Billy of a Thousand Lives

British troubadour Billy Bragg is singing some rather discordant notes these days, and it has nothing to do with his ability to stay on key (the judgments of those who balk at Bragg's distinctive style notwithstanding). No, Billy is singing a tune out of harmony with the hallelujah chorus resounding from the halls of international capitalism in celebration over the apparent global demise of communism.

Not that he is troubled by the historic events that have transpired from Moscow to Prague" - good riddance to those career politicians of any stripe who use their power against the people." It is simply the case that the tumbling down of one "wall" has not blinded him to the others left standing, nor made his message promoting human dignity, social equality, and economic justice any less relevant.

Yet as his new release, Don't Try This at Home, so clearly demonstrates, Bragg is not interested in overworn political diatribes or ideologically laden debates. He intertwines themes of romantic love and social revolution, spiritual awareness and political analysis, human tragedy and comic relief, all the while encouraging his audience to dream that the world could quite possibly be otherwise.

The roots of this dynamic mix of social realism and contagious optimism can be traced to his own personal odyssey, which began in a poor, working-class area of East London. A neighbor by the name of Wiggy, who lived in the same drab row of tenement houses, would sit strumming the guitar atop a wall adjacent to the Bragg flat. The echoing notes called Billy to his passion; it was not long before he had convinced Wiggy to teach him how to play as well. The two then embarked on an ill-fated band experiment that journeyed from rock and roll to punk. Dead-end opportunities and unemployment caught up with them.

Billy joined the British army in 1981. "I was just trying to get away from the whole situation," he now reflects on that decision. "The army is always a great suck-up for unemployed working-class youth." He had entertained visions of driving tanks, but instead boredom and disillusionment--the claims total political apathy at this point in his life--drove him to leave camp after three months of basic training.

It took Margaret Thatcher to awaken him to a political consciousness. After her second election victory in 1983, Billy realized that she was attacking all of the things that he had taken for granted, such as free education and health care.

The next year brought the miners' strike, and Billy's ubiquitous presence at union rallies and benefit events for the families of miners became a crucible for his music. He produced songs uncovering the hypocrisy of "law and order" in a society controlled by wealthy interests ("It Says Here"), adapted the anthems of historic union struggles ("Which Side Are You On" and "There is Power in the Union"), and recalled the memory of misplaced trusts: "Theirs is a land of hope and glory/Mine is the green field and the factory floor/Theirs are the skies all dark with bombers/And mine is the peace we knew between the wars" ("Between the Wars").

BUT BILLY BRAGG IS an enigma for ideological purists. While happy to groove along to his overtly sociopolitical material, of which there is no lack, they are often nonplused by such songs as "A New England," a Bragg classic that he stills plays in nearly every concert performance: "I don't want to change the world/I'm not looking for a New England/I'm just looking for another girl." For those who suppose his mind must quite simply go mushy when he falls in love, he retorts that ideologues find it quite difficult to step back in order to see a larger picture. "The most pure expression of humanity," he reminds us, "is the love between two people."

It is that expression of love and the accompanying potential for human solidarity that forms the foundation for Bragg's socialist convictions. "Unless you have loved someone with your whole heart, you cannot be a socialist," he opines. And to those purveyors of ethics who presume (a la Niebuhr) that love is commendable for individuals but loses its dynamic force once it enters the world of social, economic, and national groups, Billy is adamant that "love has to transcend international borders, it has to transcend the color of skin, hair, eyes; we have to look and see the intrinsic value of the human spirit, the human being."

For that reason he moves beyond the Russian Revolution of 1917 to discover the genesis of his philosophy in such widely diverse sources as the spiritual visions of William Blake, the revolutionary lifestyle of Digger communities in 17th-century England, the sharing practices of the early Christian church, and the teachings of its founder, Jesus of Nazareth.

While many religious folks will be pleased to hear of his admiration for Jesus, they might be shocked to discover why: "He was such a great communicator of what later became socialist ideals." Pointing to his interactions with the poor of first-century Palestine and parables like that of the Good Samaritan, Billy admits, "I can often see what Jesus was getting at much easier than I can wrap my mind around Marx and Engels."

IN THE INTERVENING THREE years since his last major release, Worker's Playtime, the global order has undergone a significant transformation. And Bragg believes that those changes present a window of opportunity for the progressive community to bring across its ideas in a spirit worthy of consensus. Don't Try This at Home, therefore, offers reconciliation much more readily than confrontation. A radical political agenda is most challenging and at the same time authentic, he contends, once love and tenderness are made visible in the lives of ordinary people.

Ironically, the flip side of that picture is drawn in the opening track of the album, "Accident Waiting to Happen" (a tip of the hat to Elvis Costello). While his old pal Wiggy thrashes away in the background, we hear Billy tell of a "dedicated swallower of fascism" whose life is slowly deteriorating away because of his refusal to open his eyes to the world around him.

The image of the stereotyped redneck who spends his life drinking away at the bar unexpectedly fades to encompass a whole generation obsessed with monetary gain, even willing to sell their souls if necessary in order to get it. His tragic observation: "Your life has lost its dignity, its beauty, its passion."

But lest we think he is pressing a case for self-canonization, Bragg starts the song with an admission of the ghost rattling around in his own closet, this one of a particularly sexist variety--"you have to remember I come from a working-class, unreconstituted-lads background," he responds under questioning--and ends it with the confession, "my sins are so unoriginal."

No pretensions of political correctness here. If truth be known, he has an instinctive distrust of self-arrogance whether it comes from the Left or the Right, from the sociopolitical or religious realm: "I am more drawn to people who have doubt than those who have the absolute answer for everything."

Moving forward from "Accident," this packed collection of 16 songs touches on a wealth of themes, including: a sensitive and emotional treatment of child abuse from the victim's point-of-view in "Trust"; a "blue velvet" snapshot of self-obsession, U.S.-style, in "Cindy of a Thousand Lives"; an exploration of the spirituality and politics of sexuality in the alternative radio hit "Sexuality," a piece co-written by ex-Smiths prodigy Johnny Marr; the politically astute "North Sea Bubble," which ridicules the myth that Britain can "spend our way out of trouble" and chides his U.S. friends who "Don't know what to do but they'll wait a long time for a Beverly Hills coup"; two cover versions, highlighted by "Everywhere," Long Ryder Sid Griffin's soliloquy for World War II Japanese-American citizens who were interned in California concentration camps; "God's Footballer," which tells the tale of a '60s football (soccer for you ethnocentric Yanks) hero who gave up the game when he became a Jehovah's Witness, thereby testifying to an anti-materialistic ethic that puts the religious mania of sport in sharp focus; and two songs of jilted romance in "Mother of the Bride" and "Wish You Were Here."

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME carries on the Bragg tradition of addressing the full range of life in our contemporary culture, making links where we have all too often fashioned boxes. He accomplishes that creative feat not through the generalization of the lowest common denominator, but by speaking to us in universal terms as he sinks deep into his own roots. "Although it is difficult sometimes to go that deep into yourself without flinching," he confesses, "in the end it has the capacity to speak volumes even beyond your own expedience."

At the same time, he recognizes that dominant culture is fueled by its capacity to repress and deny the existence of its victims and failures. The album's final track, "Body of Water," describes an apathetic people who consciously choose not to be aware: "I walk upon the ground you dream about/You finding out about it now/But you are clever never to be found."

Not that Billy Bragg will on that account stop playing his music. If no one out there seems to understand, he is determined to "start his own revolution and cut out the middleman."

David Batstone is founder of Central American Mission Partners and was assistant professor of theology and culture at New College in Berkeley, California when this review appeared. He is the author of From Conquest to Struggle: Jesus of Nazareth in Latin America.