Billy Bragg
Dear Editors,
I greatly enjoyed the article on Billy Bragg in the September Socialist Standard. By anyone’s standards, Billy is a great songwriter (if not a great singer!), but it is true to say that he has always been much clearer about what he is “against” than what he is “for.”
Being of a certain age, I was greatly enamoured of much of the post-punk scene of the early ’80s, of which the Gang of Four (also mentioned in the article) were a part. I’m not sure if they quite merit the label “Marxist”, though, at least not as we would understand it. Also, although they certainly had their moments, their po-faced brand of “feminism” could be a little tiresome, if not patronising – when the previously all-male band appointed a female bass-player they then announced to the world that they were now “one woman and three token men!”
Post-punk had pretty much run its course by the time of the miners’ strike, but the article did recall to mind a time when the Radio 1 playlist was occasionally troubled by SWP agit-poppers the Redskins (yes, really!), and also possibly one of the most subversive hit singles ever, the Style Council’s “Walls Come Tumbling Down.” From its initial scream of “You don’t have to take this crap” to it’s breathy female chorus of “Governments crack and systems fall/ ‘Cos unity is powerful”, Bragg’s fellow Red Wedgers brought something close to a genuine socialist message into the Top 10.
Those were the days!
Shane Roberts,
Bristol.
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