Sexual Politics Have Left Me All of a Muddle

This evening's post was to be the first in a series of reviews of albums that I love and that many of you may have missed (either because no one else liked them, or they were kind of "out-of-the-way", or whatever), but opportunity and fortune have smiled down upon me (with the help of one of my favorite blogs - Chromewaves, our neighbor to the north from Toronto). I was lucky enough to score tickets to Billy Bragg's show at the Phoenix in November. Needless to say, I was more than ecstatic.
For those in the know, you'll recognize that the moniker of this blog and the title of this post are taken from one of Billy's greatest songs, "Greetings To The New Brunette". This got me thinking about how to share some of my favorite Bragg music most effectively.
When one thinks about Billy Bragg's music, the initial reaction of some may be to pigeon-hole him as merely a political songwriter in the "There Is Power In a Union" or "To Have and To Have Not" vein. My personal opinion is that no one in popular music better investigates all of the ins and outs of sexual politics better than him.
Obviously, this topic is not an easy one to handle for most songwriters. Lay it on too thick, and your song becomes syrupy and trite. Be too brutally honest and you'll alienate your audience. Somehow, for the past 25 years, Bragg has effectively toed this line to outstanding effect, never becoming too sentimental, never falling into misogyny. In fact, when Mrs. Cuddle and I were dating, she always seemed to think that our relationship was on the rocks when she found me listening to Billy Bragg (truthfully, sometimes it was, but she's still here, so we worked through it). I guess she never got around to listening to some of his more "lovey" songs, though...
The interesting thing about his commentary on love, its loss, its gain, its trials and tribulations is how varied the actual topics are. For instance, "Greetings To The New Brunette" starts by talking about being "so excited to be sleeping here in this new room", but ends with the singer venomously spitting, "Give my greetings to the new brunette". Throughout, it questions the singer's "appropriateness" for his love, as "whoops there goes another year, whoops there goes another pint of beer", pissing his days away. Shirley may have been the new brunette at first, but she's obviously moved on in the space of 4 minutes. Somewhat related is "Walk Away Renee (Version)" - a proto-spoken word story iterated over the melody of The Left Banke's "Walk Away Renee", Bragg recounts a relationship that started well, but ended very poorly. The author in this case was obviously more into Renee than she was ever into him, but he acknowledges, "you have to learn to take the crunchy with the smooth, I suppose". When he finds her "going out with Mr. Potato Head", he realizes quickly that he's not the one for her, but in the meantime allows the bathwater to go cold around himself thinking about the two of them together. Just when the listener thinks that the author will continue to be bedeviled by Renee forever, he ends with one of my favorite couplets in Bragg's canon - "And then one day it happened/She cut her hair and I stopped loving her". Somehow that small change led him to feel that it was OK just to let go.
Once love is gone, what better way to celebrate it than by dwelling in self-loathing, such as in "The Price I Pay" or "She's Got A New Spell". In the former, the singer's friends are trying to persuade him that it's better for him without her, but he's convinced that he needs to suffer for her love - "That's the price I pay/For loving you the way I do". "She's Got A New Spell", despite being more upbeat in tempo and musical tone, is downright angry. The singer feels that he's been wronged by his ex - "The laws of gravity are very, very strict/And you're just bending them for your own benefit". Most of us could imagine a time in our own relationship fights where we'd love to come up with something as witty as that to hurl at the object of our ire. The meaning of "Valentine's Day Is Over" is obvious, and makes a great starter for a Valentine's Day Sucks mix (try it! may I also suggest "Bad Liver and A Broken Heart" by Tom Waits?). Want more self-loathing? Here's a couplet from "St. Swithin's Day" : "With my own hands/When I make love to your memory/It's not the same/I miss the thunder/I miss the rain". Doesn't make masturbating to the thought of a lost love sound too healthy, does it? Proving that he doesn't reserve lost love for those with jobs and commitments, Bragg wrote "The Saturday Boy" - a lovely note to the love of kids (likely no more than high school age), but, as with most great songs, the boy loses in the end.
Sometimes, great art can be hard to face head-on. "The Myth of Trust" stands alone in Billy Bragg's work for it's brutal portrayal of infidelity. It's message is clear from the first two lines: "I woke this morning/To find that we have outlived the myth of trust". Initially, it seems that the male in the relationship has fallen from grace alone, but a careful listen to the song seems to hint that while he was "upstairs in the bedroom/Dancing disgusting" she was "away in this land of Cain". Whenever adultery happens, it is never just one person's fault. We all need to learn, though, and quiet resignation runs through "A Lover Sings". The song ends "Adam and Eve are finding out all about love" and, in many of his live shows, Bragg includes "Adam and Steve" and "Theresa and Eve" to that list - no matter gay, straight, or what-have-you, we all need to learn the pitfalls of love.
Lest the reader think that Bragg isn't capable of writing songs about love gone right, his later career (after getting married and having a child) is littered with examples of odes to one's beloved. "Brickbat" is almost odd for Bragg, in which he acknowledges his punk roots, but celebrates his then new-found domesticity: "I used to want to plant bombs at the Last Night of the Proms/But now you'll find me, with the baby, in the bathroom/With that big shell, listening to the sound of the sea". He even went so far as to name his latest CD Mr. Love and Justice. It contains "I Keep Faith" - a verse dedicated to professing ever-lasting love to one's partner.

I guess I could go on and on espousing the merits of Billy Bragg's work, but it's best appreciated in its aural form. The following tracks are taken from two live shows, and widely circulated in bootleg circles. I hope you enjoy these and seek out more of Bragg's music, as it deserves to be heard by even more lovelorn, love lost, and loving souls.
Until next time...

Selections from Billy Bragg "Bigmouth Strikes Again" - Live in London 11/2/91:

"Valentine's Day Is Over"
"A Lover Sings"
"Greetings To The New Brunette"
"You Woke Up My Neighborhood"
"She's Got A New Spell"

Selections from Billy Bragg Live in Somerville, MA 3/23/06:

"The Saturday Boy"
"The Myth of Trust"