la la la la la la means when used in a song (most of the time anyway).

This live version is taken from an official bootleg Live at the Barbican recorded in March 2004. And given the imaginary LP has gone into a live setting for the moment I think it would be appropriate to include a typically funny and entertaining monologue before the next song….and so, lifted from the same bootleg…

4a. Morrissey’s Rubber Sheet

5. Levi Stubbs’ Tears

Walter quoted some wonderful lyrics yesterday. This contains one of my favourites

“The sort a war takes away
And when there wasn’t a war he left anyway”

Everyone accepts that Billy isn’t the greatest singer in the world, but its the very basic, fragile and uncertain nature of his delivery that makes this so effective a song. See also, in a similar theme, the very moving Valentine’s Day Is Over from Worker’s Playtime or the Peel Sessions album.

SIDE B

1. Love Gets Dangerous

The first time I saw Billy was on the street during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in the days when he had the amp strapped to back so that he could set up when and where he liked busker style. He played four or five tunes and attracted a huge audience. This was one of the tunes that day and I’ve gone for the Peel version as it comes closest to catching that particuluar performance that day. Falling in love is indeed very very scary.

2. The Short Answer

And as if to prove the above point, here it is writ large in all its ugly and painful way when things fail to work out.

“Between Marx and Marzipan in the dictionary
There was Mary”

3. Everywhere

It’s not just the sad love songs that prove he has an uncanny ability to tug at the heartstrings and in this instance he is ably assisted by the poignant mandolin playing of Peter Buck.

4. Brickbat

From angry ideoligist to caring, sharing and loving dad in the blink of an eye. It’s a story which resonates with many of my closest friends and this one is again dedicated to all of them.

5. Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

If I was ever asked if there was one song in the world that I wished I had ever written, it would be this.

And here’s a wee confession….without fail it activates my tear ducts despite the fact that it’s not a sad song whatsoever.  But it’s a song that makes me think about death for the simple fact is that I want it to be played at my funeral as the mourners depart the service…and I want them all to laugh out loud at the point Billy shouts ‘beam me up Scotty.” You’ll all be welcome to attend.

The best closing song to any album….ever.

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Greetings To The New Brunette
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Which Side Are You On?
mp3 : Billy Bragg – The Space Race Is Over
mp3 : Billy Bragg – The Saturday Boy (live)
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Morrissey’s Rubber Sheet
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Levi Stubbs’ Tears
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Love Gets Dangerous (Peel Session)
mp3 : Billy Bragg – The Short Answer
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Everywhere
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Brickbat
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

Enjoy.

Quick intro if you don’t mind.

I’m away for a short holiday this coming Friday….heading over to Toronto for 10 nights to meet up with old friends. I’ll be taking in a bit of baseball as the Blue Jays edge closer to a first divisional title since the heady days of grunge as well as some golf and hopefully maybe even a bit of live music if I get the time.

I’m having to plan the next few weeks worth of postings so what is going to happen this week is that the four Imaginary Albums I have in the can will appear back to back; this coming Saturday will see the ‘new’ feature kick off in my absence and then there will be a period of random stuff back-to-back including the return of SWC and the numbers pick. Apologies in advance if anyone sends over e-mails that aren’t acknowledged….I will get round to everything back to normal in due course. In the meantime, here’s a delightful contribution from Walter over in Germany whose own blog A Few Good Times In My Life provides much enjoyment.

————————————————————

As spoken a few days ago and inspired by your fantastic series I made me up to compile 10 songs by Billy Bragg. Knowing that is a hard task as well I selected these songs first because they accompanied during the last decades and second because they show the facets of his musical output. On one side he made a lot of songs with a political background reflecting what’s going on in these days. On the other side he is one of the last poets making very personal songs about his life, love and family. So it’s nearby that this compilation is divided in a political and a personal side.

A. Political Side

1. Northern Industrial Town

This song appeared in 1996 on ‘William Bloke’ and not played very often. For me it’s a perfect description of a town and the people somewhere in England. And at the end you’re surprised that it’s Belfast – not far away as politics might think.

2. World Turned Upside Down

This is Billy’s version of a song by Leon Rosselson about a 17th century group known as the Diggers in Surrey. They simply wanted a share of the land. Unfortunately, Oliver Cromwell didn’t share their ideas and used the army to put down the Diggers, as he wanted to protect the ruling elites’ position within society.

3. Deportees

Woody Guthrie wrote this song in 1948 when he read about an airplane crash in Los Gatos. The crash resulted in the dead of 32 people, 4 Americans and 28 migrant farm workers who were being deported from California back to Mexico. It is a song that was very close to ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and is a standard interpreted by Billy Bragg on ‘Talking With the Taxman about Poetry`.

4. Take Down The Union Jack

This is his song where he protests against the British monarchy and it’s time for something different/new.

Take down the Union Jack, it clashes with the sunset
And pile all those history books, but don’t throw them away
They just might have some clues about what it really means
To be an Anglo hyphen Saxon in England. Co. Uk

5. Between The Wars

With no backing band but his own electric guitar, Billy Bragg sang ‘Between the Wars’ as a first-person narrative of a miner hoping his hard work would be rewarded by care from the government his efforts helped support. Another song about the miners in the 80s and maybe one of his most emotional ones.

B. Personal Side

6. A New England (Peel)

Maybe this is the song that made him famous. What I find really poignant about this song is how cold and brutally honest he is. “I don’t feel bad about letting you go I just feel sad about letting you know” – he knows it’s going to be painful but he feels no guilt. And also the “I’m just looking for another girl”. Imagine saying that to someone when you broke up!

7. St. Swithin’s Day

Another song about an engagement that couldn’t last longer. There are seldom songs that express so much what happened between two people like the ones by Billy Bragg.

The Polaroids that hold us together
Will surely fade away
Like the love that we spoke of forever
On St Swithin’s Day

8. Tank Park Salute

The Tank Park is the Bovington Tank Museum near Wareham in Dorset, UK, and I believe the title of the song refers to a visit Billy and his dad made there. It is a moving song, especially if you have lost your dad, and moves me to tears, But of course, Mr Bragg is near genius in touching home truths.

9. Cold And Bitter Tears

Not typical in instrumentation and arrangement but worth to listen often. Harmony singing on a little Caribbean rhythm he give us another song of love gone by.

10. Walk Away Renee

It’s a song about first unfulfilled love ever. Maybe lots of you know how this guy must feel when his love and dreams don’t come true. And probably the best last words in a song:

And then one day it happened
She cut her hair and I stopped loving her

So that’s it JC. I suppose there will be comments missing some songs. But if we limit this compilation I had to decide which one it will be.

WALTER

mp3 : Billy Bragg – Northern Industrial Town
mp3 : Billy Bragg – World Turned Upside Down
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Deportees
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Take Down The Union Jack
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Between The Wars
mp3 : Billy Bragg – A New England (Peel Session)
mp3 : Billy Bragg – St Swithin’s Day
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Tank Park Salute
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Cold and Bitter Tears
mp3 : Billy Bragg – Walk Away Renee

JC adds:-

I’ve been toying with the idea of a BB compilation for some time and indeed have had four prototype versions that in the end I felt didn’t quite work.  But, inspired by Walter, I’ve had another go with the proviso that none of his ten excellent choices appear in mine.  It’s coming your way tomorrow.