Go to:
- Life's a Riot with Spy vs. Spy (1983)
- Brewing up with Billy Bragg (1984)
Life’s a Riot with Spy vs. Spy (1983)
7.5
The Milkman of Human Kindness / To Have and Have Not / Richard / Lovers
Town Revisited / A New England / The Man in the Iron Mask /
The Busy Girl Buys Beauty
Bursting
on the scene with copies of Woody Guthrie’s Bound for Glory,
the collected works of Mayakovsky and The History of Labour in the UK
in his backpack, Billy Bragg’s appearance was as suitable as Woody Guthrie’s
final breakthrough in the early ‘40’s. While Guthrie’s land
was still recovering from the Great Depression, Britain – or the UK
if you will – wasn’t doing too well, with poverty and unemployment
affecting thousands of people of all classes. Forever hesitating between,
or even better, trying to reconcile love and politics, sentiment and rage,
Bragg was both the sentimental romantic and the keyed up agitator at the same
time. While there had already been a band that expressed dissatisfaction in
a similarly indignant and striking way (The Clash), Bragg was a man completely
his own from the beginning onwards. He’d already been around since the
late ‘70’s and by 1983, his style was already fully realized,
even though a first listen might have you suspect the songs are only rough
demos. Like many other protest singers, Bragg only relies on his voice and
guitar, but even though his singing is quite rudimentary (I don’t even
know whether you’d call this singing), his spoken/sung-delivery found
a perfect fit in his clattering, slashing and very rhythmic style of guitar
playing. This guy wasn’t interested in creating a warm fuzzy tone for
his bloated lyrics: it was all about accompanying the socialist critique with
undistorted, jagged played that didn’t obstruct the messages, but underlined
them.
At a mere seven songs and 16 minutes, Life’s a Riot is a short release, but as a protester’s pamphlet, I’d say it’s the ideal length to make a sizeable impact, and not too long to get boring. Because his political songs are often quite accusatory, it’s unavoidable that several years later, they’re not quite as applicable anymore and certainly for a Belgian like me, a lot of references are probably obscure. However, themes like unemployment are of every era and lines like “The factories are closing and the army’s full, I don’t know what I’m going to do” (from ‘To Have and Have Not”) are pretty clear. While it’s quite reminiscent of The Clash’s “Rudy Can’t Fail,” and bears a title referring to an American novel, Bragg turns these elements into a personal advantage, addressing class clashes and threatening poverty. Elsewhere, Bragg expresses his disgust for violence and conformity in the 77 seconds of “Lovers Town Revisited,” paints a miniature picture of a society obsessed by material appearance (“The Busy Girl Buys Beauty”), promises his unconditional loyalty to his beloved (“The Milkman of Human Kindness”) and comes up with an impressive, dejected ballad about lost faith and loneliness, “The Man in the Iron Mask.” The most impressive track here, and still the man’s signature song, is “A New England,” a song that not only cops its rhythmic start from Eddie Cochran’s “Come on, Everybody” (or is that “Summertime Blues?), but also succeeds in merging his charming naivety with idealism. He may say that he doesn’t want to change the world and isn’t looking for a New England – just looking for another girl, but everything – from the title, the passion and lines such as “I loved you then as I love you still, I put you on a pedestal, but they put you on the pill” betray his far-reaching intentions. You can avoid Billy Bragg’s work if you’re only interested in hearing the familiar, unworldly rock that poses less questions, but if you’re looking for a fix of fervent energy and simple emotion, then why not get back to basics with Billy Bragg?
Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (1984)
7
It Says Here / Love Gets Dangerous / From a Vauxhall Velox / The
Myth of Trust / The Saturday Boy / Island of No Return / This
Guitar Says Sorry / Like Soldiers Do / St. Swithin’s Day / Strange Things
Happen / A Lover Sings
More
socialism and broken hearts for the masses. While most people measure his
later work by the standard of his first few releases (which are often considered
his best), it’s my conviction that the best was yet to come. It’s
true that his blend of romantic and political beliefs is presented in the
clearest, most passionate form by these tracks, but on the downside they are
also harder to digest in large quantities. Basically, nothing crucial has
changed since Life’s a Riot with Spy vs. Spy (the sound’s
slightly less crude and there are some overdubs), save for the fact that there
are not as many highlights (translation: songs that really stick with you).
It starts off good though, with “It Says Here,” the riff of which
sounds remarkably similar to that of The Hoodoo Gurus’ “Tojo,”
released a while before this one. I guess it’s coincidence, and anyway,
this one here is basically a critique of the written press (“Where they
offer you a feature on stockings and suspenders, next to a call for stiffer
penalties for sex offenders”) who all too often (in Billy’s words)
forget there are two sides to every story. It’s pretty obvious that
Bragg’s realist poetry is/was quite unique: whereas most other songwriters
deal with the highs and lows of life in a much more general, “poetic”
way, Bragg focuses on little things, such as women shaving their legs (or
not having to shave them yet), refers to sex with lines such as “flushing
our babies down the drain” and mentions the smell of hairspray on a
hot day.
Repeatedly, it’s pretty obvious that Bragg found his identity in the wake of punk, as the jangly guitars of “From a Vauxhall Velox” and fierceness of “Strange Things Happen” suggest. Here’s a guy who combines the idealism of The Clash with the socialism of Woody Guthrie and the high hopes of Springsteen’s “small” people (and are they in for a disappointment), and with lines such as “Some people say love is blind, but I think that’s just a bit short-sighted” proves he owns a voice completely his own. The remainder of the album also ranges from the personal/internal to observations about the outside world. The album’s unquestionable highlight is the terrific “The Saturday Boy,” a recognizable depiction of teenage love that unsurprisingly doesn’t last long (“In the end it took me a dictionary to find out the meaning of unrequited”), with an unexpected trumpet solo. Almost as successful are “Island of No Return,” an accusatory song told from the perspective of a soldier fighting in the Falklands War, and the reflective “St. Swithin’s Day” that’s often considered a classic Bragg song – but that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I always liked the dark, throbbing riff of “The Myth of Trust” as well, while “Love Gets Dangerous” and “This Guitar Says Sorry” ooze out teenage rebellion with their ‘50’s-style and Bo Diddley-rhythm, respectively (just like “A New England” did on the debut EP). So, Brewing Up doesn’t offer anything Life’s a Riot didn’t already manage to, in fact, it’s the logical continuation of it (Life’s Still a Riot, then), so the main difference is that this full-length is just a shade weaker, lacking a signature song like “A New England” or a restrained highlight like “The Man in the Iron Mask.”
Note: The good news is that these first two releases, as well as the three-song EP Between the Wars (containing one track written by Bragg, as well as two traditional labor songs) are compiled on Back to Basics, which is easily available.