Best 56 quotes of Billy Bragg on MyQuotes

All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.

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

A nation with their freezers full are dancing in their seats, while outside another nation is sleeping in the streets.

An isolationist America is no bloody use to anyone.

A patriot is someone who cares what happens in their country.

[A]s long as you're comfortable it feels like freedom.

At some point in your life you have to engage with the fact that you are part of a society. Yeah the individual is the most important facet in society but unless every individual is the recipient of free health care, free education decent affordable housing and a proper pension then only the rich and powerful will be individuals and the rest of us will be exploited by them.

A virtue never tested is no virtue at all.

Being spokesman for a generation is the worst job I ever had.

Britain is a great country. We can more or less say what we like, and we can walk down the street without anyone trying to kill us. I know it's tough for some people, but generally we live in a caring society. We live in a great country, but we're no longer a great power. Part of the problem with some elements of the European debate is that they hanker for the days when we were a great power. Those days are gone, and they went a long time ago.

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.

By the time I was 19, punk had occurred. It had a completely different cultural dynamic to it which rejected everything and started again from the year zero.

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.

Don't saddle me with your ideals, and spare me all your guilt. For a poet with all the answers, has never yet been built.

Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.

Going for constant growth is not actually delivering a decent standard of living and the prospect of your children having a better life than you do. That is the key thing that politics needs to deliver: a better life for your children. That's why people are taking their lives in their hands and crossing the Mediterranean and the English Channel.

I came into this whole business by going to see Rock Against Racism gigs with the Clash.

I'd like to think that in a generation or two we'll have politicians whose life experience reflects that of the people who are voting for them.

I don't mind being labeled as a political songwriter. I've chosen to do that. What really annoys me is being dismissed as a political songwriter. That really pains me, because life isn't all about love; it's not all about politics, either. It's a beautiful mixture of events that absolutely baffle you, and you think, "Why can't I do something about that?", whether those events are in your bedroom, or out there in the wide world. In our daily lives we engage with them at different times, and I'm trying to write about the whole human experience, or my perspective on it anyway.

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.

If I can entertain people and get them to open up a little bit, then they're much more conducive to any ideas I might have, whether they're about relationships or politics. The most interesting songs, I think, are the ones where the two overlap.

If there is a single trait in our character that has historically set us apart from other nations, it is our determination to limit the authority of those who rule over us.

If we think we're a nation with great ideas, and a nation that wants to make the world a better place, let's commit ourselves and involve ourselves with our European partners.

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.

If you thought the army was here protecting people like yourself, I've some news for you, we're here to defend wealth.

I'm still batting away on my politics for the Labour Party. I'm much further to the left of them than I used to be, but that's because they've moved, not me.

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.

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.

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 was in a little punk band and we put out a few punk records that weren't very political, at all.

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

Mixing pop and politics he asks me what the use is / I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses.

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

My theory is this; I'm not a political songwriter. I'm an honest songwriter.

Never trust anyone who has no doubts. And I'm not talking about scepticism either: scepticism can be a healthy thing. You can have an argument with someone who's a sceptic. When I say 'cynic', I mean someone who has given up, and they want you to give up too, so it makes them feel better about themselves.

Our neighbors shake their heads And take their valuables inside While my countrymen piss in the fountains To express their national pride.

Peace, bread, work, and freedom is the best we can achieve.

So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.

Start your own revolution, cut out the middleman In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune But this is reality so give me some room So join the struggle while you may The Revolution is just a t-shirt away

That's what I'm about -- getting engaged. Too many people don't wade in the mud with the politicians.

The evil lot who did that thing on September 11 did it because they wanted to create a war between America and Islam. And by invading Iraq, we gave them what they hoped for.

The most important thing for anyone, I think, is to be engaged, whether you're an artist or a journalist is to be engaged in the process at some level.

There are quite a few honest songwriters out there writing about relationships and their own personality traits. But for some reason, once they step out of the bedroom, their honesty doesn't seem to come with them.

Today, rather than talk in terms of ideology or ideas like socialism, I think more important issues to discuss are things like compassion and accountability.

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.

Were it not for the Clash, punk would have been just a sneer, a safety pin and a pair of bondage trousers.

We've heard so much about the American dream: well, Trump is the American nightmare made flesh. All the things about 'the ugly American' that we worry about and which the Americans see in themselves, it's all of that. This is a politics of egotistical display.

What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands.

What happened on September 11 wasn't the first act of war, it was the most unspeakable act of murder and terrorism. But it was construed by a very small group of people - there is no army out there in the dark waiting to take over America. It's like being stung by a bee and going out and smashing up a beehive, and thinking you've solved the problem. There are more beehives out there; more bees will come. But they're bees. They're not grizzly bears.

Whether we like it or not, we live in a post-ideological world. That's how a Donald Trump can get through. He has no ideology at all: in that sense, he's a bit like Mussolini. I think that ultimately Trump will lose the election and in the process destroy the Republican party - but then I'm an optimist, ha ha ha! So he might not lose. He might be in charge of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world!