A Quote by Billy Bragg
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.
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People see rock and roll as, as youth culture, and when youth culture becomes monopolised by big business, what are the youth to do? Do you, do you have any idea?
I think we should destroy the bogus capitalist process that is destroying youth culture.
I started the label Tzadik to support an entire community of musicians, not just Jewish musicians. But the radical Jewish culture movement was begun in a lot of ways because I wanted to take the idea that Jewish music equals 'klezmer' and expand it to, 'Well, Jewish music could be a lot more than that.'
The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practice politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.
I have a problem with telling jokes about physics. Quite often the audience have no idea what you are talking about and, to be honest, I don't know what I'm talking about either.
The idea that each individual has intrinsic, God-given value and is of infinite worth quite apart from any social contribution - an idea most pagans would have rejected as absurd - persists today as the ethical basis of western law and politics. Our secularized western idea of democratic society owes much to that early Christian vision of a new society - a society no longer formed by the natural bonds of family, tribe, or nation but by the voluntary choice of its members.
Just because I am paying attention to politics and culture doesn't mean that I should be talking about the health-care bill, talking about the minutiae.
When you think after 25 years of Mao, Chinese people had no idea about western music or even western culture. They had no idea about James Dean or the Beatles or Charlie Chaplin, modern music or modern cinema.
I was quite interested to do television series and I started exploring an idea of a longer commitment, a new idea, a new TV show that would've meant a longer commitment but I opened my mind up.
America is, in many ways, as much an idea as it is a country. And Americans have long marketed that idea around the world through our popular culture.
To me, I took a militant attitude towards sounds. I wanted sounds to be a metaphor, that they could be as free as a human being might be free. That was my idea about sound. It still is, that they should breathe ... not to be used for the vested interest of an idea. I feel that music should have no vested interests, that you shouldn't know how it's made, that you shouldn't know if there's a system, that you shouldn't know anything about it ... except that it's some kind of life force that to some degree really changes your life ... if you're into it.
It seems to me that we make a terrible mistake in talking about Trump as some kind of essence of evil. Trump is symptomatic of something much deeper in the culture, whether we're talking about the militarization of everyday life, whether we're talking about the criminalization of social problems, or whether we're talking about the way in which money has absolutely corrupted politics. This is a country that is sliding into authoritarianism.
What "Make America Great" means is it doesn't mean race, and it doesn't mean gender, and it doesn't mean sexual orientation, and it doesn't mean anything identity politics related that seems to appeal to the Democrat Party. It's about a culture. It's about an identity. It's about an idea - the American idea, the American ideal.
I'm more interested in the idea of role-playing in general than the idea of role-playing in art. I like the childlike quality of making pretend or the optimistic idea of pretending something's happening when it's not.
When you read about the real history of where feminism comes from, it came from a very political point of view. I don't believe in bringing any politics to an idea like feminism. I love the idea that women should be celebrated, but I also believe men should be, too. We need both - yin and yang.
The beautiful thing about podcasting is it's just talking. It can be funny, or it can be terrifying. It can be sweet. It can be obnoxious. It almost has no definitive form. In that sense it's one of the best ways to explore an idea, and certainly much less limiting than trying to express the same idea in stand up comedy. For some ideas stand up is best, but it's really, really nice to have podcasts as well.
I didn't want to be precious about things. Of course, the idea is to make great music, but if you have great musicians up there, it gives me some leeway to play around a little bit.
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