I was in a little punk band and we put out a few punk records that weren’t very political, at all.
BILLY BRAGGPart of the problem with some elements of the European debate is that they hanker for the days when we were a great power. Those days are gone, and they went a long time ago.
More Billy Bragg Quotes
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Baptists burn more slowly.
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I’m still batting away on my politics for the Labour Party. I’m much further to the left of them than I used to be, but that’s because they’ve moved, not me.
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Being spokesman for a generation is the worst job I ever had.
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It’s like being stung by a bee and going out and smashing up a beehive, and thinking you’ve solved the problem. There are more beehives out there; more bees will come. But they’re bees. They’re not grizzly bears.
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It would shine a torch into the dirty little corner where the BNP defecate on our democracy, and that would be much more powerful than duffing them up in the street – which Im also in favour of.
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A patriot is someone who cares what happens in their country.
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All the things about ‘the ugly American’ that we worry about and which the Americans see in themselves, it’s all of that. This is a politics of egotistical display.
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I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it’s me who has to come up with all the ideas.
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I think if you’re going to make political art, you have to engage at some level. You can’t just write about politics, you have to try and be politics as well.
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Part of the problem with some elements of the European debate is that they hanker for the days when we were a great power. Those days are gone, and they went a long time ago.
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So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.
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Certainly, the international image of the United States today is a lot less positive than 10 years ago. And that really shouldn’t be, because you have been the victims of this awful terrorist attack, and I think America deserves the sympathy of the world.
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I’ve had songs written during the Falklands war, and during the first Gulf war I got letters from soldiers saying they were listening to these songs, like Island of no return.
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All the great political music was made at the height of political confrontations.
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If you thought the army was here protecting people like yourself, I’ve some news for you, we’re here to defend wealth.
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