Billy Bragg: Life's a Riot with Spy vs. Spy

How about this for a portrait in miniature? Early in 1984, when I still had to explain who Billy Bragg was, and he was touring via public transport without even Andy Kershaw as roadie, I tried to persuade you to join me going to see him in a pub. You turned me down; I didn't want to go on my own. A year and a bit later, after Between the Wars, he played the Corn Exchange and you asked if I would join you. I think you knew that honour and snobbery dictated that I wouldn't, but I didn't feel I was making a big sacrifice.

I had actually seen Billy by then, but not performing. One Sunday in late February 1985, Mike and I went to protest at Molesworth. There were no more than 50 people there. It was cold. One bloke was quite vocal with the police, and he had a big nose. I remember thinking that he looked a bit like Billy Bragg. It wasn't until we were on the coach back that I overheard someone saying that it was him. Kudos to him, for that was no PR appearance.

And it's a moral tale, too, because it seems to me that multiple little acts of integrity like that have allowed Billy to go a long way on distinctly finite talent. I think you were with me when the South Bank Show profiled him — itself worthy of a raised eyebrow, since he'd done only two albums then, I think (or one album and an EP, because this "album" plays at 45 rpm and runs for around 16 minutes) — and he made a big thing of trying to find more subtle ways of saying "I love you" than just "I love you". Huh? a) Doesn't every songwriter do that? b) On Side 1, Track 1, The Milkman of Human Kindness, Billy sings "I love you" more than once. Clunk.

I bought this, I think, in January 1984 from Aerco in Woking, a hi-fi shop with records in the basement, which, Google tells me, had a connection with The Nashville Teens. I just remember men in cheap suits with salt 'n' pepper moustaches and hair combed over their collars. Evidently I paid £2.99 because, as with my other Bragg record, it has the price printed on the cover.

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A year and a bit later, after Between the Wars, he played the Corn Exchange and you asked if I would join you.