Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg
Stephen William "Billy" Braggis an English singer, songwriter and left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes. His music is heavily centered on bringing about change and getting the younger generation involved in activist causes...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth20 December 1957
accepted content political
We read our own political content into The Clash, and they accepted it.
political honest theory
My theory is this; I'm not a political songwriter. I'm an honest songwriter.
political height made
All the great political music was made at the height of political confrontations.
song political way
So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.
political littles band
I was in a little punk band and we put out a few punk records that weren't very political, at all.
bobby calling welcome
Welcome to what we're calling 'I'll Be Your Bobby Tonight'.
amongst british-musician choose nature popular subject
It's not a very popular subject amongst my audience, who are by nature more internationalist, but I don't choose what to write about, I don't choose my subjects, they kind of choose me.
british-musician
My upbringing was very straightforward suburban working class upbringing.
british-musician line people rejected school secondary skilled sort technical work
Most of the people that I went to school with - I went to secondary school - we were educated to go and work in the line at Ford's, and if we were lucky, technical skilled labor. I sort of rejected that, and thought I wanted to do something else.
british-musician case modern people trying worthwhile
I'm trying to make a case for those people who don't have a sense of belonging that they should have, that there is something really worthwhile in having a sense of belonging, and recasting and looking at our modern history.
became british-musician coal involved knew mining people pop star villages
In that sense, I became politicized because the people in the coal mining villages who were involved in the struggle knew why they were there. But they couldn't understand why some pop star from London would want to be there.
audience bands believe british-musician change lesson naive quite taught thinks
That taught me one lesson which is that you're naive to believe that bands can change the world. Bands are very naive to think that just if their audience thinks that they can change the world, that they can. That was quite a lesson for my career, really.
cop face public talked walked
The thing about Strummer was he walked it like he talked it, ... He didn't cop out. He didn't show one face to the public and have a different face in himself.
music protest
Protest music was prematurely declared to be unfashionable,