Billy Bragg Quotes - Page 3

I think if you're going to make political art, you have to engage at some level. You can't just write about politics, you have to try and be politics as well.

Certainly, the international image of the United States today is a lot less positive than 10 years ago. And that really shouldn't be, because you have been the victims of this awful terrorist attack, and I think America deserves the sympathy of the world.

If you can't see that the glass is half full, you can never be a socialist. You have to believe in the goodness of the majority of people to be a socialist. You have to believe that if the majority of people had their way, they would make a society that would be fair for everyone. If you don't believe that, and if you think that the glass is always half empty, then you're never going to have that sensibility.

The idea that musicians should be talking about politics is, in some ways, quite a sixties' idea. Music no longer has a vanguard role in youth culture.

We have laws to deal with people who defame other people's religion. We have laws to deal with people who try to blow up our citizens. We have due process. We have laws to deal with people who we capture during combat and war, but somehow Guantanamo Bay seems to be outside all that. And perhaps it's being maintained with the view to what people are talking about now, this idea of the "long war," that this is going to go on and on, and perhaps Iran is going to be next.

It would shine a torch into the dirty little corner where the BNP defecate on our democracy, and that would be much more powerful than duffing them up in the street - which Im also in favour of.

Money maketh man a tory, don't fire that assumption at me, I like toast as much as anyone but not for breakfast, dinner and tea

I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it's me who has to come up with all the ideas.

But, in the end, even a song that's as politically bland as Blowin in the Wind, you probably wouldn't get up and sing that now, whereas some of Bob Dylan's love songs that were contemporary with that, like say Girl from the North Country, you can still get up an play now.

I've had songs written during the Falklands war, and during the first Gulf war I got letters from soldiers saying they were listening to these songs, like Island of no return.

I never met a politician who didn't want to be a guitar player in a rock band. I've got the opportunity to say what I believe in.

Just because you're gay, I won't turn you away. If you stick around, I'm sure we can find some common ground.

All the great political music was made at the height of political confrontations.