Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence - ROBERT FRIPP.
Information is not knowledge;
knowledge is not wisdom;
wisdom is not truth;
truth is not beauty;
beauty is not love;
love is not music;
MUSIC IS THE BEST - FRANK ZAPPA.
I think we're a little happier when we have a little music in our lives - STEVE JOBS.
Music in the soul can be heard by the universe - LAO TZU.
Rock and Roll is fire, man. FIRE. - DAVID BRIGGS.
Music grips you, gets into your soul -
GEORGE MARTIN
Active compensatory factors: The difficult third album, Taxman, and Workers Playtime (no apostrophe) are his best two albums for me; the first couple were rougher with DIY solo Billy and a strident guitar - these have more arranged songs and it helps a lot.
Although Billy correctly labels Taxman that difficult third album for a reason as he transitions from the early solo guitar songs (The Passion) to the more embellished songs (Greetings To The New Brunette).
Fourth album, Workers Playtime, is where he gets the mixture finally right and so, for me, it's his masterpiece.
Side note: both albums mix up the personal, character based, relationship songs which I prefer, with the political ones (which is fine but not being British working class I don't truly get them). Workers Playtime only has two of the latter and they are the less successful tracks.
Where do they all belong? 2013's Tooth and Nail on CD is to come. I flirted with the idea of including it here but given the quarter century gap, it deserves its own entry.
Billy Bragg Greetings To The New Brunette; Deportees/ The Tatler; Jeane; There Is Power In A Union (instrumental)(Chrysalis 12", X14319, 1986) Billy Bragg Levi Stubbs' Tears; Between The Wars/ Think Again; Walk Away Renee (version)(Chrysalis 12", X14299, 1986) I know, I know. We're back to the Bs. What gives? I realised when I was doing the George Harrison lot that I'd forgotten to include the 12 inch singles up to H so here we go - a bit of a backtrack. That's the good thing with writing a blog - you can make up your own rules. So here we go - back to the Bs with Billy Bragg. Steve Hillage will have to wait a while. I've mentioned Mr Bragg from Barking in the blog a few times and even written about Levi Stubbs' Tears before ( http://googoogarjoob.blogspot.co.nz/2009/07/i-dont-want-to-change-world-im-not.html ) so I'll concentrate on Greetings for this post. It's a double A side with two terrific songs. Greetings has some fantastic poetry (how can you lie there and think of England when you don't even know who's in the team) and Deportees is Billy's version of the Woody Guthrie tale. I've seldom heard it done better (outside of Bob Dylan).
Hidden gems: Definitely value for money on the 12" format generally. Walk Away Renee on the Tears 12" is amazing - a really simple tale about taking the crunchy with the smooth with the old Four Tops hit being played on acoustic in the background.
The snap in the tale is 'she cut her hair and I stopped loving her' (as the Tui beer ads in NZ say - Yeah right!)
Saint Valentine's Day and that means a particular type of song doing the rounds, doesn't it?
I'm not a song writer but I imagine it must be blimmin hard to write a great song on a Valentine's day theme. Too sentimental? Not heart felt enough? Too smaltzy? Rock guitars!! Are you insane? Well clearly Marilyn Manson and Linkin Park are!!
Macca has just had a crack with a song on his latest album (Kisses on the Bottom) - mainly standards but it also contains a couple of new songs, including My Valentine. And if he can't do it - what hope is there?
To celebrate SVD here is the best love song I know. John Lennon's love song to Yoko - Don't Let Me Down.
Some of the best Valentine's songs are actually those that use aspects of the celebration to embellish a story of another hue altogether (definitely not pink fluffy hearts).
Here are two that go that root successfully.
Billy Bragg's bitchy, acerbic Valentine's Day Is Over contains his usual drop dead gorgeous wordplay (in this song drop dead gorgeous is an appropriate phrase): For the girl with the hour glass figure time runs out very fast.
Tom Waits is of a similar talent. As with Billy, I much prefer his early work (generally before Swordfishtrombones, although I do love Rain Dogs). Blue Valentines is a great song. It uses the idea of a Valentine from a stalker like ex lover to create a darker mood.
27 Billy Bragg, 'Levi Stubbs' Tears'; 28 The Four Tops, 'I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey bunch)'
Barking is an interesting place...I think. I passed through Barking a lot when I lived in Essex (I never lingered for too long). The train from Leigh-on-sea (where we lived) to Fenchurch St (when we went to London) had a stop at Barking and when I taught at Walthamstow Academy I had to change trains at Barking twice a day. So really, all I know is the station and its environs. It's not pretty - a lot of terraced housing, train tracks, litter. A kind of no-man's land, between the Essex countryside and the thrill of London proper, is my dominant impression.
I'm being unfair...probably. If you grew up and went to school in Barking, I'm thinking you probably needed to be pretty tough to survive. This is the area that fostered the emerging talent of one Billy Bragg, the so-called Bard of Barking (but not by me, I usually hate that kind of lazy shorthand tag, I make an exception for the fabs).
My first meeting with Billy was on a South Bank Show. Billy was shown cruising around record shops with a guitar and an amp on his back. He played 'A New England' and I loved the rawness of the sound but I was especially taken with his voice. There was no attempt to disguise the Thames estuary accent. I don't recall ever hearing an accent like it. That distinctive voice is a large part of his charm, as is the social realism (at times verging on soap opera) in his lyrics - 'all the girls at school are already pushing prams'. I loved the opening - 'I was 21 years when I wrote this song, I'm 22 now, but I won't be for long'. Genius!
I much prefer Billy's kitchen sink dramas and love songs to the political edgy stuff he does (or did). His early albums were typified by the split between angry-young-labour-man songs and young-poet-with-tender-sensibilities songs.
Levi Stubbs' Tears is definitely a song in the latter category. In this brilliant pop song, Billy takes on a third person narrative of a woman who has been abused and shot by her husband. You may like to read that last sentence again. Amazing, but true, and you can sing along with Billy!
The story in a nutshell - as a teenager, the woman has married a wrong un after running away from home. He leaves her (he’s that type), but later returns from sea and shoots her. No reason is given for this so the casual violence is even more of a shock. As she recovers from her 'accident' she tries to recover her life. Listening to the Four Tops helps her to recover. Oh baby, it sure does. Why tears though? I have no recollection of Levi crying in any song, or even a Four Tops’ song about crying. Maybe it’s Billy’s artistic licence at work in sympathy with the woman. Never mind – it makes for a great title.
Along the way Billy name checks the immortal songwriters for the Tops and others on the Tamla Motown roster - Norman Whitfield, Barratt Strong and Holland/Dozier/Holland. Wow. How can such a sad song be so joyous? Easy - you name check those guys and say that their feel good songs will make it all okay. And they do (and they will).
Take I Can’t Help Myself frinstance. Any song that is sub-titled Sugar Pie Honey Bunch has an awful lot going for it, has it not. Levi Stubbs' smile is all over this song – it’s a joyous explosion of a tune. Levi’s a fool in love (is there any other kind in the pop song?) and he can’t help himself. That’s it! Less is more. The magic happens with the infectious beat and the singing.
If the protagonist is at home listening to that song, she will be mumbling to herself – ‘it’s you and me against the world kid’.
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