Tag: Billy Bragg
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Billy Bragg, Help Save The Youth of America (Live and Dubious), 1988 on Elektra
Billy Bragg live six song EP released to encourage US youth to vote in the 1988 presidential election. Includes “Chile, Your Waters Run Red Through Soweto” (written by Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock) and “There is Power In a Union.” Remember, when you elect a President, you are electing President for…
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Billy Bragg, The Million Things That Never Happened, 2021 on Cooking Vinyl
This is Bragg’s COVID album, the title referring to all the events that didn’t take place due to social distancing and stay-at-home protocols. It was produced by The Magic Numbers’ Romeo Stodart and ends with a track co-written with Bragg’s son, Jack Valero: “”Ten Mysterious Photos That Can’t Be Explained.” I particularly like “I’ll Be…
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Billy Bragg, Brewing Up With Billy Bragg, 1984 on CD Presents
Billy Bragg’s sophomore full length, subtitled “a puckish satire on contemporary mores.” This was released on Go! Discs in the UK but David Ferguson‘s CD Presents in the US. CD Presents started as a promotions company organizing West Coast shows for PiL. My copy, which I found at Academy Records in New York, includes a…
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Billy Bragg, Life’s a Riot with Spy vs Spy, 30th Anniversary Edition, 2022 on Cooking Vinyl
Record Store Day 2022 release on Cooking Vinyl, combining the original Spy Vs. Spy EP from 1983 with a live set at Union Chapel London June 5th 2013. One of those releases where I know every word in sequence – Man in the Iron Mask, A New England, Milkman of Human Kindness, The Busy Girl…
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Billy Bragg, Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, 1986 on Elektra.
Billy Bragg, Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, 1986 on Elektra. Title comes from a Mayakovsky poem printed on the inner liner – I appreciate much more now than I did at 16. Subtitled “The difficult third album” I think it may be his most successful and approachable
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Phil Ochs, I Ain’t Marching Anymore, 1965 on Elektra
Phil Ochs, I Ain’t Marching Anymore, 1965 on Elektra I first got familiar with Phil Ochs via Billy Bragg back in the early 80s. Great classic lefty (progressive) folk. My copy is pretty messy on the back jacket – bloodied from fighting cops at a protest?
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Billy Bragg, Best of Billy Bragg at the BBC, 2019 on Cooking Vinyl
So many great tunes and lyrics here “In the end it took me a dictionary / to find out the meaning of unrequited” “I saw two shooting stars last night / I wished on them but they were only satellites / it’s wrong to wish on space hardware / I wish, I wish, I wish…