I don’t understand what it is about staying up late at night that makes me melancholy, but sometime around 2:30 a.m. I’m just dying inside and suffering that sickness that can only be described as bittersweet. At dinner with a good friend on Friday night we talked about getting older… she said “I still feel 17 inside, how can I be almost 35?” And yes, my birthday is soon, and I’m musing over what it will feel like to be 45. I honestly do still feel 22 most days, it’s always odd when people call me m’am in the stores and I catch a glimpse of my graying hair in the mirror. This dissonance is especially resonant when it comes to music. You know what I mean! You hear a song that you heard when you were 22 and damnit, it’s difficult to make sense of the fact that you’ve been listening to The Saturday Boy for 23 years already now! (click on the image below to buy it) That just cannot be possible. No. I refuse to accept that I’ve held this song in my mind for more years than I was when it first hit me.
And no one does this to me like Billy Bragg. (no I’ll not argue that he’s the most brilliant of musicians, don’t fret) but his lyrics… comeon! If there is another soul out there in the world that is as melancholy as me, it must be Mr. Bragg. He’s taken us back in time with him, to his youth, to his life with his lyrics. I was 22 (or 21?) when I heard Brewing Up With Billy Bragg for the first time, on a crappy cassette player in the cramped quarters of a college dorm. My best friend of the time and I listened to it over and over again, we were enthralled. It was music for our folk, from our folk, and it hit us at the moment when the world lay before us with all it’s problems and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. And we were learning about the killing fields and AIDS and the Sandinistas and the craziness of the Falklands and the closing of Head Start programs and de-institutionalization of the mentally ill, and all the things that our beloved President had been ignoring for years. But along with it, we learned about people who fought to bring these issues to light, to mobilize people and powers to change the order of things. And in our youth we idolized these struggles and these activists. And Billy Bragg was there, always there.
So now, I can’t possibly have been hearing this for 23 years can I? These horrors still exist, the world lay before me with all it’s problems and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. And I still idolize the those struggles against Apartheid, and against war, and the Sanctuary Movement and the struggle for union labor even in this post-union world. And Billy Bragg is still here.
But it’s the love songs that I turn to now. They speak to me differently than they did all those years ago. In that way I am 23 years older, (thankfully!). And now I feel that aching melancholy for highschool days that I never even had, and girlfriends’ brothers that I’ve never known, and rides home from somewhere with no one who tempted me to detour. Somehow his life’s story has melded into mine and been translated and reiterated into the fabric of my own history. Well, ok… maybe there was that one ride home that tempted me to detour! But such is the fate of growing up with a musician who writes such lyrics …. it’s inevitable 
“While she was giving herself for free at a party to which I was never invited”. This has to be my favorite Billy Bragg song, it struck a chord all those years ago and still makes me smile. Although have been listening to Tank Park Salute a lot recently, now there is a real tearjerker. Good post as usual Tart.
ps A great big thank you for the Clem Snide album. Sorry I haven’t said so before, I thought that I had but I forgot in all that’s been happening lately.
There’s so many great lines in that song! “She lied to me with her body you see, I lied to myself bout the chances Id wasted” …. it always comes down to human inadequacies in the end with him! And I can’t listen to Tank Park Salute anymore… it’s horribly sad, yes.
Glad you’re enjoying the Clem Snide, he was so very generous to give us five albums to give away! xoxo
Ah, Growing Up With Billy Bragg. Me too x
well, we are the best generation, davy xoxo
23 May, Tank Park Salute……
and your point is that we got the title incorrect? oh thanks kind sir for the illumination :–p xoxo
oh tart, i know what you mean about the age thing. it’s kind of freaking me out that my daughter turns 20 today. inside i am a lot younger than i am on the outside!
i am a little ashamed to say that i missed out on billy bragg growing up. i can appreciate him now, though, which i suppose is what matters in the end. : )
Happy Birthday to her, Marcy… yeah, it’s amazing, and weird and well.. just is.
No shame in not knowing Billy Bragg, you had to be either a lefty/commie/red or a pure anglophile at the time to know him in this country back in 1986. (yeah, I was both, hahah)
Hi…i am always in here, but never said a word before now! I feel that way too about age, i feel like 16, but i am 35 …. Never heard billy Brag before, what a nice song … I grew up listening to Bob marley, U2, New order and a few Brazilian Rock Bands….It is amazing how those musics can take me back there, when i as 16…i can even smeel those days! sorry about my english.
Manoela
Thanks for de-lurking,
and yeah… it’s crazy how our memory can be so strong for 20 years ago and yet not let us remember what we ate for dinner last night! xoxo
you know enough about me to understand…..listen to the lyrics
what a cranky bugger i am….what i should have said is this -
- Yeah Billy has written plenty of songs that get to the soul of the person, and the one that gets me going is Tank Park Salute, which was written in tribute to his dad, and it gets me going every time i listen to it.
oh you are cranky in the morning, sir! but yes… this song is so especially sad, unlistenable even sometimes, xoxo
“I never made the first team I just made the first team laugh” oh how relate to that line
There are so many great one-liners in this song and other Billy Bragg songs. HIs cover of The Smith’s Jeane is one of the most devastatingly downbeat songs ever. But very good..
Ah Milo, yes, that cover of Jean is simply brilliant… I did a post on that way back, a long time ago! Always a delight to see you here xoxo
Kudos for that Tart, as a relatively new reader I have obviously missed a few treats!
One of my favourites, as I’m sure you know. Like you say, his lyrics mean different things to us as we grow older – it’s like re-reading a favourite novel and coming at it from an entirely different place.
or catching up with an old friend and see that you still have so much in common after all these years! xoxo
Hi Tart, I’m always about 5 posts behind! This is so beautifully written and I’m with you and all the others who still feel like a teenager on the inside. One of the best things for me about discovering the world of music blogs is knowing there are other grown-ups out there who still love and need music just as much as they always did. I sure do. And I totally agree with the above too, a great song will grow with you, the meaning may develop and unfold as the years pass but it will always be there.
And if you are turning 45 you need to celebrate for at least a month!!! Have fun xx.
Thanks Greer, I never catch up with my blog reading lately! You’re too kind to say such nice things, and yes, it’s amazing what 20 years perspective gives on all those love songs, isn’t it?! xoxo
Nicely done, Tart.
I’m doing an internet radio interview on Sunday and I’ve been asked to bring along the first single I ever bought. That was 25 years ago.
Jeez…
Hi, by the way!
Thank you sweetie, and yes, we ARE that old, alas. Though I’m not revealing the first record I ever bought! thanks for stopping by xoxoxo
An excellent post, as always. Hope this finds you well
Aww thanks Ed, these Bragg posts really bring out the old guard, don’t they, hahaha xx
Indeed they do. I remember when it it were all fields of ELO round here and you had to crawl backwards over fifteen miles of broken glass to pick up the latest wax cylinder from Big Nose Billy And His Barkers From Barking. Kids these days don’t know how good they have it…
*sinks further into dementia*
OMG! I’ve been transmogrified into Jim Morrison!!
oh lordy, dementia is right! hahaha and I have no control over the ravatar choice, it’s in the hands of the icon gods, heheh xx