Billy Bragg Quotes

• All the great political music was made at the height of political confrontations.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music

• 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.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in ideal, Musicians

• An isolationist America is no bloody use to anyone.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in America

• 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.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Time, Punk

• I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it’s me who has to come up with all the ideas.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Enjoyed

• I try and write honestly about what I see around me now.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Honestly

• 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.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Song

• I came into this whole business by going to see Rock Against Racism gigs with the Clash

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Business

• Being spokesman for a generation is the worst job I ever had.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Job

  Tags in Generation

• Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Politics

• I’m trying to make a case for those people who don’t have a sense of belonging that they should have, that there is something really worthwhile in having a sense of belonging, and recasting and looking at our modern history.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Case

• It’s not a very popular subject amongst my audience, who are by nature more internationalist, but I don’t choose what to write about, I don’t choose my subjects, they kind of choose me.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Popular, Subject

• I was in a little punk band and we put out a few punk records that weren’t very political, at all.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Punk, Little

• In that sense, I became politicized because the people in the coal mining villages who were involved in the struggle knew why they were there. But they couldn’t understand why some pop star from London would want to be there.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Sense

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in War, Songs

• Most of the people that I went to school with – I went to secondary school – we were educated to go and work in the line at Ford’s, and if we were lucky, technical skilled labor. I sort of rejected that, and thought I wanted to do something else.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, School

• 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.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Politics

• That taught me one lesson which is that you’re naive to believe that bands can change the world. Bands are very naive to think that just if their audience thinks that they can change the world, that they can. That was quite a lesson for my career, really.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Lesson, Taught

• 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.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Few, Writing

• We read our own political content into The Clash, and they accepted it.

  Billy Bragg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Political, Clash

Billy Bragg (25)

Birth:	20th December, 1957
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Activist, Author, Singer, Songwriter

About

Billy Bragg was born in Barking, Essex,UK. He is an English singer-songwriter and left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, and his lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes. In 1977 Bragg formed the punk rock/pub rock band Riff Raff with Wiggy. In 1986 Bragg released Talking with the Taxman about Poetry, which became his first Top 10 album. Back to Basics is a 1987 collection of his first three releases: Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy, Brewing Up with Billy Bragg, and the Between The Wars EP. Bragg released his fourth album, Workers Playtime, in September 1988.

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