PopLand Music Series — Volume 1 — Billy Bragg

PopLand Security’s Music Series — Five Songs From An Artist With Something To Say About Homeland Security

Published in

Homeland Security

6 min readMay 15, 2016

PopLand Security is starting a music series. Each installment will highlight 5 songs from an artist with something to say about homeland security. We begin with the modern heir to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. (No … not Bob Dylan.)

We begin with Billy Bragg.

Billy Bragg, born in Essex, England in 1957, has been preaching the politics of balance, moderation, and peace for more than two decades, often with little more than a guitar, a folk/punk musical sensibility, and an unquenchable desire for social change. He is the UK’s unofficial Minister of Social Justice. His voice is not the smooth musical instrument of a pop star. His songs are at times harsh, with a bare electric guitar and an unapologetically lefty message. Since his first solo release in 1983, when the Soviet Union and global nuclear war were the looming threats of the day, Billy Bragg has sung, and written, and spoken his truth to power. His truth may not be your truth, but the continuing relevance of the themes in his music justify his place in the inaugural installment of PopLand’s homeland security music series.

#1. It Says Here

From 1984’s Brewing Up With Billy Bragg

Even back in 1984, the problem of politically skewed news was a concern. Before the 24 hour news cycle…before the Foxification of “on message” news reporting and content…Billy Bragg sang about the connection between the message and the messenger.

It says here that we can only stop the rot, with a large dose of law and order, and a touch of the short sharp shock.
If this does not reflect your views you should understand, that those who own the papers also own this land

What or who are the homeland security problems we face today? It depends who you ask, and from where you get your information. Billy Bragg sang this truth back when Ronald Reagan was working to win his second term as president.

#2. Ideology

From 1986’s Talking with the Taxman About Poetry

Career politicians choosing their own interests over taking a stand on the difficult political issues of the day? This problem has afflicted politics for decades. It helps to explain the rise of the tea party, and even the current enthusiasm for Donald Trump. It helps explain why important homeland security issues like immigration reform are impossible to tackle in our current political climate.

When one voice rules the nation, just because they’re top of the pile, doesn’t mean their vision is the clearest. The voices of the people, are falling on deaf ears. Our politicians all become careerists.
Outside the patient millions who put them into power, expect a little more back for their taxes. Like school books, beds in hospitals, and peace in our bloody time. All they get is old men grinding axes.

Even the title “Ideology” is ironic. Are you motivated by any ideology when your real goal is simply to obtain and then maintain political power? If that’s your goal, why should we believe that you are concerned about homeland security?

#3. Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

from 1988’s Workers Playtime

Here comes the future and you can’t run from it. If you got a black list I want to be on it. …Join the struggle while you may, the revolution is just a t-shirt away…

This song was many Americans’ first introduction to Billy Bragg. In 1988, when he performed on U.S. network television for the first time, he sang this song.

As he often does in his politically charged songs, Billy Bragg changed the verses a bit for that performance. One change he made was this line:

As Rushdie proves you have to be very careful, those who burn books will later burn people.

This reference is to the public reaction to the 1988 publication of Salman Rushdie’s book, “The Satanic Verses.” That reaction included a book burning in the UK in late 1988. In 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa…an islamic legal pronouncement…that Rushdie be killed over this work of fiction. Wrapped up in that conflict was Rushdie’s own Indian/Kashmiri Muslim heritage, and growing tensions between the Islamic and non-Islamic communities in Europe and the west. The fatwa is still in place today, complicating our understanding of Islam, and continuing to inform perceived and actual conflict between the Muslim world and the rest of the world. Fatwa is not the “Muslim” word for an assassination order. And they aren’t burning people in the UK. But Daesh is certainly burning people by the score. And Billy Bragg continues to sing this song.

#4. Everywhere

From 1991’s Don’t Try This At Home

When Tommy was fighting Jerry along the River Seine, me and Lee wanted to do the same. Then they bombed Pearl Harbour at the break of day. I was headed for these islands while Lee was hauled away.

This sad song of conflict at home and abroad reminds us of many themes in our homeland security world today. It reminds us that young men are too easily drawn by the romance of violence and adventure that is war. It also reminds us that in times of conflict and fear, it is easy for deep seated prejudices to resurface and cause us to view our neighbors as our enemies. This song is a story of World War II, Japanese internment, and the war in the pacific, but it could just as easily be a story of America’s struggle to understand Islam at home while, we are engaged at home and abroad in a struggle with violent extremism clothed in the garments of Islam.

#5. Days Like These

Single 1985

Billy Bragg has been singing, and revising, and singing this song again and again for decades. It is the political mad libs song that he works and reworks to comment on the problems of the day. Some versions work well…others can seem forced. But the original lyrics continue to have relevance. They reflect problems that existed then, and still exist now.

Those whose lives are ruled by dogma, are waiting for a sign. The Better Dead Than Red Brigade are listening on the line. And the liberal with a small L cries in front of the TV, and another demonstration passes on to history.

Fear of government surveillance. Divisive politics and the despair of the voter…left or right…are in the forefront of our minds in this election season.

Billy Bragg has a clear political position about which he is not at all shy. Those on the left may cheer…and those on the right may roll their eyes. But behind his personal rhetoric, he has succeeded for decades in raising and discussing homeland security issues in his music.

If politics and homeland security are giving you an ice cream headache, consider taking a break and giving Billy Bragg’s other songs a try. They are about relationships and love, and they are outstanding: Greetings to the New Brunette (yes that’s Johnny Marr helping out with guitar); Sexuality (more with Johnny Marr); You Woke Up My Neighborhood (with REM’s Peter Buck); his work with Wilco on Mermaid Avenue interpreting the unpublished lyrics of Woody Guthrie; and January Song from his 2013 album Tooth and Nail.