Spy (30th Anniversary Edition) by Billy Bragg Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs. Punk taught Bragg to play folk songs differently, too. His debut mini-album, Life’s a Riot with Spy Vs Spy (1983), was a revelation on release, its seven songs in 16-minutes establishing the singer-songwriter as a new type of folkie and a new type of punk. Even Patrik Fitzgerald self-identified as a folk singer by playing an acoustic guitar, but Bragg strapped on an electric axe, turned up the overdrive, and played as though The Clash were playing with him.Ī song like “A New England” (1983), with its down-strum style and Essex vocal intonations, could sonically be just about any punk song from 1977-just without any band. You will not find much folk finger-picking in his early releases, either, only the “chop and clang” of his distinct rhythmic style. If folk informed Bragg’s lyrical themes of justice, rights, and compassion, punk provided the anger and energy in their expression. Punk also taught him that one need not look back, revive, or relive traditions as folkies are prone to do. Their timeless concerns can be addressed in the language of the now, in a punk language of youth dissent. On his song “Upfield” (1996), for example, the singer brags that he has “a socialism of the heart”. Indeed, even when he has ventured into more intimate and personal territory, he has done so with a humanitarian impulse that characterizes the folk music tradition.
That side of punk, where resistance and identity politics intersect, is where Billy Bragg has resided throughout his 40-year career.