A music-obsessed, retired San Francisco lawyer, and author of the rock & roll memoir Jittery White Guy Music (available on Amazon)... picking a random album or song in his collection every day or so and sharing a few thoughts.
I personally preferred Billy Bragg's music once he fleshed it out with a band--particularly on 1986's Talking With The Taxman About Poetry and the couple albums that followed. Still, there were some great songs on his earlier, stripped-down, Dylanesque solo records. And it's hard not to like "A New England," from 1983's debut Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy. Bragg's pointed political observations get redirected into an unabashedly gushy love song, and the result is thoroughly heart wrenching. "I saw two shooting stars last night, I wished on them but they were only satellites. Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care."
Still, for all the brilliance of Bragg's blueprint, I've gotta give a slight edge to Kirsty MacColl's cover. For all the over-the-top 80s production (Smiths jangle turned into new wave synth pop), it's still Kirsty, which renders the already overt sentimentality of Bragg's original emotionally devastating. Plus Billy lent her a hand and wrote her a few more verses, so it's a team effort.
Kirsty's version:Kirsty & Billy together (audio only):Billy Bragg & Kate Nash, live:Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong:The Dollyrots:
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