Still suitable for miners
Billy Bragg
Andrew Collins
Ebury publishing
He may not have wanted to change the world but he certainly changed many peoples view of it. Billy Bragg has been searching for a New England since picking up a guitar 40 years ago. His lyrics are poetic at times and Collins dissects some of them here.
I have been singing along to billy Bragg since he played Dublin’s tv club in the early 80s but have never really thought about the actual words. They were my kind of sentiment for sure. Poetic but the heart of his guitar has always been on his sleeve.
Collins has a great way of telling the story even if our Canadian friends would be legitimate in their horror as being described as American “the American leg started in Halifax, Nova Scotia and ended up in Montreal”. Of course Billy Bragg is not just a musician and a family man. He has been campaigning for a fairer world since even before championing the rights of the miners in their strike against pit closures, or the Sandinistas in their battle against state sponsored domestic ruination of many people in Nicaragua, or for the freedom of Nelson Mandela, or the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the unraveling of the old Soviet Union. There has been huge change throughout his lifetime and whilst his ideals have mellowed a bit they are “fundamental humanitarian ideals. Based on compassion”
The perfect starting point for any human.
niallhope
