Billy Bragg - Bridges Not Walls

The Guardian 80

(Cooking Vinyl)

Political turmoil has regalvanised Billy Bragg: a string of recent singles addressing Trump, (the rousing Why We Build the Wall), climate change and racists on the streets of Birmingham have been his first new solo releases since 2013. This mini-album collects them and adds two extra songs. Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted is a finely judged attack on Brexiters’ lies and their hidden agenda, while the mournful piano ballad Full English Brexit finds Bragg looking through the eyes of an elderly Leave voter. It might seem an easy target, and is a deliberately uncomfortable listen, but Bragg offers a nuanced, sympathetic portrait, with the key lyric being “nobody’s listening to me”.