Featured Essay: Which Side Am I On? Billy Bragg, unions, progressivism, music, and their effect on me

by Timothy Truxell

I heard my first Billy Bragg song in 1984 or early 1985. I do remember that it was before I had a driver’s license—my friend Scott and I were still walking or biking everywhere. Getting anywhere involved longer distances than you think. We grew up in the middle of nowhere (Raphine, Virginia).

We were walking from my house to a nearby village store (about 1.5 miles away), and “A New England” played on his boombox. He had recorded it from a college radio station about 30 miles away. (Coincidentally, I attended that school and DJed at that station, WLUR). In any case, it was staticky as radio recordings on tape are, and we both fell in love with the song. (We had to look up what the word “pram” meant). I resolved to find out more about the singer, who not only had a great song but also had an awesome name: Billy Bragg.

The next time I went to the record store (Record Corner in Staunton, Virginia), I looked for anything by him. I didn’t find anything on vinyl, but I did manage to find a cassette by him: Brewing Up with Billy Bragg, which I immediately purchased. My first vinyl Bragg record had to wait a year or so: Talking with the Taxman about Poetry. Others followed: (Life’s a Riot with Spy vs Spy, Brewing up with Billy Bragg, Mermaid Avenue (with Wilco) on vinyl and a bunch more digitally.

Fast forward 15 or so years. By then, I had finished college and moved from Virginia to Atlanta where I had the opportunity to see Bragg live, with Sir Ian McClagan, at the Roxy Theatre in Buckhead. I went with a couple of friends of mine; Damon, a Kiwi, and the manager of the bar we frequented, Daniel. The show was fantastic, of course. Billy was in fine form and very vocal about the world at large, especially the Bush administration and Republicans in general.

After the show, we were discussing it on the way back to the bar, as one does, and Daniel said he liked it, but wished he hadn’t been so political. Damon and I looked at one another gobsmacked. Had he never heard Billy Bragg’s music? The politics are kind of the point about half the time, right?

Of course, the politics sprung from his upbringing and the world he inhabited then. Bragg grew up in a working-class environment that would profoundly shape his worldview. He saw the struggles of working people in his own community.

A young-ish Billy became politically aware and active in the late 70s. He was only a bit older than I was when I first heard that scratchy cassette. Like many young people of his age in England, it involved The Clash. He saw them play in London on the White Riot tour in 1977. He saw them again at the Rock Against Racism carnival the following spring. By his own admission, it was the first time he connected music and political activism. At this point, he was anti-racist and anti-fascist, taking his cue from the political punks, The Clash. His music yet had to take on the strident politics and focus on unions, the plight of workers, and class that he became known for.

Despite this, his early work still shows a focus on class politics in Britain. Songs like “To Have and to Have Not” on his first album demonstrated his knack for addressing class inequality with incisive clarity:

Just because you’re better than me

Doesn’t mean I’m lazy

Just because you’re going forwards

Doesn’t mean I’m going backwards

His politics took on a laser focus with the Tory’s landslide victory in 1983. It was during the ensuing miner’s strike in 1984 – 85 that he began directly attacking Thatcherism and his policies toward the working class. This began his long association with Britain’s unions. As he explains it: “When the miners’ strike happened, it was my class that Margaret Thatcher was attacking. This was going to be a year of class war, and I knew where I stood on that.” [source]

Bragg was at the forefront of music’s involvement with supporting the strikers in 1984. He played many benefit shows in industrial towns, and in towns close to coalfields. Against this backdrop, he released Brewing up with Billy Bragg, which has a spate of songs supporting the striker’s causes. Strangely enough, there is an American influence on many of the pro-union songs. While touring the United States, many noticed the political bent of his songs and introduced him to the songs of Woody Guthrie, Joe Hill, and others. He knew of Woody of course, but as he later recounted: “I hadn’t made the Woody connection [to what I was doing]. That was something that people wrote about and caused me to double back and check out and also discover new songwriters.” [[Source]](https://jacobin.com/2024/02/billy-bragg-interview)

These and other artists made their mark on him. That tradition that had influenced Britain, but hadn’t become well known there. For example, Florence Reece’s song “Which Side Are You On?” had crossed the Atlantic. But he’s the one that made it famous in a British context on the Between the Wars EP and the Brewing up with Billy Bragg LP.

This adaptation of the union anthem from the 1930s, became particularly associated with this period. Its straightforward challenge—“Which side are you on, boys? Which side are you on?"—crystallized the binary choice between the workers and their exploitation. He also used this tradition on “The Is Power in a Union” on Talking with the Taxman about Poetry. The song shares a title and sentiment with a Joe Hill tune, if not the lyrics.

He later told his biographer, “By 1983, the scales had fallen from my eyes.” His record label boss Andy Macdonald also saw the difference: “his presence onstage took on more of the avenging angel”. [Source: Collins, Andres (2018). Still Suitable for Miners: Billy Bragg (5th ed.). London: Virgin Books.] By the following year, Bragg helped found Red Wedge, a musicians’ collective explicitly supporting the Labour Party that was against Thatcherism in all its forms.

Fast forward again to me in the late 90s. I had sort of drifted away from Billy Bragg and his music. His records, though, had followed me around through countless moves in two states. (And I didn’t even own a working turntable for a lot of that time.) I was on a huge Wilco kick when Mermaid Avenue came out in 1998, and it reintroduced me to Billy doing what Billy did best - singing love songs and anti-fascist and pro-working people songs.

And the thing about Woody and Billy? They both bring righteous political indignation in songs right next to tender love songs. “The Milkman of Human Kindness” and “California Stars” juxtaposed with “It Says Here” and “This Land is Your Land” (reread those lyrics), for example. Billy Brings the same passion to each type of subject matter.

This record and realization led me back to Billy and introduced me to Woody Guthrie in an adult way. I turned or returned to them with a passion (and The Clash again too, as with so many origin stories, but that’s a tale for another time).

Which brings us back to that concert again. Despite my friend’s astonishment about the intra-song and in-song political content at the show, Bragg’s jeremiads focused me. The music made me move, too. The show took place early in the George W. Bush administration (2002) and I was still angry—angry but unfocused. It was then that I resolved to get more involved and connected, to work on campaigns and causes that aligned with my beliefs, to make positive change in the world. I’ve failed more than I’ve succeeded, as we all have as a society in many ways. But it remains something I still aspire to do. In the words of another hero of mine, I want to get in “Good Trouble.”

Stepping back again to the broad sweep of things, Billy Bragg really became known for supporting unions. But he stands for so much more than just striking workers. He has also consistently opposed fascism, racism, bigotry, sexism, and homophobia. For over forty years, he’s lent his powerful blend of punk, folk, and political commentary as a soundtrack for workers’ struggles and these other progressive causes across the globe.

And he has stayed relevant even as the world has evolved. His recent music still shows an artist advocating for economic justice and collective action. He now speaks to current issues such as the instability of modern employment, gig workers’ rights, the challenges of organizing in a fragmented labor market, and environmentalism as a worker’s issue.

There is power in a factory, power in the land

Power in the hands of the worker…

Bragg sang these words decades ago. Despite all that has changed in the labor landscape, this central message continues to resonate. As we face new struggles for dignity and fair treatment, Bragg provides both an inspiration and a soundtrack for collective action.

I can honestly say that Billy Bragg is one the musical artists that most influenced me politically. All these things he stands for align with the spark he re-kindled in me at that show over 20 years and those early songs 40-ish years ago.

In 2013, on the occasion of the death of Thatcher, his great nemesis, he noted it as not a something to celebrate but as a “reminder of… why ordinary working people are no longer able to earn enough from one job to support a family… of why cynicism and greed became the hallmarks of our society… Don’t celebrate—organise!” [source]

Organize!

March!

Make yourself heard!

Get in some good trouble!

Happy May day!

Timothy Truxell is a poet and writer currently living in Atlanta, Georgia. His day job is making stuff up for large corporations (i.e., advertising and marketing), but don’t hold that against him. His record collection is nearing the 1000 record mark, where it must stay due to space constraints. You can follow his musings, mostly about music (and some other stuff) at flannelenigma.com.