Billy Bragg – Must I Paint You A Picture?: The Essential Billy Bragg
2003
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To me Billy Bragg is a punk without an amp. Although I guess his music is more folksy than punky, the message and delivery of the message to me is punk. Billy’s voice and accent is thick and strong, which also adds to my interpreting the punk emotion. He is a geezer.
Must I Paint You A Picture? is a compilation of Billy’s music from 1983 through to 2002. It has his solo work, his work with The Blokes and also with Wilco.
The first 9 songs are just Billy with his guitar, which are truly awesome songs.
The range of music is surprising. The folk music is beautiful. A couple of songs are basically pop, which I just can’t get into. Some is a bit reminiscent of The Commitments, which is decent enough.
As this is a 3CD set (it’s actually a double CD with a bonus CD), I would say that there is 2 not quite full CD’s worth of great music and 1 full of music that I wouldn’t listen to.
I bought this album because I didn’t have any Billy Bragg and I felt I was missing out, which I was. This is a great place to start for someone where to start with Billy Bragg’s music.
My favourite song is Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key, a duet with Natalie Merchant (from 10,000 Maniacs). The lyrics to this song were written by Woody Guthrie and his estate comissioned Billy to write music for it to ‘bring it to the younger generation’. Billy then got Wilco in on the act and they did 2 albums, Mermaid Avenue (1 & 2).
The standout tracks are far too many to mention, but if you don’t have any Billy Bragg go out & find this!!
8.5/10
