"Mixing pop and politics - they ask me what the use is
I offer them embarrassment and my usual excuses..."
Part history of England, part history of popular music and - oh yes, part history of Billy Bragg and the Bragg family... I've never read another rock star autobiography like The Progressive Patriot.
Of course, to refer to this book as an autobiography is as erroneous and misleading as calling Billy Bragg a rock star. Neither is a perfect fit for the title in question, and both are so much more besides.
Anyone who's ever seen Billy Bragg live will be familiar with the story of how as a young man he became politicized on seeing The Clash perform at the Rock Against Racism Carnival Against The Nazis in Victoria Park, Hackney, in April 1978.
"The Clash taught me a valuable lesson that day, which I have in the back of my mind every time I write a song or step out on to a stage: although you can't change the world by singing songs and doing gigs, the things you say and the actions you take can change the perspective of members of the audience..."
"And although the world was just the same as it had always been as I travelled home on the Tube that evening, my view of it had been changed forever."
Another thing you'll know if you've seen the Bard of Barking live any time in the last five years is the anger and revulsion he felt when the far-right British National Party won a dozen seats on his home town council. Much of his work in recent years has been dedicated to defeating the rise of racism across the country, and The Progressive Patriot is a natural extension of that mission. It begins by tracing the multicultural past of Barking itself where Julius Caesar marched his legions in 54 BC, long before the neighbouring town of Londinium was any more than a few shacks. From here, Billy recounts the origins of the Anglo-Saxon people themselves, forging his way through myth and mystery to uncover the truth that history is always written by the victors... and sometimes by the politicians who wish to stay victorious. The idea that there's no such thing as a native Englishman is not an original one, but I've never seen it expressed so clearly or emphatically, though I'm sure there are those who would dispute Billy's version of the tale... just as current BNP leader Nick Griffin once disputed the Holocaust.
One final thing you'll know if you've ever attended a Billy Bragg gig is that he's the first to admit that his fanbase can be divided into two distinct camps. There are those who follow him with fists held high for his strong political stance... and those who merely nod their heads while he's singing There Is Power In A Union and wait patiently for him to get back to the wonderful observational / relationship lyrics of Levi Stubbs' Tears and The Saturday Boy. Though I find myself agreeing with the majority of Billy's politics, I'll always be more comfortable in the latter camp, so I suppose it's natural that the chapters I enjoyed most in The Progressive Patriot were those dealing with music rather than multiculturalism... though the latter seeps naturally into the former throughout. Still, if The Clash politicized young William Bragg, it was Paul Simon who taught him honesty in songwriting...
"I am sitting in the back row of the coach (on a school trip to Belgium) with several boys of my own age. We are out of earshot of teachers and parents. Bored by the flat landscape, we have spent much of the morning kneeling on our seats looking out the back window, waving at passing motorists. We drive onto the car deck of the ferry and park. Another coach pulls up alongside us. It is full of girls who are about our age.""The girls wave to us. We wave to them. They smile at us. We smile at them. They flirt with us. We act the goat, attempting to conceal our excitement...""But suddenly we are across the river. The ferry unloads and the girls are gone. Our sense of enchantment is shattered and we struggle to contain the feelings that our brief encounter has unleashed...""I was deeply upset, yet I didn't feel that I could express how I felt - to do so would be to admit that... I liked girls. Turning my face to the window, I realised that I was alone. I couldn't talk to my mates; I couldn't run to my teacher; my parents wouldn't understand. Where could I turn to for comfort?""And then this happens: from above my head, a descending guitar line comes tumbling out from a tiny speaker...""I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told..."
Despite all the passion of Billy's politics, it's this story - and the revelation that New Yorker Paul Simon wrote Homeward Bound late one night "while waiting for the milk train after a gig in Lancashire" - that had the deepest effect on this particular reader. I'm not sure if that makes me shallow... or soppy. Maybe, in the words of Upfield, I've just got a socialism of the heart.
