Billy Bragg | The Roaring Forty | 1983-2023

"The frustration of seeing nothing that spoke to me on Top Of The Pops in the early 80's made me realise if I wanted to hear music that had something to say about the state of the world and real life, I’d have to make it myself. 18 months later I recorded my first LP.
To mark the 40th anniversary of Life’s A Riot with Spy vs Spy, I’ve compiled a number of commemorative releases that trace the arc of my career since those fateful Thursday nights."
Pre-order 'The Roaring Forty' from the official store: bbragg.lnk.to/...
Available on 1LP Orange Vinyl, 3LP Green Vinyl, Super Deluxe Box Set, Deluxe 2CD, as well as Signed Test Pressings.
EXCLUSIVE SIGNED A4 PRINT
LIMITED TO FIRST 1000 ORDERS
Pre-order now: bbragg.lnk.to/...
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www.billybragg....
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[@willoloughlen9868]

These songs are everything! Viva Billy!

[@duduhelenloveskimchi]

As an 80s teenager in New Zealand I absolutely thrashed my Life is a Riot Spy vs Spy cassettes. Your music helped significantly shape my identity and ideology and continues to fire me up today - thank you!

[@duduhelenloveskimchi]

And I will go to my grave believing this is the best lyric ever written “And if you haven't noticed yet, I’m more impressionable when my cement is wet” It was a real coming-of-age moment when I figured out what it meant. Such a cheeky truth 😁

[@evilchicken17]

​​@@duduhelenloveskimchi I was partial to the line about wishing on space hardware. Favourite by far.

[@trudytaylor1365]

I love both your choice of lyrics 🥳Billy the legend 👏i can still hear my mum now 🤣Turn in down😅

[@rjnation5042]

Thank you for mentioning Spy vs Spy, one of the first live shows I went to was at the Castle Hill RSL, I still have my original records of Harry's Reasons & 4 Fresh Lemons, Rj in Oz

[@ryanfoxsongs]

He’s helped crystallise my views too, I owe much to Billy ❤

[@aerboi1428]

Cheers for all the monumental music!

[@nickwood7223]

I'm a brit . I've been to over 10 gigs . Since 84 . I've even got his autograph on a Vote labor flyer . It's pretty cool

[@garethjones6566]

My mam was a shop streward for N.u.p.e back in the early 80's and she was given a copy of A new England by someone in the labour party. She came home passed it to me and said " you might like this". Forty years on I still do. Thanks mam and Billy for influencing me politically and musically.

[@rjnation5042]

As a 52yo in Australia I'm going shopping tomorrow to do a pre order, whatever it takes I'm picking up the big boxed set, Billy Bragg has almost always been on my playlist, some of his songs bring me to tears, but I still love the mans work, Rj in Oz

[@fionamcowan2386]

I will be pre-ordering if you are going to do gigs in Scotland, loved you then and love you still!

[@patwell6853]

Billy is Bill as Bill is Billy. That's the Great leap Forward. Only got to see you at the Hydro a few months ago Billy after following you for near 40 years. God bless,. P

[@01ozuna]

love his picks and great song writer,...songs that change life's for better....

[@slappedhappy9549]

Billy is a great artist!Got several vinyl albums!54yo german fan here!KEEP ON ROCKING,MATE!🍀

[@swthirteen]

that's our geezer

[@matthewarmitage6681]

Billy and Morrissey will always be the greatest ever for me.

[@RootsRadical73]

I was right there with you until Morrissey turned into a rightwing nitwit. Tragically, he became the guy he was writing about in The National Front Disco. "Where is our boy? Ah, we've lost our boy. But I should know why you've gone. Because again and again you've explained...you've gone to the National Front disco." But at least we can have faith that Billy could never turn from red to blue.

[@dh7314]

Morrissey has sadly become an absolute idiot. I turned a blind eye to his appalling views for a long time because I felt his art outweighed his backwards opinions but he’s just a bitter old man now

[@matthewarmitage6681]

@@RootsRadical73 For me it's about the Music I don't care about the politics. Morrissey was labelled as a racist years ago when he said that groups like the BNP should be given a platform to be heard. His point was actually so the public could hear how disgusting their beliefs are, but never as a supporter of those right wing groups.

[@UnbelievableEricthegiraffe]

Morrissey Living in LALA Land for so many years the Sun & Pollution has affected his judgement

[@petegaslondon]

@@matthewarmitage6681 Not true I'm afraid ... Mozzers been wearing a 'For Britian' badge for some time - even FARAGE calls THEM Nazis! And I'd LOVE to believe what you said about BB - sadly he's become a Corbyn-Hating STOOGE like all the rest - just google his comments about the JC film I know it bites ... Lets make some NEW songs!

[@evilchicken17]

I love ya, Billy, even though you never answered my fan mail.

[@fredh1720]

Haha

[@frankmurphyburr3598]

Britain's answer to Bob Dylan, not that Donovan pleb. Billy is a true poet and a great songwriter.

[@alanstjohns]

Turned his back on the real working classes many years back

[@carlosm.devasconcelllos3939]

Where is St. Swithin's Day ? 😡

[@StonefieldJim4]

Bragg helped me take politics seriously when I was a teenager. He's also quite a gifted songwriter - or he was. Some of his love songs, back in the day (the 80s), were worthy of Dylan. I can't bear him now. This is a man who says a woman is "anyone who says they're a woman." He used to be a genuine ally for women's rights; and of universalist principles. 'Wokeness' is where bourgeois politics has gone to hide. And Bragg has followed suit, by wrapping himself in the fashionable apartheid of identity politics. Spineless treachery.

[@petegaslondon]

Gee whiz this sounds a FRACTALLY wrong take - so double wrong the conclusion is correct "Spineless treachery" for becoming a Corbyn-hating STOOGE -- yet I still praise him for his support of Science and Biology - do you know what the FIRST Nazi Book-burning was? The Institute of Sexology, run bag Gay Jewish Hirschfeld, they couldn't STAND the scientific reality of Intersex, Gay and Trans identities being REAL and VALID (Hirschfelds clinic was one of the first to offer affirming surgery) You've been scared by all that talk about 'predators in ladies toilets' havent you? - wihtout cheking out 1- How seldom this occurs 2-What a TOTAL fascist dog-whisltle this is - JUST like "Jewish Money Lenders" or "multiculturalism hasnt worked" 3- "Fashionable Apartheid" - please give an EXAMPLE if theres some Good Faith to your claim? In the face of the CLEAR AND Present NAZIISM of the likes of 'Posie Parker' I'd need to see a LOT of proof of THIS problem Maybe read up on this some more Woke=Truthful and for MANY of us, #TruthMatters

[@mattw4547]

Leaned about Billy from a rancid song

[@fredh1720]

What's that

[@joeldwinkelmann]

@@fredh1720 "The War's End" on "...And Out Come The Wolves".

[@MWolferstan]

Likewise! And have love Billy ever since.

[@mantaszmenskis5619]

mighta been betta if you kept kicking it with new music instead of holding back since the Taxman Poetry album.

[@fredh1720]

Don't Try This at Home is awesome.