Be seated for Billy Bragg

Barking Bard Billy Bragg has finally been given a seat — not in Parliament but at Beam Valley Park on the Havering/Barking border. A metal silhouette of the songwriter stands by his portrait bench. Three benches have been installed by the charity Sustrans, which encourages people to travel by foot and bike. Billy explains on his Facebook page: "The figures represent three people from each of the boroughs. The soldier, W/O Ian Fisher who died in Helmand, is from Havering, the figure at the sewing machine represents the Dagenham women who went on strike at Fords in the 1960s for equal pay and I come from Barking." No truth in the rumour he's recording a new song Between the Walks to mark his bench.

Life's a riot with Bragg versus Brand…

Saw a fine set from Billy Bragg at the Royal Festival Hall last night, with a cold-ridden Bragg displaying his usual range of styles from playing with a pedal-steel guitar and country band to solo songs with acoustic and electric guitars.

The show featured a mention of his home county and line dancing during a speel about going country and how the only twang he had was Essex. And also an inter-county dispute with Russell Brand. Bragg couldn’t agree with Brand about not voting, saying that although “there might only be an inch between Labour and the Tories that inch makes a difference to thousands of people”. He sneaked in a nice change to the lyrics of Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards with: “One step forwards two steps back/ will Russell Brand get me the sack?”

William Bloke also mentioned his grandfather walking from Barking to Buckingham Palace to sign up for the First World War in the introduction to Between the Wars and two of his most moving songs were tributes to his late parents, Tank Park Salute and Goodbye. He also impressed my 15-year-old daughter who thought Handyman Blues could have been written about her dad. 

Spent most of my life growing up with Bragg, so it was lovely to hear some of his older numbers like You Woke Up My Neighbourhood and New England alongside great new songs like No one Knows Nothing Anymore and There Will Be a Reckoning. All interspersed with the usual Bragg wit on being hip again (“Nowadays there’s lots of 25-year-old blokes with beards wanting to sound like Woody Guthrie and wishing they were 55!”) and sage advice to never trust anyone who has no doubts, “as they’re either an evangelist or a Trotskyist trying to sell you a paper.” Long may he continue. 

Barking balladeer back on form

Country music suits Billy Bragg and his new album Tooth And Nail, recorded in America, is more personal in tone and has echoes of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska and Lucinda Williams's best work. Don't expect Life's A Riot revisited, but it's his best work since William Bloke. Nobody Knows Nothing is Bragg's finest song in years ("What happens when the markets fall?") beautifully capturing the confusion of the times, while Woody Guthrie's I Ain't Got No Home sounds just as relevant today. And I might be wrong, but the excellent There Will Be A Reckoning seems to make campaigning against the BNP on a Dagenham council estate sound like it's written in the Deep South of the USA. "I'm a writer not a decorator!" also gets my vote as a motto on Handyman Blues. And as for the songwriter's beard - love the comment on Amazon from a reviewer who suggests "now he looks like the local bus driver". But a very talented bus driver it has to be said.

Bard of Barking

Saw the ever-excellent Billy Bragg at the Forum on Tuesday night - great to see him back with just his guitar and strange how relevant a lot of those older songs, such as It Says Here and To Have and Have Not, sound in days like these. There's even a new song called The Battle of Barking about the last election.

Although Bragg now lives in Dorset, it's good to see that innate Essex wit is still there. On Greetings to the New Brunette he sang the line "How can you lie there and think of England when you don't even know who's in the team?" before exclaiming "Bobby Zamora!!?"

Billy advised us to buy his CD otherwise he'd have to do the John Lewis advert next year and also explained that you now hold up i-phones with a lighter app rather than a lighter. And he dedicated the magical St Swithin's Day to "all the David Nicholls fans" (the song partly inspired his novel One Day) but explained the song wasn't on the film soundtrack "because of the blatant wanking reference in the second verse".

As our politics veers back to 1984 it's good to know Billy Bragg hasn't gone away either.