Billy Bragg - Back To Basics

I had completely forgotten I owned this ! Consisting of a collection of Bragg's first three releases, the Life's A Riot EP, the Brewing Up With Billy Bragg LP and the Between The Wars EP. As I already owned Life's A Riot I guess paying £5.99 for the compliation was cheaper than buying the two other records separately........

Back To Basics is presented a double LP and the track order of Life's A Riot was changed, presumably for a better spread of songs over the four sides of the album.

Life's A Riot has separately received a favourable review. However, the rest of Back To Basics leaves a lot to be desired. Brewing Up With Billy Bragg moves away from the one man and his guitar approach on three songs, and they are by some distance the best moments of the album. "A Lover Sings" features some delightful organ with add to the beauty of the song and is the highlight of Brewing Up. The sad trumpet on "The Saturday Boy", a tale of heartbreaker is also a stand out moment, and there are even some backing vocals on "Love Gets Dangerous".

Unfortunately though, the high spots are few and far between. Whilst the 16 minutes of Life's A Riot captured all that was good about Billy Bragg, Brewing Up is a continuation with little innovation and the wit has been replaced with sourness and bitterness. Billy's earnest politics get the better of his songwriting craft and the love songs here are so much better. The social observations of the first release are distincly missing or hidden. It probably doesn't help that the guitar is higher in the mix so it is harder to make out the lyrics, so perhaps any cleverness gets lost. Instead it becomes tedious and tiresome.

"From A Vauxhall Velox" has the best guitar riff but it drifts into Chuck Berry in the solo, and a couple of bum notes ought to have been edited out. However, there are just too many songs eg "Strange Things Happens, "This Guitar Says Sorry" and "The Myth Of Trust" which are mostly tuneless noise and "St Swithin's Day" is essentially just a rehash of "Man In The Iron Mask"

The Between The Wars EP is a collection of protest songs and political rants about the Thatcher Government and the Miners Strike. It is back to just Billy and his guitar. The title track is a sad lament in the fine tradition of protest folk songs and is worthy of being on Life's A Riot. "It Says Here" was included on both Brewing Up and Between The Wars and is a biting critique on the tabloid press. Its not a good song though.

It is clear why I had forgotten about this album as if I wanted to listen to Billy Bragg I would have simply just played Life's A Riot.

Track Listing :

1. The Milkman Of Human Kindness
2. To Have And To Have Not
3. Richard
4. Lovers Town Revisited
5. A New England
6. The Man In The Iron Mask
7. The Busy Girl Buys Beauty

8. It Says Here
9. Love Gets Dangerous
10. The Myth Of Trust
11. From A Vauxhall Velox
12. The Saturday Boy
13. Island Of No Return
14. St Swithin's Day
15. Like Soldiers Do
16. This Guitar Says Sorry
17. Strange Things Happen
18. A Lover Sings

19. Between The Wars
20. World Turned Upside Down
21. Whose Side Are You On ?


Released 1987
UK Chart Positions : 

Life's A Riot With Spy vs Spy LP ( No 30 - 1983 )
Brewing up With Billy Bragg LP (  No 16 - 1984 )
Between The Wars EP ( No 15 - 1985 )