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Billy Bragg

Workers Playtime

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by WillGilbert on 02/03/2006

Throughout his career, Bragg has managed to artfully combine his lefty politics with a penchant for writing beautiful love songs, and all this with his characteristically clever wit ever-present. This album is mostly made up of the love songs, and deals especially with the heartache and loss that comes with a relationship falling apart. His guitar playing here often veers over into something other than the "Urbane Folk Music" style of his early stuff, and he uses a bigger band than ever (drums, bass, piano, organ, horns). This was a new sound for him, and there's really not a bad song on here. "Must I Paint You a Picture" investigates the pain of young love crumbling under the force of it's own weight. In some of his finest lyircs, he sings, "The temptation / To take the precious things we have apart to see how they work / must be resisted for they never fit together again," and goes on, "Most important decisions in life / Are made between two people in bed / I found that out at my expense." In The Price I Pay, he sings "That's the price I pay / for loving you the way that I do," and "You said this would happen / and you were not wrong / I've fallen in love with a little time bomb." "Valentine's Day Is Over" chronicles a break-up about as well as can be expected of a song. Especially in the final verse: "Thank you for the things you bought me / thank you for the card / Thank you for the things you taught me when you hit me hard / That love between two people must be based on understanding / Until that's true you'll find your thingsall stacked out on the landing / surprise, surprise / Valentine's Day is Over." He continues on that theme in "Life With the Lions," singing, "I hate the arsehole I become / Every time I'm with you." Summing up with "But love is not a game you play to win, girl." "The Short Answer" is another one on the break-up theme, and as good as song he ever wrote. It begins with the line, basically textbook Billy Bragg: "Between Marx and marzipan in the dictionary there was Mary." Of this Mary, he sings "She should have been the last / But she was just the latest." And then he suddenly changes gears for the finale, "Waiting For the Great Leap Forwards." This seems to be a rumination on where he's going, career-wise; yet it seems to have metaphorical meaning beyond this literalist reading. If the influence of the Clash, which was so evident on his early work, is largely hidden on this album (and I'd say it is), it certains comes out here. As a sometimes political songwriter, it's probably most often that he's simply ignored, or at least his political content is. For Bragg, it's not like it was for Dylan. Nobody's really paying attention anymore. Not like they were when Dylan sang "Masters of War." The folkie who performs and releases records under the name John Wesley Harding once said that, rather than being worried about selling out, folk music in general (and, I might infer, especially folk music of the "protest" variety), because of the sheer un-commerciality of it, has always had a "Come and exploit me!" attitude. Bragg seems to express exactly this notion and to echo at least the spirit of the Clash once again, when towards the end of his four and a half minute examination of the relevancy of topical songwriting and of mixing pop and politics he exclaims, "Here comes the future and you can't run from it / If you've got a blacklist I want to be on it!"

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Album Details

Year: 1988
Label: Go! Discs/Elektra
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Tracklist

1	She's Got a New Spell
2	Must I Paint You A Picture
3	Tender Comrade
4	The Price I Pay
5	Little Time Bomb
6	Rotting On Remand
7	Valentine's Day Is Over
8	Life With The Lions
9	The Only One
10	The Short Answer
11	Waiting For The Great Leap Forwardss

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