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I've had songs written during the Falklands war, and during the first Gulf war I got letters from soldiers saying they were listening to these songs, like Island of no return.

Billy Bragg

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Billy Bragg
Age: 66
Born: 1957
Born: December 20
Guitarist
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Songwriter
Writer
Stephen William Bragg
Bard of Barking
Conrad
William Bragg
Song
Soldier
Firsts
Letters
First
Songs
Like
Listening
Return
Gulf
Saying
Island
Written
Soldiers
War
Islands

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The evil lot who did that thing on September 11 did it because they wanted to create a war between America and Islam. And by invading Iraq, we gave them what they hoped for.
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I was in a little punk band and we put out a few punk records that weren't very political, at all.
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By the time I was 19, punk had occurred. It had a completely different cultural dynamic to it which rejected everything and started again from the year zero.
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If we accuse Trump of being a liar, he won't just say 'I never said that' or just ignore it and go on to the next thing.
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The idea that musicians should be talking about politics is, in some ways, quite a sixties' idea. Music no longer has a vanguard role in youth culture.
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If you thought the army was here protecting people like yourself, I've some news for you, we're here to defend wealth.
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I never met a politician who didn't want to be a guitar player in a rock band. I've got the opportunity to say what I believe in.
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We've heard so much about the American dream: well, Trump is the American nightmare made flesh. All the things about 'the ugly American' that we worry about and which the Americans see in themselves, it's all of that. This is a politics of egotistical display.
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Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.
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An isolationist America is no bloody use to anyone.
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I'm still batting away on my politics for the Labour Party. I'm much further to the left of them than I used to be, but that's because they've moved, not me.
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War what is it good for? It's good for business.
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But, in the end, even a song that's as politically bland as Blowin in the Wind, you probably wouldn't get up and sing that now, whereas some of Bob Dylan's love songs that were contemporary with that, like say Girl from the North Country, you can still get up an play now.
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So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.
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Money maketh man a tory, don't fire that assumption at me, I like toast as much as anyone but not for breakfast, dinner and tea
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Start your own revolution, cut out the middleman In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune But this is reality so give me some room So join the struggle while you may The Revolution is just a t-shirt away
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You can experience a download, but you can't download an experience.
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Don't saddle me with your ideals, and spare me all your guilt. For a poet with all the answers, has never yet been built.
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I'd like to think that in a generation or two we'll have politicians whose life experience reflects that of the people who are voting for them.
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Being spokesman for a generation is the worst job I ever had.
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