|
 A
timely opportunity to (re)evaluate and venerate the voice and vision of
our nations saving sage with these re-issues, the original rather short
albums now beefed up and ready for ever more pertinent protests with
b-sides and unreleased diamonds from the mine, plus a live DVD to boot.
Long tagged, for obvious reasons, as a right-on rabble-rouser beloved of
students of a certain age (unfortunately at times coming across as
something of an indie-Sting) as the downward celebration of that
generation, the difference in the 15-20 years since
these records first came out is highlighted in their politicisation vs.
today's celebration of scallies and a whole menagerie of mindless morons.
However naïve Bragg's utopian dream may seem in retrospect, that things
mattered more back then is reason to both mourn and be ever hopeful that,
like Woody Guthrie to the young Billy, these tracts will provide testaments
to inspire future tales and trials of forthcoming youth penning anthems to
escape their doom.
Famously this has already been seen by Rancid adopting the defiantly proud
'To Have And To Have Not' as their own theme song. But outside Bragg's
noted social and
political comment are his frequent and often wryly moving depictions of
relationship rancour, squandered lives full of desolate dreams described
with a gentle
poetry easy to pass by, making him in retrospect, more of, and even more
than, a British Springsteen far removed and far beyond the easy comparison
of their both soundtracking blue collar hopes and aspirations. As such
there's a hymnal, elegiac quality to songs
such as the ever-classic 'A New England', the lightly Cope-'Fried' folk of
'The Myth Of Trust' and the haunting tragedy of 'Levi Stubbs Tears' which
turns in the lighting of a Regal to the very sound of furrowed brow
fulminating found in the apt 'Ideology'. Maybe
the myth permeates the music but the earlier albums have a
sackcloth-shirted scratchy sound, the doleful accounts smelling of mouldy
basement flats and squalid meals of boiled cabbage soup all warmed through
with the man's direct, human yet sarcastic wit and compassion. For this and
the simplistic, squatpunk spirit of the caustic kitchen sink mini-dramas
they work better than the faltering, but faultlessly ambitious 'Internationale'
set, which falls on it's sword somewhat like an infantryman floundering in
Flanders.
Our one man (new model) army has a voice and soul of the earth he walks,
as unique as Strummer and Dylan, with raging ire between the young Weller
and SLF's Jake Burns. One thing that strikes with his stance as
international voice of the working man is that his
very defiance and indomitable strength for the struggle are prime
characteristics of the celebrated British bulldog attitude that, puzzled
patriot that he undoubtedly is, could be used for promoting less savoury
sects that'd get Bragg's pen-nib carving ire in his kitchen table. Another
thing that strikes with the man's music is the Johnny Marr-esque way of
taking what could be a barbed-wire atomising garage guitar riff that with
a different treatment would have seen him as more of a level-headed Julian
Cope peddling pop
garage for the ITV Chart show generation ('It Says Here' and 'The Milkman
of Human Kindness' being 60's garagepop based gems that'd've made
Andwella's Dream cream and Birdland's heels fall off and hair fall out, not to forget the
Bo Diddley beat of 'Help Save The Youth Of America', the suitably titled
jump start blues-boogie of 'From A Vauxhall Velox', and 'Train Train's
delightful country/rockabilly swing) and the
almost urbane cafebar soulpop a la Style Council of a song like 'The
Marriage' suggests that the easy stereotyping Bragg's endured is as
redundant as most of a working class he was championing for the duration
of these albums.
For those with a passing interest a brilliant compilation could be made,
or downloaded, from these records but Stu's money is on the first two, for
the overall songs and bonus disc...everyone needs Bragg's take on 'Route
66' - 'A13, Trunk Road To The Sea' -
which possibly sums up with as much feel as funnies his determination to
bring the folk tradition that The Clash and punk helped bring about in
their predominant UK focus and not singing along American lines in
Rock'n'Roll tradition...and please note, the lack of
irony or self-conscious construct as with later champions of Englishness
like Blur.
A further reason
to celebrate Bragg's career so far too is the question of whether the AnR
of today would have the balls to sign our Billy. There's precious few like
Mr Bragg and while I wouldn't lay claim to be a huge fan or anything,
respect where respect is due and a call to catch up and check out the man
before another acquired taste is left to rot and waste.
________________________________________________________
|