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Billy Bragg - "Don't Try This At Home" and… …"He owes it all to Spandau Ballet"
Billy Bragg, a frenetic and combative life with political commitments that give a solid structure to his musical works. An artist, a man who combines folk pop, folk rock, folk song with real protests linked to civil rights, social and individual conflicts that he describes in his lyrics with respect, lots of lightness, love, and deep feeling.
His works are like sculptures with living forms lightened by the alternation between melody and singing, they are profound suggestions immortalized in orchestral fusions where the lyrics describe the vital behaviors of the human being and give life to his personal style. This style has a primitive flavor, primordial engravings, archaic motifs, universal languages that are the synthesis of everything. The almost ostentatious formal completeness, unsuitable for the turmoil of the contemporary era that now sails in its daily pains, increasingly flowing into that evident human imperfection that creates worms capable of wearing down that "hard shell" in an attempt to give value to life.
Bragg seeks something concrete and fundamental to believe in, something that has always been rooted within him. The combative movement of ideals that regulate the spirit to demonstrate that a man, as well as an artist of himself, cannot lock himself in an ivory tower, instead, he must be involved and projected into society, he must highlight the interesting search of expression with the practice of fantasy and behavioral creativity.
His melodies are all the emblematic brilliance of surfaces torn by a bursting internal energy, of uncontrollable urges of a tumultuous life, where dazzling smoothness becomes meteors that strike hearts and minds. The hands torment the instruments that break the shell of ideas to understand the mystery of life, measurement with the intimate reality of things, without pretense. The mechanism that regulates movement, vitality, and the power to discover the mysteries of life. Thus, the symbol becomes fundamental in Bragg’s work.
"Moving The Goalposts" the notes create the melody that leaves room for the curiosity of investigation, "You Woke Up My Neighbourhood" superb melody projected at levels of high maturity, "Mother Of The Bride" poetic anthem always with a base of challenging and real text, "Tank Park Salute" vital energy that presses from the soul to explode in majestic forms, "Accident Waiting To Happen" for those who can no longer have a shred of "dignity and beauty for themselves" or "Rumours Of War" the painful voice overshadowed by a poignant cello plucked by a piano, "The Few" Bragg, a true gentleman polemicist and protester, "North Sea Bubble" graceful and unmistakable.
The reissue of the original album is accompanied by a second bonus CD with fourteen extra tracks including demos, alternative versions, mixes, and versions that make it even more interesting in its tireless listening.
Even if for many it is not a great masterpiece, for others, including myself, it is thanks to its delicacy and commitment. If you do not own either the original album or this double version of extraordinary beauty, then it is undoubtedly a must-grab!
Remember to put it on your "shopping list".
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Moving the Goalposts (02:34)
I put on my raincoat to make it rain
And sure enough the skies opened up again
I dreamed of you as I walked to the shops
You were dancing with the wallies on Top Of The Pops
Once in a while
Gennady Gerasimov drops his smile
And you can see that his aim's
A portfolio pregnant with gains
He's been up all night
Moving the goalposts
Like a jackdaw with a fiery brand
Spread the news all over this land
Robin Hood and his Merry Men
Are never, never, never coming back again
I don't believe that love should be pain
So could you please rub my back again
I think it's safe to leave tham in the park
Let's blow out the candles and kiss in the dark
Heavens above
Can this sticky stuff really be love!
Don't get dressed yet
Not yet
We've been up all night
Moving the goalposts
03 Everywhere (04:58)
Dig in boys for an extended stay
Those were final orders to come down that day
Waiting to be saved in the Philippines
You'll wait forever for the young Marines
Now I believe to be here is right
But I have to say that I'm scared tonight
Crouching in this hole with a mouth full of sand
What comes first the country or the man?
Look at those slanted eyes coming up over the hill
Catching us by surprise, it's time to kill or to be killed
Over here, over there, it's the same everywhere
A boy cries out for his mama before he dies for his home
All my life I wanted to be
As clever and strong as my best friend Lee
We grew up together along Half Moon Bay
Lee was Japanese, born in the USA
When Tommy was fighting Jerry along the River Seine
Me and Lee wanted to do the same
Then they bombed Pearl Harbour at the break of day
I was headed for these islands while Lee was hauled away
They said look at his slanted eyes, he's guilty as guilty can be
Sent here as enemy spies to sabatage the Land of the Free
I never got home, my platoon was never saved
That little fox hole became my island grave
Lee got out of jail but a prisoner he remained
Till he ended his own life to lose that ball and chain
And they said Oh Little Slanted Eyes can't you forgive and forget?
And he said, Oh Mr Friendly Ghost
Can you catch water in a net?
05 You Woke Up My Neighbourhood (03:11)
As I wait for sleep to drag me under
In the evening gloom I sit and wonder
The words I should have said to you
The things I always meant to do
The bad dreams that all came true
Chorus:
You woke up my neighbourhood
Night after night we would row
You woke up my neighbourhood
Things are pretty quiet round here now
When I think of how we were together
I know we couldn't be like that for ever
Beneath the Seven Sister stars
The night we let it go too far
I slept out in the car
Chorus
I remember skipping on the porch tilll it grew cold
I remember feeling like I was eight years old
Somersaults across the lawn
Singing dancing up till dawn
Every now and then we'd have a row
You woke up my neighbourhood
Things are pretty quiet round here now
Chorus (repeat)
08 The Few (03:27)
At night the Baby Brotherhood and the Inter City Crew
Fill their pockets up with calling cards
And paint their faces red white and blue
Then they go out seeking different coloured faces
And anyone else that they can scare
And they salute the foes their fathers fought
By raising their right hands in the air.
Oh look how my country's patriots are hunting down below
What do they know of England who only England know?
From the stands of the Empire Stadium
Come the heralds of the New Dark Age
With the simplicities of bigotry
And to whom all the world's a stage
These little John Bullshits know that the press
Will glorify their feats
So that the general public fear them
And the authorities say give 'em all seats
And the wasted seed of the bulldog breed
Is shouting "Here we go!"
What do they know of England who only England know?
Our neighbours shake their heads
And take their valuables inside
While my countrymen piss in their fountains
To express our national pride
And to prove to the world that England
Is just as rotten as she looks
They repeat the lies that caught their eyes
At school in history books
But the wars they think they're fighting
Were all over long ago
What do they know of England who only England know?
And the society that spawned them
Just cries out "Who's to blame?"
And then wraps itself in the Union Jack
And just carries on the same
Oh look out, my country's patriots are hunting down below
What do they know of England who only England know?
09 Sexuality (03:47)
Sexuality
I've had relations with girls from many nations
I've made passes at women of all classes
And just because you're gay I won't turn you away
If you stick around I'm sure that we can find some common ground
Chorus:
Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality - Your laws do not apply to me
A nuclear submarine sinks off the coast of Sweden
Headlines give me headaches when I read them
I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade
He said some things are really best left unspoken
But I prefer it all to be out in the open
Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality - Your laws do not apply to me
Sexuality - Don't threaten me with misery
Sexuality - I demand equality
I'm sure that everybody knows how much my body hates me
It lets me down most every time and makes me rash and hasty
I feel a total jerk before your naked body of work
I'm getting weighed down with all this information
Safe sex doesn't mean no sex it just means use your imagination
Stop playing with yourselves in hard currency hotels
I look like Robert De Niro, I drive a Mitsubishi Zero
Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality - Your laws do not apply to me
Sexuality - Come eat and drink and sleep with me
Sexuality - We can be what we want to be
12 Dolphins (04:20)
Sometimes I think about
Saturday's child
And all about the time
We were running wild
I've been searching
For the dolphins in the sea
And sometimes I wonder
Do you ever think of me
This world may never change
The way it's been
And all the ways of war
Won't change it back again
I'm not the one to tell
This world how to get along
I only know that peace will come
When all our hate is gone
This world may never change
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