Accessibility links
Billy Bragg, In a Retrospective Mood The rocker has released a two-volume set of recordings. Volume one was out in February, with material from the 1980s. Volume two includes four albums he turned out between 1988 and 2002 and four bonus CDs of new material.

Music

Billy Bragg, In a Retrospective Mood

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

Billy Bragg, In a Retrospective Mood

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/6263463/6264617" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Enlarge this image

Billy Bragg at the 1985 launch of the musicians' collective Red Wedge (left), and more recently, with guitar. Photo at Right by Wiggy/Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Photo at Right by Wiggy/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Billy Bragg at the 1985 launch of the musicians' collective Red Wedge (left), and more recently, with guitar.

Photo at Right by Wiggy/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Two More from Bragg

'Jane Allen'

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/6263463/6264440" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

'That's Entertainment'

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/6263463/6264195" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

The Guthrie Archive

Bragg explains how he came to write music based on Woody Guthrie's previously unrecorded lyrics.

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/6263463/6264192" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

'Who's Gonna Be Your Man' (A Woody Guthrie Song)

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/6263463/6264197" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Rocker Billy Bragg has long mixed jokes, pop and politics into his songs about life, work, love, football thugs and the changing face of his beloved England.

In the past year, he has released a two-volume box set of recordings. Volume one was out in February, with material from the 1980s. This month comes volume two, which includes four albums he turned out between 1988 and 2002 and four bonus CDs of new material, including previously unreleased live performances and demos.

And in case you like to read while listening to music, he has published a memoir: The Progressive Patriot: A Search for Belonging.

Bragg looks back at his career in a conversation with Scott Simon, and offers some advice to younger artists, too.

Web Resources