3. Billy Bragg – Greetings to the New Brunette

Almost twenty years ago, I bought this Philippines-only compilation called The Cutting Edge. [not the album pictured, obviously] The record, strangely, became warped in a few days. Luckily it was still playable until I sold it together with my entire record collection a few years before moving here.

Some of the songs in the compilation have since become New Wave cult classics: The Room’s New Dreams for Old, XTC’s Dear God, even actor Rupert Everett’s A Generation of Loneliness. I bought the LP because I’ve been listening to Billy Bragg’s Greetings to the New Brunette on NU 107 and was dying to transcribe the song’s lyrics if not the guitar chords.

In the days without google much less a reliable music information source, all I knew about it  was that it was a sweet song, probably about love, sang by this Mr. Bragg who didn’t give a damn if his Cockney crooning is getting in the way of comprehension, if not appreciation of his song.

It was much later on that I found out that the song was produced/co-performed by The Smiths’ guitar player, the other half of the band’s musical genius, Johnny Marr. I was particularly struck by GTTNB’s musical arrangement. The elaborate guitar work was a dead giveaway. It sounded very much like the army of guitars that Johnny Marr often employed in many of The Smiths’ songs. Upon closer listen, I realized also that because of this multi-layering, there was no more need for a drum or percussion track

The song was my introduction to Billy Bragg’s music that’s been often labeled political. I got hooked on Billy Bragg because I sympathize with his politics. In one of the earlier press releases about him, he was quoted to have said that he quit his punk rock band Riff Raff because he felt that the noise was drowning out the message. With that, he launched a Folk music career that’s more reminiscent of Woody Guthrie than Bob Dylan.

Unlike the two Folk music greats, Bragg was armed with an electric guitar. In his early albums, his songs are comprised just his voice and his electric guitar. It served him well in terms of his touring (or singing at workers’ solidarity concerts) because it was easy to set up and there was no pressure at all to try to sound exactly the way the songs were recorded.

In later years, I would collect most of Bragg’s album. On top of my list would be Talking With the Taxman About Poetry with Don’t Try This at Home and William Bloke tied for a close second. I would later cover The Price I Pay and Tank Park Salute with my band in the 90s. Among my other favorite tracks are The Space Race is Over, Waiting for the Great Leaps Forward, Levi Stubb’s Tears, and Moving the Goalposts.

Of course, there’s the oft-covered song, his breakout single, A New England that takes off from Simon and Garfunkel’s Leaves That are Green. The charm of the song is right in its refrain. (I don’t want to change the world/I’m not looking for a new England/Just looking for another girl) It’s practically an assertion that for whatever political agenda he has, he is still human capable of human emotions like, say, love. Bragg has been performing this song with British sensation Kate Nash wherein Nash sings verses from her hit Foundations alternately with with Bragg’s A New England.

Like A New England, GTTNB employs that quirky romanticism to inject some socialist messages. Who else, but Billy Bragg can come up with this line: “We are joined in the ideological cuddle.”

Here’s the rest of the lyrics and the accompanying 1986 promotional video:

Shirley,
it’s quite exciting to be sleeping here in this new room
Shirley,
you’re my reason to get out of bed before noon
Shirley,
you know when we sat out on the fire escape talking
Shirley,
what did you say about running before we were walking

Sometimes when we’re as close as this
It’s like we’re in a dream
How can you lie there and think of England
When you don’t even know who’s in the team

Shirley,
your sexual politics have left me all of a muddle
Shirley,
we are joined in the ideological cuddle

I’m celebrating my love for you
With a pint of beer and a new tattoo
And if you haven’t noticed yet
I’m more impressionable when my cement is wet

Politics and pregnancy
Are debated as we empty our glasses
And how I love those evening classes

Shirley,
you really know how to make a young man angry
Shirley,
can we get through the night without mentioning family

The people from your church agree
It’s not much of a career
Trying the handles of parked cars
Whoops, there goes another year
Whoops, there goes another pint of beer

Here we are in our summer years
Living on icecream and chocolate kisses
Would the leaves fall from the trees
If I was your old man and you were my missus

Shirley,
Give my greetings to the new brunette