Billy Bragg
Don't Try This At Home
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Although Billy Bragg is often a great songwriter, it's no surprise that his socialist-propaganda ditties haven't converted young Americans to the teachings of Marx and Lenin – it's often impossible for us to tell what the hell he's going on about. His songs are so full of Britannia – Anna Ford, The Sun, Wormwood Scrubs – that his albums should come with footnotes. In a country where Richard Nixon is a more potent political force than socialism, Bragg's lyrics can often make little sense. On his early albums, Bragg combined the folkie tradition with punk rock, recreating the power of the Clash with just his electric guitar. Since his best album, Talking With the
Read More Taxman About Poetry, from 1986, he's integrated other instrumentalists, and Don't Try This at Home, a morose, sometimes listless album, is full of surprises – the indignant blare of Bragg's guitar is mostly supplanted by clarinet, cello, fluegelhorn and the mandolin of R.E.M.'s Peter Buck. No one would deny Bragg's skill as a lyricist. "You're a dedicated swallower of fascism," he sneers in the clattering "Accident Waiting to Happen," punning on the Kinks' "Dedicated Follower of Fashion." The tender "Moving the Goalposts" features the same lovely detail seen in earlier gems like "Levi Stubbs' Tears" and "Greetings to the New Brunette." And how many other men could write a fine ballad in the voice of a fearful pregnant woman? With his consistently fresh rhymes and winning sense of self-parody, Bragg sings about racism, jingoism and other liberal themes without succumbing to a stiff political correctness. But too many dirges separate fast numbers like "North Sea Bubble," a fun poke at capitalism ("But as long as you're comfortable it feels like freedom") co-produced by Johnny Marr of Electronic, and "Sexuality," wherein Bragg mocks the clichés of rock-star rutting ("I've had relations with girls from many nations/I've made passes at women of all classes/And just because you're gay I won't turn you away/If you stick around I'm sure that we can find some common ground"), with harmony support from the divine Kirsty MacColl. The first challenge of a propagandist, after all, is to keep the audience awake. (RS 616) ROB TANNENBAUM |
