| Just about every music fan has a moment when they realize that rock ’n’ roll has changed their lives. For punk troubadour Billy Bragg, it was seeing The Clash "fight against fascism" at the age of 19, but music was in the young Bragg’s soul from an even younger age.
"I was a huge Simon and Garfunkel fan," Bragg says. "I’ve been writing a book about Englishness and Britishness and belonging, and there’s a lot of Simon and Garfunkel in the book. How multiculturalism and diversity have always been in our society. And feeling around about how I first got feelings of being English turned out to be Simon and Garfunkel, listening to ‘Scarborough Fair.’ Paul Simon seemed to be looking through my letterbox. There’s a very English sensibility in Paul Simon’s writing and a lot of those first three albums were written when he came to England in ’65 to ’66. That stuff in ‘Kathy’s Song’ – ‘to England, where my heart lies’ — when I was 12 or 13 that brought to me a whole emotional landscape that had nothing to do with my parents at all. It was all mine."
And while ideas of what constitutes Englishness have been more formally raised on Bragg’s recent material, 2002’s England, Half English, for instance, many of Bragg’s earlier songs paint pictures of very English people doing very English things. These early songs, long unavailable in the U.S., are collected on Volume 1, the new box set comprising Bragg’s first four records, three discs of bonus material and two DVDs of live performances released on the Outside Music label in Canada and Yep Roc stateside.
Following a short-lived stint in a pub/punk rock band called Riff-Raff, which he formed with longtime cohort Wiggy, Bragg decided to give the army a go, which may come as a bit of a surprise considering his well-documented antiwar stance. His military career lasted about four months, before young Billy paid his way out and returned home to give music another chance.
A well-placed demo tape began a relationship with producer Peter Jenner, who, among other things, is known for managing Pink Floyd, Marc Bolan and The Clash. Jenner’s former label, Utility, released Bragg’s first EP, Life’s a Riot with Spy Vs. Spy. Following the foundering label’s demise, Jenner became Bragg’s manager, a role he has maintained from Billy the solo punk upstart to today’s older family man incarnation.
Bragg insists, "If my younger self met my older self, I’m sure they’d get on."
This may be true, but he isn’t so sure he can pull off some of his old songs these days. One such song is "The Marriage" from Talking with the Taxman about Poetry. In it, the subject (presumably Bragg himself) announces, "Love is just a moment of giving/And marriage is when we admit our parents were right."
"Maybe our parents were right anyway," Bragg blushes. " I think as you get older, particularly when you become a parent yourself, you get a perspective on how difficult it is to live up to your own expectations. There are some songs that I haven’t played for a very long time and that’s one of them, which is a shame because I love it. As someone who’s been in a long-term relationship for 14, nearly 15 years… I get a lot of people who walk down the aisle to one of my songs, and the last thing I should do is remind them of that song!"
Even for people who own every Bragg record, the box set includes rarities spanning his ’80s recordings, although there are a few B-sides left off because they can be found on the Reaching to the Converted compilation that is still in print on Rhino.
"We’ve made up for the lack of ‘Jeane’ with plenty of Johnny Marr on the box set," Bragg says, listing the songs. "‘Back To The Old House,’ ‘The Last Time’ and ‘A Lover Sings’ with the intro to ‘This Charming Man’ tacked onto the front recorded in my old flat. I think we did the vocals in the kitchen. I can’t play that intro (to ‘The Last Time’) – I’m not good enough. Those are the three songs we did together on the Red Wedge tour."
While the Red Wedge tour of 1985-86 started as a means to get young people thinking about politics in order to oust Margaret Thatcher as Britian’s Prime Minister, Bragg describes it as being a great deal of fun and "like the Motown Review." Joining Bragg on the tour were The Style Council, the Communards and Jerry Dammers. Also on the bill were Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce and Johnny Marr, with Morrissey showing up only to play the tour’s final show in Newcastle. After 20-odd years, Bragg and Marr remain friends, with Billy describing Marr as being "in a good place." He pokes more fun at Morrissey, wishing he’d found more happiness in being able to make a living by making music.
"He’ll be ringing me up asking me to come over and talk about the old days," Bragg jokingly imagines the two of them at this year’s South By Southwest music conference, which at the time of our interview was still a few days off. "Sitting around, talking about the fun we had with Paul Weller and Jimmy Somerville and how much we hate – hate, hate, hate, hate – James Blunt. Why do we hate him? (Affects Morrissey’s voice) ‘Because he’s Officer Class.’ In fact, it’s my mission while I’m in North America to undermine James Blunt and start the fight back against him.
"Paul Weller was asked if he would do a duet with him at the BPI (Brit) Awards. He said, ‘Actually, I’d rather eat my own shit.’ So now, when people ask me how I feel about James Blunt, I always say, ‘Well, I was talking to Paul Weller the other day and we’re of one mind – I’d rather eat Paul’s shit than do a duet with James Blunt." |
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