Billy Bragg: Voices of Protest
Coming to Festival Of Voice with a night entitled Voices Of Protest, veteran activist and singer-songwriter Billy Bragg sat down with Carl Marsh to discuss the art of the protest song.
If anyone mentions the term protest song, more than likely people think of Billy Bragg. As part of Festival Of Voice, Billy is to play a night’s worth of protest songs with support from Nadine Shah, a songwriter with an equally outspoken worldview. What with Billy being a prominent anti-Conservative, and knowing that politics and current affairs have played a massive part of his life for decades, we ask if Brexit will be top of his agenda.
“I’ve got a song called Full English Brexit that I might perform in Cardiff which should get rousing applause; my only joy is that we are all in this together.” It will surprise people to know that Bragg actually gave up music after being a punk in his early days, eventually joining the British Army, albeit for only a few months – perhaps this was the catalyst for him being where he is today? “I wouldn’t say it was a catalyst, it was more like a sabbatical.”
Still, there must have been some major impetus behind doing something as drastic as joining the army. “My problem was that one of the reasons I joined was to get rid of this stupid idea that I could ever be a singer-songwriter – pushing the eject button on my previous existence was a big part of my decision to go and join. Yet when I got there, it just made me write more songs. I found the situation very inspirational, so I thought that this isn’t going to go away. I had to hatch a plan, and my plan was to get out of the army and just start to play solo and see what happened – to just give it one last go.”
With Bragg’s passion for music, especially the politically-motivated protest song, it’s worth asking if there is still real value in left-wing songwriters these days?
“I think there always is value in offering a different perspective to the world and music is a good way of doing that. You cannot imagine a song encapsulating a moment like Free Nelson Mandela did. Having said that, there is This Is America, released recently by Childish Gambino: it had over 10 million hits in the first 24 hours of it being released. [Gambino] has clearly found something that is resonating with people and offering a different perspective on the black experience in the USA. So yes, I still think there is room for music like that. It may not be white guys with a guitar making it anymore but it doesn’t mean that people aren’t out there using music to put across ideas.”
Hearing him say this, it seems like the protest song has now made its mainstream home in the realm of hip-hop. “Well, everything now is around a hip-hop beat. Even Ed Sheeran is doing what I do but in a strange way on a hip-hop beat.”
So is there a changing nature to protest in song? “You will find that black artists are making the most powerful music, whether that be Beyonce, or Stormzy calling out the Prime Minister over the Grenfell Tower fire [at the Brits]. That was incredibly powerful. Theresa May and Downing Street had to respond; not just to what Stormzy said but the audience’s response at the O2 – no one ever responded to me in the old days, no one gave a shit. Together, the artist and the audience can bring about some form of accountability.”
Considering his political proclivities, has Billy Bragg ever considered becoming a Member Of Parliament? He laughs. “Don’t you think we have enough middle-aged white men in Parliament? I don’t think we need any more of those!
“Our currency as musicians is empathy, whether we are writing a love song or political song or whatever, that’s the great currency that we have in our music that we can use.”
Voices Of Protest: Billy Bragg (with Nadine Shah), Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, Thurs 7 June. Tickets: £16-£26.50. Info: 029 2063 6464 / www.festivalofvoice.wales
photos Murdo McLeod