We all loved his collaboration with folk-rocking band Wilco that produced the two-disk Mermaid Avenue collection of reproduced Woodie Guthrie songs. Many of his albums from Workers Playtime to William Bloke are must haves for any progressive's music collection. But now British rocker Billy Bragg is turning to more introspective and personal songs.
With songs like "I Keep Faith" and "Mr. Love and Justice," from his latest CD, Mr. Love and Justice, labor's troubadour is emphasizing heart-felt emotions, relationships, and other less tangible themes than the straight-forward working-class politics many of his fans are used to hearing.
Bragg said that he had spent nearly two years writing a polemical book, titled The Progressive Patriot, on the rise of racist right-wing elements in London. So when he finished that project and began to work on his music again, he took a different direction.
"When I finally put my pen down and picked up my guitar," Bragg said in a recent interview with Political Affairs magazine, to be published in an upcoming article and aired on the next podcast, "the songs that were there waiting to break through the concrete, not surprisingly, were love songs. I was quite pleased about that."
While the songs on Mr. Love and Justice may be love songs, it doesn't mean that Bragg has given up on politics altogether.
He suggested that expression of deeply personal feelings can also have a social dimension. "Sometimes my love songs get overlooked," he added. "The best ones are songs that could be both love songs and political songs."
"The times are a bit too desperate to just walk by on the other side of the road," Bragg said. "It is time to commit ourselves and engage and make the world a better place in whatever way we can." Bragg went on to say that his songs have always had that kind of message, but the new songs on Mr. Love and Justice do it in a more personal way, adding, "I'm really proud of that."
Hear the full interview on Political Affairs' next podcast, scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 5, and look for the feature article soon in which Bragg talks about the Wall Street crisis, living in a "post-ideological" world, and his views on the upcoming US presidential elections.
Bragg begins the second leg of his North American tour in support of the Mr. Love and Justice CD Oct. 17 in Pennsylvania, making stops up and down the east coast. Look for the dates at BillyBragg.co.uk.
