BRAGG, ALBO AND ESSEX
Billy Bragg Tweeted today: “Woke up this morning to find that the new prime minister of Australia had quoted my lyrics in his first press conference: “Just because you’re going forwards, doesn’t mean I’m going backwards”. Here’s my response to that welcome news.”
Bragg’s devotion to making the world a better place has long been on record. But when I interviewed him in 2002, he leaned-in to his love of Australia:
That marvelous mouth of Billy Bragg has kicked into a high gear.
In less than 15 minutes, the singing ideologue has given his opinion on Margaret Thatcher, Woodie Guthrie, miners’ strikes, Tony Blair, Neil Kinnock and Australia becoming a republic. Of the 1999 referendum, he says: “What great political maturity by the Australian people. You held out for a better deal.”
The woman who’s monitoring our interview is trying to wind things up – but “Uncle” Billy is having none of it. He wants to keep chatting because he loves Aussies nearly as much as he loves Australia. Why?
“It reminds me of Essex,” says Bragg, referring to the county he was born and raised.
The woman sighs down the line, but I encourage him to go on. Bragg needs no encouragement.
“I think you could make a good argument for Australia being Essex enlarged,” he says. “You have that same sort of, 'I don’t give a shit' attitude that I like. Maybe that’s why I enjoy coming over so much.
“It’s the antipodean Essex. It’s what Essex could be like if the weather was half decent. The argument is starting to resonate a bit, isn't it. I can see I’m going to have to live this interview down for the rest of my life.”
What about those people who give Essex a hard time?
“I’ve always been very annoyed that it has been so much maligned,” he says. “Essex has a real vibe to it. My son Jack is the first child in my family to be born outside Essex since the 1700s. It goes back that far."
Bragg arrives in Australia this week for a national tour and to promote his most recent album, England, Half English. Released last year, the album was his first record of all new material since William Bloke in 1996 and follows Mermaid Avenue, his 1998 homage to American folk singer Woodie Guthrie.
He says he has tried to keep a low profile over the past decade while concentrating on becoming a husband and father. He calls it his "paternity leave".
But in recent months Bragg has resurfaced on magazine covers, fronted meaningful documentaries, hosted music-themed national radio shows and started writing opinion columns in the Guardian newspaper where he throws darts at the House of Lords, the Spice Girls and the lack of live music in pubs. There was also the spat with The Sex Pistols over the punk rockers’ re-release of God Save the Queen for last year's Golden Jubilee celebrations: “I hate nostalgia.”
Oh, and they’ve gone and named a street after him: Bragg Close in Dagenham, Essex (of course).
But the question remains: Has Billy Bragg reinvented himself or is he still in the persona of the flag-waving founder of the Red Wedge movement – a well-meaning group of musicians who tried, and failed, to get Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party elected in 1987?
Back in those days, Bragg was a died-in-the-wool socialist who, at the height of the Cold War, thought nothing of attending political meetings with “the comrades” after playing sell-out gigs in Moscow. In his eyes, miners were king and Margaret Thatcher, the enemy. “Thatcher politicised me,” he says.
“I already had my basic, fundamental, humanitarian ideals that I had inherited from my parents. But it was Thatcher who forced me to articulate it in an ideological way and describe myself as a socialist.
“Ironically, that language doesn’t resonate with people anymore. I find myself talking less about socialism these days and more about a compassionate society. People understand that better.
“I know that there are people that obsess about Marx and the Russian Revolution and the left wing papers still have a feature about it every week – but I couldn’t give a shit about it, personally. I’m more interested in how we’re going to get our hospitals fixed and how we’re going to get our education system working, what we’re going to do about the war in Iraq.”
Bragg says he hasn’t swayed in his support for Britain's Labour Party – despite it going ‘New’ and is as much behind Tony Blair as he was Kinnock.
“After the Cold War, a vacuum appeared,” he says. “It allowed for the breaking down of ideological differences between left and right to the extent that something like New Labour could happen. It allowed us to articulate a new ideal on the left that isn’t tainted by totalitarianism or Stalin.”
Despite Australia (particularly Melbourne) being among his favourite places to play, Bragg admits he finds touring a drag. This is a shock, considering he's at his best when rallying comrades.
“Before it was a case of not feeling like I was actually existing if I wasn’t on tour,” he says. “I’d come off a tour and I wouldn't even unpack. I had a one room flat where the bed came out of the wall. I’d sleep most of the time – live out of a bag – do my laundry – repack the bag and then go back on tour. I was in my 20s and I was having a great time.
"Since, I’ve had a family, however, it’s been much harder emotionally. I find myself emotionally leaving a few days before I actually go. I start switching off. And my mind is clearly on what I’ll be doing next week and my family pick up on that."
Why not bring them out?
“I’d love to but my wife has to work and the kids are back at school," he says. "Everybody has trouble with their work-life balance – trying to earn enough money to live, then getting enough time to spend that money on and with the people they love.
"It’s not just me who has that problem.”
The monitoring woman cuts-in and says it's "definitely" time to go.
"That's a shame," says Bragg. "Great shame. I was just gettin' warmed-up, wasn't I."