It was thirty-seven years ago when the Saturday boy from Essex who would become the UK’s foremost political singer-songwriter released his first record, “Life’s a Riot with Spy Vs Spy.” It contained seven songs, honed live, bashed out on a punk rock electric guitar, and wrapped in a utilitarian, single-colour sleeve. It charted at number 30 in the national charts. Billy Bragg had arrived. His first record company bio stated that he had ‘risen from obscurity to semi-obscurity.’

Touring Bragg hotspots in New Zealand and Australia in 2019, Billy literally road-tested a new live format for 2019: “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.” The idea was to play three consecutive shows over three nights at each given venue on the itinerary – the first night a current, mixed Bragg set; the second from his first three albums; the third from his second three albums. “It’s a way of keeping things interesting,” he explained. The tour covered the US, UK and Ireland and Europe, regularly selling out, but in a good way.

Lockdown couldn’t keep him down. Instead, he looked inwardly as well as outwardly, and joined the two together, strong. A new set of songs – “The Million Things That Never Happened” – emerged, blinking in the light, and nailing what so many of us felt, and still do feel.