Meeting Billy Bragg

My favourite Billy Bragg story – and one that underlines my constant refrain of music as a lifetime companion – involves a CD signing in a small record shop in Bondi Junction after the release of Mermaid Avenue. I was there with about 40 other fans – all about my age, which is about the same age as Billy himself, and one woman produced a photo of her young son. Billy promptly whipped out a photo of his own son, as did almost everyone and a lengthy chat ensued about parenting, the lifestyle changes and challenges it presents and life in general for the ageing lefties we had all become. All that was missing was the teapot and kitchen table. The point being that we had all started out together solving the world’s problems, protesting, raging and full of anger.. and we had all grown up and weathered a few things together. Billy himself had maintained the anger and the activism, as had many others among us to varying degrees, but the feeling of companionship, shared experience and friendship among the group was much broader than just a shared politics.

Advertisement