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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.

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
Love
Songs
Reportage
Like
Novel
Shelf
Bits
Shelves
Ways
Novels
Song
Whereas
Political
Pick
Way
Picks
Time
Tend

More quotes by Billy Bragg

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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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What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands.
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You can experience a download, but you can't download an experience.
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Being spokesman for a generation is the worst job I ever had.
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I'm celebrating my love for you with a pint of beer and a new tattoo
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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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Mixing pop and politics he asks me what the use is / I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses.
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There are quite a few honest songwriters out there writing about relationships and their own personality traits. But for some reason, once they step out of the bedroom, their honesty doesn't seem to come with them.
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Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.
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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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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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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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All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.
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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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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
Billy Bragg
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Freedom is merely privilege extended, unless enjoyed by one and all.
Billy Bragg
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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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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.
Billy Bragg
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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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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.
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