“I think the real distinction is between repeating a commonly held view of something, or adding to it,” he clarifies. “That’s the dividing line between a generic political song and a really good one. The ones that don’t seem truly felt are just generalizing or recycling the observed truths of a group or cause. That’s why you push on people’s perceptions. When I wrote about English nationalism, some people didn’t like it; it pushed their comfort zone. But I knew that we have to address the issue of racism, what it means to belong. And you can only do that by writing about what it means to be English.”
On Mr. Love And Justice — which, like England, Half English, takes its title from a book by British writer Colin MacInnes — Bragg turns from national identity to personal identity, making an end run (mostly) around topical politics. The album was recorded with Grant Showbiz in Lincolnshire, England, at the Chapel studio, where the Arctic Monkeys and the Kaiser Chiefs also have recorded recently. The sessions began in late 2006 and were finished through 2007, in about four weeks total time. The result is a cohesive, country-soul-influenced collection, rocking without stomping, swinging in response to the singer and the songs, with the feel of music made by a British version of The Band or an American version of the Faces.
“The last album, I was still trying to work out songs that the band could play,” Bragg says. “I was trying to get them to react, give them a ball right down the middle that they can hit over the stands. I sussed them out more this time. And I thought about my singing more, and thought more about the arrangements. The first week of recording, I said only acoustic instruments. I think that makes the album have more in common with Mermaid Avenue.”
When asked about the personal tone of the album, Bragg suggests that the tension between the personal and political has in some ways dissolved. He has a teenage son, after all, and has been in a relationship for sixteen years. “Just being in a family, other challenges emerge,” he says. “On ‘M For Me’ and ‘You Make Me Brave’, I try to deal with how to make a commitment, how to deal with long-term relationships and keep that commitment.”
On “You Make Me Brave”, the album’s most lovely ballad, Bragg sings, “I fear for the future and what it may hold.” It’s a striking, naked line, in part because it sounds like an entirely different Billy Bragg: a man who can’t bear the thought of what’s to come, a man who doesn’t believe he can shape the future after all.
“That’s the one line on the album, I wonder if I should have sung differently,” he admits. “I wonder if I should have sung, ‘Should I fear for the future and what it might hold?’ The song wasn’t finished, and everyone loved it, and I thought I should just let it be. But I do hear that line and it just slightly grates on me. Or maybe that’s not really me speaking, that I was too much in character. But to go back and fuck with the take, I wouldn’t get the same feel, the same ache in the voice.”
If much of Mr. Love And Justice looks inward, Bragg shows no signs of narrowing his progressive vision or activism. He delivers regular lectures, writes columns for national and international publications, has taken on MySpace over copyright issues (and won), works on reforming the House of Lords and writing a British Bill of Rights, and oversees the Jail Guitar Doors program, which collects instruments and gear for prisoners. All of those commitments, new and old, continue to inspire his songs.
“If you’re trying to write a political song that gives an insight,” he says, “you’re dealing with age-old conundrums, but putting a contemporary light on them, trying to give a perspective on injustice. It might be racism, the war, the capitalist system. Those songs retain their power, unfortunately, even though times change. I have songs about the Falklands War, but I know that there are British soldiers in Iraq, who weren’t even born then, but who listen to them, and relate to them. Topical songs have a terrible habit of becoming topical again, because the issues haven’t been resolved.
“And if I ask my audience to engage in the process and make a difference, and if I’m not going to be open to accusations of being a hypocrite, I have to do that to engage with them. That’s what I’m trying to engender on ‘I Keep Faith’. Not the faith of religion, but the faith in humanity that manifests itself in solidarity. Actual change in the world can’t be done by the artist. There’s too few of us. It has to be done by the audience.”
ND contributing editor Roy Kasten doesn’t regret his opposition to the first Gulf War, but he wishes like hell he’d caught the Uncle Tupelo set.
