Man On A Mission

BILLY Bragg is on a mission. Again.Britain’s pre-eminent political songwriter is annoyed that more people are not making music about the things that count.

And he is setting out to remedy that by providing a showcase for new artists with something to say.

“It would be great to see more bands who are really angry and not afraid to touch a nerve,” he says.

“I don’t mean just singing ‘We are the Champions’, but actually talking about a situation. It’s empowering.

“Political music doesn’t have to be about David Cameron, either. It could be about people’s teachers, parents, bullies, bosses, or about going through a hard time.”

The Left Field in Motion Tour sees him playing alongside ska-punk radicals The King Blues, and hip-hop poets Sound of Rum.

The tour is an extension of Billy’s work at Glastonbury Festival, where he runs the Left Field tent, featuring artists with a conscience.

“The shows are all in student towns and have a lower ticket price,” he says. “They are saying ‘here’s some political music; here’s a really valid method of expressing yourself’. It’s much more powerful than Tweeting, blogging or Facebooking.”

Though he accepts things are harder than when he started, when he famously smuggled a tape of his first album Life’s a Riot with Spy Vs Spy into the record company office while posing as a TV repair man.

“The end of the Cold War marked the end of ideology in politics,” he says. “Now the country is run by political geeks who have never had a proper job. It’s not like in the 80s when you had ex-miners in Parliament. The scene is not as focussed now. It’s a lot easier to rest on your laurels and not write stuff that upsets people. During the miners’ strike we only had to put up with sarcasm from the NME; now there’s a lot of nastiness on the Internet.

“No one wants to say boo to a goose. Artists say they don’t want to be divisive, but it’s our job to cause a bit of friction. We need to make music with ‘edge’.”

But recent events – which have seen student demonstrations, the anti-capitalist occupation at St Paul’s, and the summer riots – have signified a turning point.

“It took the cataclysm of the miners’ strike for me to write songs like Between the Wars and There is Power in a Union,” he goes on.

“The recent disturbances stirred up a storm of opinion, much of it from people who have no real experience of the pressures faced by this generation, the first in a century that are likely to grow up worse off than their parents.

“Though this situation has been building for some years, the disturbances have created an opportunity for young people to provide an alternative commentary.”

But he is careful not to defend the indefensible. “You can’t change the world by smashing shop windows or trashing McDonalds. You have to do it by organising.”

It is more than 28 years since Billy emerged - his flat tones and sparsely strummed electric guitar standing in sharp contrast to the overblown frippery of the 80s pop scene, and all its hair sprayed and shoulder-padded excess. Now, after years of clashing with fascists and chipping away at his twin hates of racism and sexism, the Bard of Barking is living in some comfort by the sea in Dorset. So has he mellowed?

“No! I am still writing hard political songs,” he says.

“And when the BNP were trying to organise down here, I was there to stop them. I have always done what I love, but have hung on to my principles – although they may be frayed around the edges.

“I am just lucky I have been able to make a living out of it all. From singing about the redistribution of power, I am now fighting cynicism. I am still fighting the fight. I am the epitome of a middle-aged punk.

“I am not like Alex James out of Blur, who is now organising cheese festivals, and getting photographed with David Cameron and Jeremy Clarkson. His credibility has been reset to zero, and must be wondering where he has gone wrong.

“I’d run a mile if I saw those two coming towards me. Having said that, I know of people who have done far worse things than him – and have put more money up their nose than Alex has spent on his farmhouse.”

Despite his reputation as a firebrand, the vast majority of Billy’s songs are not political at all, and he spends more time singing about relationships and emotions than the class struggle. So does it annoy him to be labelled a political-songwriter?

“The thing that bugs me is not being labelled a political songwriter, after all, I write about things that annoy me. It’s when people dismiss me as a political songwriter.

“I just want to encourage people to have the courage of their ideas. Someone needs to say to kids ‘do it yourself; don’t wait for Simon Cowell or the NME’. I am just saying ‘there’s a guitar, there’s three chords... now do it yourself.”

* Billy Bragg’s Left Field in Motion Tour reaches the Oxford O2 Academy on Monday.

Tickets are £13 in advance from wegottickets.com