Album Review: Billy Bragg: Workers' Playtime

Here is a brilliant little gem of an album by our favorite British political activist: Billy Bragg. Some people over at the sweat-shops putting out the music rags refer to his work as "anti-folk," but who knows what that means. What Billy does is politicize the life of the common man with acoustic guitar-based tunes and wavering vocals that never loose the edgy English accent. He's not as well known this side of the Atlantic, but Billy shows up whenever there's some political issue or shout out to folk music -- he rubs shoulders with Ani DeFranco and Bruce Springsteen on Til We Outnumber 'Em: The Songs of Woody Guthrie and somewhere I found a recent one he did about the price of oil and protesting the war in Iraq. For someone who is so politically outward, I can't think of anyone who seems to detest politics and politicians more. I probably never would have tracked this album down if I hadn't heard a cover of "The Only One" hidden on a friend's Mucky Pup CD (thanks, Brooks). Like I said, it's weird where Billy turns up.

Workers' Playtime isn't a lightweight album with only a couple good songs. It's one of my road-trip staples, and I appreciate the thought put into the lyrics and the unassuming orchestration. It ranges from the social ballad of "Rotting On Demand" and a cappella singing on "Tender Comrade" to the rockable licks of "She's Got a New Spell."

Detail: Capitalism is Killing Music Clearly, Billy hates Capitalism, and it is killing music, but Communism is killing musicians, so what's up with all this cultural revolution artwork? Seriously, though... capitalism is squelching out indigenous music and making it nearly impossible for truly different music to survive. I have hope that the internet will elevate the unknowns into new prominence and give the record companies a swift kick to the diversity department for serving up the same McDonald's style sameness for all these years, but I digress. Billy's music brings to the fore the values of socialism vs. capitalism. Of course, in America, the former is almost always assumed to be practically the same thing as communism, an irony that is certainly not lost on Billy's European audience.

In short, it's a great album from a scrappy Brit with some vehement ideas on social reform. Here are some of my favorite lyrics:

  • I hate the asshole I've become [...] You're upset because I can't read your mind. [...] I know that when I leave the room they say "what's up with him?" (Life with the Lions)
  • Virtue never tested is no virtue at all [...] The most important decisions in life are made between two people in bed. (Must I Paint you a Picture?)
  • I've fallen in love with a little time-bomb. (Little Time Bomb)
  • For the girl with the hour-glass figure, time runs out very fast. (Valentine's Day is Over)
  • It might have been Camelot for Jack and Jaqueline, but on the Che Guevara Highway filling up with gasoline, Fidel Castro's brother spies a rich lady who's crying over luxury's disappointments, so he walks over and he's trying to sympathize with her but he thinks that he should warn her that the third world is just around the corner. In the Soviet Union a scientist is blinded by resumption of nuclear testing and he's reminded that Dr. Robert Oppenheimer's optimism fell at the first hurdle [...] You can be active with the activists or sleeping with the sleepers while you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards [...] If you've got a black-list, I want to on it [...] The revolution is just a T-shirt away. (Great Leap Forward)