I found The Essential Billy Bragg!
It (not HE!) was on sale in a Save the Children shop.. Which is officially a triple whammy!
Wham 1 Because Walk Away Renee is one of the records I've wanted to burn onto CD for ages .. except I don't have one of those vinyl to CD gadgets...
Wham two is that I get a recycled CD that includes no less than 39 of Billy's other classics (St Swithin's Day! Between the Wars!) at an all time low price.. and
(Triple whammy! Bonus points time!) I can Save the Children too!
I think Billy would approve.
I've got my work cut out though, explaining to the Cherub why Billy Bragg is important, and not just some sad old git locked in a studio with a guitar and amp. And why exactly Kanye West has been ejected from the cd player in favour of this. So I'm keeping it very simple and basic and extreme to try and ramp up the enthusiasm levels.
"It's about the last time the Tories got power. When there was a major recession. Millions were unemployed.. they closed the steelworks... they closed the mines... there was a major gulf between the have and have nots.."
{I could give him the details, but I won't bother ..Me? I was at Aberdeen University.. member of Left Students... mini van down to Greenham Common.. assembling in Blytheswood Square in Glasgow to march for jobs ... Monday night meetings, then down to the Prince of Wales or the Blue Lamp .. Left Students discos at the union. Good times... Looking back we had it good in the times before student loans and tuition fees}
See the Bard of Barking is told it like it was. Good protest songs, from the heart.
And he was home spun, and English.. and sweet, St Swithins Day and Walk away Renee are bittersweet.. they still tear me up.
"Were there no communists in those days?"
Communists??? Oh yeah, but they weren't a major force, there weren't that many
{Actually thinking it, the Aberdeen communists were mainly wet... I don't remember them buying many rounds.. smoked a lot though}
And was their music worse?
He'll learn. Meanwhile Billy Bragg's sent me off down memory lane. See if you can spot the communist in the photo from Aberdeen 1984
16 July 2010 at 22:38
I always liked his version of The Smiths' "Jeanne". And the whole Spy vs. Spy album. Thing is, you can't sing a Billy Bragg song without singing it in a Billy Bragg voice, am I right?
I remember, when I was in the fourth year of high school, going to some rally he was at in London. I can't remember what we were protesting for, I just remember the words "free trip to London" and a march being involved. I also remember some food vendor at said march explaining to me that no, he would NOT take my Scottish pound note because in England it was only worth 80p. Lying fucker.
17 July 2010 at 14:18
The pic looks a bit like the accounts department on a lunch time jolly.
That's you on the far Right pretending to be on the Far Left. Innit?
17 July 2010 at 18:00
Ah, Billy Bragg. The way things are going with the new coalition government, his career's due for a resurgence. He can just tweak the old songs and play them for a brand-new audience.
17 July 2010 at 21:37
I didn't take to BB, but then I was at Glasgow Uni in 1984 and we were all auditioning for Brideshead Revisited and young fogeyhood.
18 July 2010 at 16:13
I never really took to Billy Bragg either, though he always had something interesting to say. I was busy being preached at by Trots whose experience of the working class was gained in the queue at Waitrose.
18 July 2010 at 17:59
Ms Veg - Yeah definitely sounds weird singing BB in a scottish accent - though I'd like to hear the Proclaimers give "Between the Wars" a try...
And they like Scottish pound notes even less down south now English ££s are coins!
Rog! - Maybe this is why all the marching achieved NOTHING...?
And nah that's me on the left moving right...the communist's in the centre...
Nick - Absolutely - except technically we're not between wars anymore!
Mme DeF - Oh the memories...I did a year at Glasgow and then fled as far north as I could!
Mr Musgrove - Hivvins..and given the states of our bourgeois democratic development, where better to start the new permanent revolution than Waitrose??
19 July 2010 at 18:28
Sadly, I've never heard of BB -- will rectify this ASAP.
That's a nice bunch of commies... pardon, lefists in that photo. Ah, youth...
On a related note (and one that I keep repeating more and more often these days), I miss socialism. (But don't tell it to my fellow Americans, they may* get a wrong idea.)
*They definitely will get the wrong idea.
20 July 2010 at 06:52
Elizabeth - Jeez - and there was me thinking you had a communist president already!
Well he wants HEALTHCARE doesn't he?
A wee dose of BB will maybe help...