In an age of division, Billy Bragg wants us to stop the 'war on empathy' and focus on the common good
The singer-songwriter and activist spoke with Q's Tom Power about how the pandemic inspired his latest album
Click the play button below to listen to Tom Power's full conversation with Billy Bragg on The Q Interview podcast. He also spoke about his early musical influences, his experience in the army, how punk allowed him to reinvent himself and more.
On his 10th studio album, The Million Things That Never Happened, Billy Bragg wanted to reflect on the universal experience of the pandemic by exploring the collective feelings it elicited. But as an activist who's always blended his art with his politics, he was also writing a powerful call to empathy.
"I'm really talking about the sense of loss that I think so many of us are going to feel once this is over," he said of the album's title track in an interview with Q's Tom Power.
"For some of us, it will be relatively trivial things like holidays we missed or times we weren't out with our friends, but for other people, it's going to be the deepest things, you know — not being there when a loved one has passed away or when a child was born. It's going to take us a while to get over this, I think."
In a press release, Bragg wrote of the album's 11th track, I Will Be Your Shield, "I've come to the conclusion that empathy is the currency of music — that our job as songwriters is to help people come to terms with their feelings by offering them examples of how others may have dealt with a situation similar to that in which listeners find themselves."
He told Power the song isn't just about protecting others in a physical sense, but in an emotional sense as well.
"In the times that we live in, where there's like a war on empathy — where anyone who expresses any compassion for someone outside of their perceived group is attacked for being, you know, virtue signalling or politically correct or woke, whatever that means — you know, in times like these, we need to be underscoring the empathetic aspect of what we do," said Bragg.
Freedom of speech is important … but if you don't have accountability, you're not really free.- Billy Bragg
For him, the pandemic revealed the ongoing "struggle between individual freedom and the notion of the common good" that he sees growing in our politically divided society. But in many ways, he's felt heartened by the response to the pandemic.
"Those people who still wear masks despite the fact there's no mask mandate … obviously, they're protecting themselves, but they're also thinking about the people around them," he said. "And for someone with my politics, which has always really been the politics of the common good, I'm encouraged by that."
Along with empathy, Bragg told Power he thinks equality and accountability build the framework of a genuinely free society. On the album's second track, Mid-Century Modern, he sings that "freedom's just another word for acting with impunity."
"Freedom of speech is important," he said. "I get it. I know why that's important. But if you don't have accountability, you're not really free."
"The right to say what you want to say, when you want to say it, to whoever you want to say it to with no comeback is not freedom — that's Donald Trump's Twitter feed. And we know where that's going to lead to. So, consequently, that right to free expression has to be balanced with accountability…. You can offend — you have a right to offend. You can upset people, yeah. But you cannot abuse people."
While Bragg is under no illusion that music can change the world, he said it can make people "feel differently about the world." As a singer-songwriter, he believes that his job is to make the audience feel like people do care about the common good, solidarity and accountability, or otherwise help them adjust their point of view.
"A song that tries to articulate some kind of allyship, it can give people a sense of perspective when they encounter an issue that they're not familiar with," he said. "If they've heard someone singing in solidarity about trans rights, when they look at the issue, they might think, 'OK, well, let's see if I can understand where that person was coming from.'"
The emotional response evoked by a song or, particularly, a live concert is what makes Bragg feel confident that people will begin returning to shows and festivals again as they did pre-pandemic.
"This is not political," he said. "The solidarity I'm talking about is emotional solidarity…. Generally, people need to feel that the world is bigger than just themselves. And I think that's why that, you know, balance between individual liberty and the common good has come to the fore during the pandemic, because people want to feel that we're going to get through this together."
Written by Vivian Rashotte. Interview produced by Ben Edwards.