Billy Bragg....not done yet

I posted last week about a Billy Bragg song from a long time ago, here's my review of his new album (which also touches on "Ideology". What can I say, I only have one or two ideas at a time if that).


Billy Bragg
Tooth and Nail
Cookin' Vinyl

A year or so ago, during one of our many manufactured government “crises” – I think it was the first debt ceiling fight – I stumbled onto Billy Bragg’s “Ideology” and found in it an almost perfect encapsulation of everything that’s gone wrong with Western democracy. “When one voice rules the nation, just because they’re top of the pile,” Bragg sang, a good three decades before Occupy took over Zuccotti Park. “Our politicians all become careerists. / They must declare their interests / but not their company cars. / Is there more to a seat in parliament / than sitting on your arse?” he continued, a full generation ahead of Tea Party gridlock. “Ideology” comes from what is maybe Billy Bragg’s best album, Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, and if you are looking for a model on how to slide acerbic political commentary into proletariat love songs, it is not a bad place to start.

Of course, a lot of water has gone over the dam since then, and while still politically active, Billy Bragg is no longer manning the barricades. (He has been pretty vocal, in interviews, about the need for a younger generation of artists and musicians to engage with politics and social justice.) Tooth and Nail is Bragg’s first album in five years, and like Love & Justice, which preceded it, this grapples more with personal, emotional scenarios than world politics. The CD, recorded with Joe Henry in a sepia-toned palette of Americana tones, is more country and confessional than Bragg’s best rabble-rousers. It errs occasionally on the side of tastefulness and maturity – you can easily imagine it playing at Starbucks – but still contains a good bit of Bragg’s spunky, rebellious intelligence.

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Is "Ideology" the perfect song right now, or what?

So I'm reviewing the new BIlly Bragg album, Tooth and Nail, for Dusted, and as usual when I'm listening to his latter-day material, kind of wishing it was still 1987 and he was still brash and sardonic, and I still weighed 110 pounds and had perfect skin...but whatever. THe new record is actually not bad at all (this from a person who vehemently hated Love & Justice, the last Billy Bragg), though a bit too tasteful and mature to really matter. It's got a few good songs, one a Guthrie cover, one a Bragg protest song and one a lyrically clever, slightly twisted love song in the vein of (though not as good as) "Greetings to the New Brunette."

But what it all made me think of was how great Talking to the Taxman About Poetry and, in particular, how well "Ideology" captured our current fallen era, oh, pretty close to 30 years ago.

Check out the lyrics and see if you don't think Boehner, O'Connell, Ryan, McCain etc.

When one voice rules the nation
Just because they're top of the pile
Doesn't mean their vision is the clearest
The voices of the people
Are falling on deaf ears
Our politicians all become careerists

They must declare their interests
But not their company cars
Is there more to a seat in parliament
Than sitting on your arse
And the best of all this bad bunch
Is shouting to be heard
Above the sound of ideologies clashing

Outside the patient millions
Who put them into power
Expect a little more back for their taxes
Like school books, beds in hospitals
And peace in our bloody time
All they get is old men grinding axes

Who've built their private fortunes
On the things they can rely
The courts, the secret handshake
The Stock Exchange and the old school tie
For God and Queen and Country
All things they justify
Above the sound of ideologies clashing

God bless the civil service
The nations saving grace
While we expect democracy
They're laughing in our face
And although our cries get louder
The laughter gets louder still
Above the sound of ideologies clashing

Above the sound of ideologies,
Above the sound of ideologies,
Above the sound of ideologies clashing

Remember when Billy Bragg did Letterman and just tore the roof off the sucker?


The revolution is just a tee-shirt away!