Singing to Power

British folk-rocker Billy Bragg has to be the only popular musician who could score some airtime with a song about the global justice movement. The first single from Bragg's England, Half English (Elektra), "NPWA" (No Power Without Accountability), is destined to become an enduring anthem for anticorporate organizers everywhere. Just before leaving England to tour the United States in April, Bragg took a few minutes to talk with Nation assistant literary editor Hillary Frey about globalization, Woody Guthrie, the duty of a political songwriter and, perhaps most important, why the AFL-CIO should be sponsoring free rock concerts. A longer version of this interview appears on The Nation's website (www.thenation.com).

HF: I've read that you were politicized during the Thatcher years in England. How did that happen, and how did your politics find their way into your music?

BB: When Margaret Thatcher was first elected, in 1979, I didn't vote. Perhaps that was the arrogance of youth.... It was at the height of punk, and I was titularly an anarchist. Although, frankly, that was more of a T-shirt than a developed idea. Her second term, between 1983 and 1987, really brought my political education. By then, Thatcher had started to chip away at the idea of the welfare state and what that stands for--free healthcare, free education, decent affordable housing for ordinary people.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.