Billy Bragg

by Andrew Collins

  We live in heightened political times again. Amid all the sabre-rattling and flag-waving in the aftermath of the New York attacks on 11 September 2001 – when Tony Blair turned into a pocket Winston Churchill – it was a thought crime to voice misgivings about the ‘War On Terrorism’. And although written before the balloon went up, Billy’s new national anthem, ‘Take Down The Union Jack’, now seems doubly daring:

  Britain isn’t cool you know, it’s really not that great

  It’s not a proper country, it doesn’t even have a patron saint

  It’s just an economic union that’s past its sell-by date

  If the tenth album tells us anything it’s that Billy is still engaged. He doesn’t just talk politics, he is politics. A song is one thing – and an abidingly useful tool – but he’s got a pamphlet too if you’re interested.

  England, Half English is far and away Billy’s most musical album. To think that Dave Woodhead’s trumpet used to amount to a concession fifteen years ago! And the Blokes don’t just colour in the background, they are now intrinsic to the writing process. Almost half of the tracks carry a Bragg/Blokes credit, and the breadth of musical palette would never have been possible without the co-op nature of the new arrangement.

  So, the singular, self-sufficient Billy Bragg was no longer ‘just’ a solo performer. Who’d have thought it? A one-man Clash – that was bloody yesterday. The community spirit that has always informed his politics and his practices is now part of the music-making process. The world might habitually fall apart, but, for Billy Bragg, it still seems to be coming together.

  For his next trick? A new England.co.uk. Who knew? Strange things happen.

  17. THE FULL ENGLISH

  A range of distractions, 2002–2006

  Gilbert and George are taking the [censored]

  ‘Take Down The Union Jack’ – the official version,

  Top Of The Pops, 31 May 2002

  SUZI QUATRO, LESLEY Garrett, DJ Spoonie, Shola Ama, Carol Decker from T’Pau … and Billy Bragg. No, not a bad dream after overdoing it at the cheese pavilion. This was 1 May 2002, and the broadcast of a special ‘music industry’ edition of BBC’s The Weakest Link quiz, which Billy had only agreed to do because it’s his mum’s favourite programme.

  The afternoon they’d recorded it, out at a studio in Slough, Billy was under heavy manners to get ‘voted off’ by 4 p.m., the hour his agitated plugger had calculated they had to leave in order to make Broadcasting House in time for a live radio interview with Johnnie Walker on Radio 2. ‘No worries,’ Billy assured him. ‘I’m not taking this seriously. As long as I’m not the first person off.’

  Oh, but he wasn’t. A solid grasp of general knowledge, a cool head and a propensity not to rub the others up the wrong way meant Billy kept getting through, round after round. ‘All of a sudden, I realised there was only three of us left! Me, Suzi Quatro and Lesley Garrett. To be perfectly honest, I suddenly thought, fucking hell, I could win this!’

  Watching the programme go out, Juliet took great delight in recognising Billy’s expression change at this point, confirming for her that the dedicated socialist did have a competitive streak after all (a trait hinted at by the enthusiastic way he approaches family mini-golf tournaments). He went head to head with Suzi Quatro and won. He was the Strongest Link – goodbye! (They just made it to Johnnie’s show, where, sworn to pre-recorded quiz-show secrecy, Billy couldn’t even reveal where he’d been, let alone that he’d won. He’d won! Still, Mum was happy and he’d banked £11,000 for the Medical Foundation For The Care Of Victims Of Torture.)

  It’s amusing to hear that Billy has been invited to participate in all the shows with ‘Celebrity’ in the title – Celebrity Mastermind, Celebrity Big Brother, I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here – and reassuring to know that he turned them all down. (‘Can’t be contemplated.’)

  Though clearly a major TV highlight of 2002, we mustn’t let Weakest Link eclipse Billy’s fourth appearance on Top Of The Pops, essaying ‘Take Down The Union Jack’, the number one that might’ve been. It being – flags out! – Golden Jubilee year, they’d cooked up a wheeze: release the single in a multitude of formats (as per venal industry norm) and promote the backside out of it, thus hiking it to the top of the charts in time for Jubilee week. ‘It was a moment of madness,’ he concedes.

  Released on 20 May, Billy took to the tarmac with Grant Showbiz and road manager Jason Bell, and did three in-stores a day for a week. Monday: breakfast in Dundee, lunchtime in Edinburgh, afternoon in Glasgow, that sort of whistle-stop itinerary. Tuesday, Leeds, Sheffield, Preston; Wednesday, Manchester and Lough-borough (stuck in traffic on the M62 trying to get over the Pennines, naturally); Thursday, Leicester, Birmingham, Northampton; Friday, Cheltenham, Cardiff, Bristol. The single entered the chart at an impressive Number 22 – Billy’s biggest hit since ‘Between The Wars’ – on the Sunday. The next day it was Eastbourne, Exeter; Tuesday, Camberley, Tunbridge Wells; Wednesday, Berwick St in London, and Thursday … Top Of The Pops!

  The triumphant appearance aired the next day, in the show’s heretical new Friday slot. Seventeen years after his square-peg debut, he was back, once more confusing the young punters with his dangerous Republican rhetoric. Even better, the BBC took it upon themselves to bleep him. Twice. Neither ‘bum’ nor ‘piss’ were allowed to corrupt the nation’s youth. The single went down the following week.

  ‘Surprisingly, I can’t quite understand it, but the Jubilee went ahead anyway.’

  With barely enough time to read the lavish spread about Barton Olivers in Homes & Gardens (a generous plug for Juliet’s Design Dorset operation), Billy was deep into the festival circuit – Leftfield at Glastonbury, Guildford, Brampton, Tolpuddle, Cambridge – with a short hop with the Blokes to Japan for Fuji Rocks (including a naked dip at some public baths – good bonding for any band). Then Europe, Canada, the USA and back to the UK, some dates with the full squad, others with just Mac, all the while thinking about the book.

  The book, which would eventually become The Progressive Patriot, was borne out of Billy’s obsession with English identity, which threatened to eat everything in its path. ‘Having put out an album that made a point of talking about Englishness, I got invited to all sorts of discussions and TV programmes and seminars about the issues and politics of identity, and it made me realise there was a lot more to be said and done about this.’

  Being invited to play at an Anti-Nazi League gig in September was another big marker – ‘the first one of those I’d done for 20 years’. (Having wound down in 1981, the ANL had resumed life in 1992, eventually merging with the National Assembly Against Racism, with the support of the TUC and various unions, to form Unite Against Fascism.) Also, having put in another insanely busy year, Billy was keen to find ‘something else to do’. A challenge.

  ‘I’m good at making Billy Bragg records, I’m probably the best Billy Bragg there is. But if you do it year in, year out, after 20 years it does become … not a chore, but predictable.’

  Writing and playing with the Blokes had, crucially, allowed him to articulate his feelings about Englishness using polyrhythms and world music shapes. Instead of approaching the subject in a traditional way – like ‘The Home Front’, which, with its trumpet reveille, had been all ‘jam and Jerusalem’ – he was able to use musical multiculturalism to head off misconceptions that he was coming at patriotism from a right-wing position. After all, it had been Morrissey’s refusal, or failure, to articulate what he meant by ‘Bengali In Platforms’, and the skinheads and the Union Jack, that left him open in the early 90s to accusations of racism and fascism. ‘You don’t have to defend yourself, you just have to explain.’

  On first hearing the coda of ‘England, Half English’ – ‘Oh my country, oh my country, what a beautiful country you are’ – some friends thought Billy was being ironic. He wasn’t. But expressing complex feelings in song was, by definition, limiting. Which is why writing a book suddenly felt like the right
thing to do; somewhere to organise the thoughts banging around in his head. Plus, he wanted to sort out his ‘work–life balance’, determined to be around when Jack made the transition from junior to secondary school (‘that was the final nudge’). To the constant advances from various publishers, he finally succumbed.

  A more profound balance was disturbed on 22 December, by the sudden death of Joe Strummer. With no prior warning, his heart packed up while out walking the dog near his home in Broomfield, Somerset. He was 50, just five years older than Billy.

  Numbed by the news, a generation mourned. A lot of Clash records were played on that horrible day. Strummer’s importance to Billy has been stated before, but in losing him, it all swam back into focus: how inspiring The Clash had been, how irreplaceable, how enduring. The last time he’d seen Joe was at a Mescaleros gig at London’s Astoria, where they ran through the usual fistful of Clash numbers, including ‘White Man In Hammersmith Palais’. He’d received a Christmas card from Joe two days before he died.

  ‘I think Joe’s passing was a moment to step back and think about what The Clash had done and how it had made a difference to our lives. My whole approach is based on lessons learned from The Clash, both positive and negative.’ There are, as Billy notes, a whole generation of ‘middle-aged Clash fans’ in positions of influence: Mick Rix, former ASLEF general secretary, heavily involved in keeping the BNP out of Barking, Andy Gilchrist of the Fire Brigades Union, who had been at Victoria Park, and Bob Crow, RMT boss and ‘awkward squad’ stalwart. They’d all stepped up when battle came down.

  Billy and Joe had even been talking about doing some US shows together in 2003. What might have been. A gloomy end to a year otherwise crammed with hope and activity.

  At the start of 2003, Billy bought the laptop. ‘When you sign a record deal and they give you an advance, you have to make a record and form the band and pay for the videos. When they give you a publishing advance, you just have to buy a laptop. We’re in the wrong business!’

  He had a clear vision for the book, but no idea how long it would take, or what form. Time to knuckle down. But distractions were everywhere, and not just the kettle and the dog.

  On 15 February, Billy was ‘shuffled to the front’ of the biggest public demonstration in British history, the Stop The War march in Central London. Amazed and heartened by the sheer variety of the turnout – young, old, hard left, soft right, seasoned politicos, march virgins – he reached Hyde Park and watched as the multitude streamed in, thinking, ‘This is bigger than anything I’ve ever been part of. As the estimated figure reached a million I thought, Wow, something is going to happen. This is going to be really powerful.’

  It got to 4 o’clock, and Billy’s thoughts turned to the train home. He bought soup and a roll, and cut back through Piccadilly, ‘and the march was still going. That really did my brain in.’ (The media recorded the final tally at one million, the organisers said two, while the police helpfully massaged it down to 750,000. Numbers aside, as Madeline Bunting wrote afterwards in the Guardian, ‘The very best of Britain was on the city’s streets.’)

  Billy Bragg was not alone in thinking that this unprecedented display of pacifism might actually stop Tony Blair taking us to war.

  On 20 March, the insultingly-named ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ was launched, coalition forces entered Iraq and the second Gulf War began. Mission was accomplished by 1 May, when George Bush, a real ‘war president’ now, entertained the troops on aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln with some well-chosen words of victory (‘the United States and our allies have prevailed’). This speech, historians now unanimously agree, was somewhat premature.

  Workwise, apart from a week of gigs in Belgium, a Strummer tribute gig in Southampton, Maydaze in Glasgow, various talking shops, a Question Time and The Weakest Link Champion of Champions, for the first half of the year Billy kept his head down and his laptop up.

  Then, having helped launch the first roadies’ union at Glastonbury in June (Roadcrew Provident Syndicate, a branch of the doughty GMB), he was off touring Canada for the whole of July and Australia in September. In between – a quiet year, indeed – he joined an illustrious gang on stage for two Concerts For A Landmine Free World, on a bandstand in Edinburgh and at Leicester’s Summer Sundae festival: Emmylou Harris, Joan Baez, Chrissie Hynde and Steve Earle. It was Earle who’d got in touch with Billy: ‘Fancy taking it in turn to sing some songs, and do some together?’ It was a speedy yes. He’d never met Harris or Baez before.

  Walking with these two formidable women in Edinburgh the night before the first gig, and coming upon the statue of Walter Scott, Baez happened to say how much the Ivanhoe author looked like tragic folkie Tim Hardin. Conversation got round to ‘(Find A) Reason To Believe’, the Hardin song made famous by Rod Stewart – Baez said, ‘It would be wonderful if we could do it.’ She wanted to send out for a CD, but Billy said, ‘Don’t worry, I used to be a busker.’

  Their rendition, with Hynde, turned out, in Billy’s words, to be ‘really beautiful’. He also sang the Flying Burrito Brothers’ ‘Sin City’ with Harris (‘I’m flat as a pancake, she’s singing like an angel’), and debuted ‘Bush War Blues’, based on Leadbelly’s ‘Bourgeois Blues’, which stormed it in Edinburgh, at which point Baez, the queen of folk, leaned over and said, ‘Fuckin’ A, Bragg!’ A nice moment.

  In August, Billy took godson Jamie, who’d turned 15, to his first Reading Leeds Festival. Having been blooded at Glastonbury, it struck him as ‘just a gig in a field’, which is hard to argue with. Neil Pengelly, booker for the festival and dyed-in-the-wool Bragg fan with a New England tattoo, had convinced Billy to play the Concrete Jungle new bands stage, tipping him off that many visiting American bands – the likes of Death Cab For Cutie – saw his tattoo and expressed their admiration. So he went for it.

  Grant pushed the sound right up to combat the DJ in the tent next door, Billy broke three strings in the first song, and they stayed up drinking with the whippersnappers keen to touch the hem of his wellies. Next day it was on to the Christian-run Greenbelt in Cheltenham, where he and Jamie got to sing ‘Soldier Girl’, in robes, onstage with the massed choral ranks of The Polyphonic Spree – because group leader Tim DeLaughter was another Bragg fan. Jamie loved it. Another victory for the smaller festival.

  This was the year in which Billy celebrated 20 years in showbiz with a stout, 40-song salute, Must I Paint You A Picture?, released in October to mark this historic milestone and supported with assorted radio appearances and in-stores. If nothing else, he’d made it this far without splitting up.

  In November, the Tell The Truth tour ensured that his nose wouldn’t stay in the book for too long. It was that pesky Steve Earle again. He’d corralled a bunch of activists in America to oppose corporate ownership of US radio, Clear Channel the sorest thumb in this regard, with over 1,200 radio stations in its portfolio, 30 TV channels, outside advertising space in 25 countries, and tentacles in venues and booking agencies. The tour, very much in the mould of Red Wedge, began at a conference in Madison, Wisconsin, and alongside Billy and Earle, featured Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, trading as The Night-watchman, political rapper Boots Riley, and Lester Chambers from The Chambers Brothers, who’d been active in the Civil Rights movement. They all travelled around in a bus, visiting places Billy had never been: Asheville, Indianapolis, Tampa.

  ‘The great thing about my job is that I get to go America and meet those kinds of people. Your average Brit has this kneejerk reaction to Americans, but there are good people there trying just as hard to rectify what George Bush and the neocons are doing as we are. We mustn’t lose faith in those people – they need all the support they can get.’

  He’s talking about people like musician and activist Jenny Toomey, director of The Future Of Music Coalition, one of the many organisations with a presence on the tour, Mike Mills of R.E.M., who joined them on some dates, and comedian Janeane Garofalo, who compered. Awareness was raised, rousing song
s sung, questions asked, answers given.

  Undaunted by the Truth being Told, the ravenous Clear Channel’s next step was to buy out ITB (International Talent Booking), Billy’s agents in the UK – ‘just after I’d told them not to book me into any Clear Channel venues!’

  The solution was clear: he found a new agent.

  A new year, 2004, and Billy’s book was still languishing in that limbo between intention and prose. Welcome distraction came with Lords reform, still a hot topic for Billy, especially after the Iraq demonstrations, which caused him to wonder who these people would be voting for come the next election. Surely not Labour? A proportionally-elected second chamber was more crucial than ever, to convince the public they still had a stake in democracy. Billy had forged a good working relationship with Paul Stinchcombe, Joint Committee member and Labour MP for Wellingborough (albeit one who would not survive the electoral bloodbath in April 2005). He got Billy in to see people like the influential Lord Chancellor, Charlie Falconer, leader of the Commons (and tamed firebrand) Peter Hain, and party chairman Ian McCartney.

  In February, a debate and vote in the Commons was sidetracked by the issue of what proportion of the second chamber should be elected or appointed. The honorable members ended up with seven options. Everybody voted for the one they fancied and against the other six, and it was eventually thrown out. When Blair came out in favour of an appointed House, that ‘fucking killed it dead’.

  So was that it? No. With the help of a filmmaker he’d met at party conference in 2003, Billy made a windswept three-minute non-party-political broadcast, Apathy Into Action, and, helped by Stinchcombe, sent a DVD of it to all Labour MPs and a VHS each for their constituencies. If nothing else, hundreds of the party faithful would see how splendid the cliffs and beach at Burton Bradstock were.