Bragging Rights

A merry clink of the letterbox this afternoon announced the arrival of the new Billy Bragg album in my house. It's his first for five years, and in that time he seems to have begun styling himself "The Sherpa Of Heartbreak". Fair enough I suppose, only I have fonder memories of him as The Transit Of Trade Unionism and the Leyland Lorry Of Labour. Not a huge amount of that on this record, though he does find time for a Woody Guthrie cover in amongst the countrified crooning. As Joe Strummer once put it: "You grow up, and you calm down."