Talking With the Taxman About Poetry

by Billy Bragg

Talking With the Taxman About Poetry cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: September 1986
  • Label: Go! Discs
  • Country: United States
  • Length: 1:09:36
  • Community rating: 3.8/5 from 9 ratings

Album Notes & Community Reviews

Expanding slightly beyond his purely solo electric guitar sound, Billy Bragg incorporated subtle folk-rock instrumentation and piano flourishes into his deeply political songwriting. The album seamlessly shifts between staunch, socialist protest anthems and incredibly sentimental, poetic love songs. It is a highly conscious, passionately delivered masterpiece of left-wing British folk music.

Genres

Descriptors: folk, political, conscious, socialism, protest, acoustic, male-vocals, personal

Tracklist

  1. Greetings to the New Brunette (3:31)
  2. Train Train (2:12)
  3. The Marriage (2:31)
  4. Ideology (3:27)
  5. Levi Stubbs' Tears (3:31)
  6. Honey, I'm a Big Boy Now (4:07)
  7. There Is Power in a Union (2:48)
  8. Help Save the Youth of America (2:48)
  9. Wishing the Days Away (2:29)
  10. The Passion (2:54)
  11. The Warmest Room (3:57)
  12. The Home Front (4:12)
  13. Sin City (3:34)
  14. Deportees (4:03)
  15. There Is Power in a Union - Instrumental (3:16)
  16. The Tracks of My Tears (2:56)
  17. Wishing the Days Away - Alternative Version (2:32)
  18. The Clashing of Ideologies - Alternative Version (2:52)
  19. Greetings to the New Brunette - Demo (3:57)
  20. A Nurse's Life Is Full of Woe (2:48)
  21. Only Bad Signs (3:10)
  22. Hold the Fort (1:47)

Credits

  • Billy Bragg - primary artist, composed by, performer [everything else], lyrics by
  • Kenny Jones - engineer, percussion [assorted percussion], producer
  • Tim Young - lacquer cut by
  • Wiggy - other [not available due to bus strike]
  • George Shilling - percussion [assorted percussion], tape op, other [tea and biscuits]
  • Hans Praefke - photography by [photograph, berlin]
  • Pennie Smith - photography by [photograph, inner sleeve]
  • John Porter - producer, slide guitar, bass guitar, mandolin
  • Vladimir Mayakovsky - text by [inner sleeve]
  • Peter Tempest - translated by [text, vladimir mayakovsky 1926, inner sleeve]
  • Johnny Marr - electric guitar
  • Simon Moreton - percussion
  • Kirsty MacColl - vocals
  • Zenon De Fleur - composed by
  • Bobby Valentino - violin
  • Dave Woodhead - trumpet, flugelhorn
  • Kenny Craddock - piano, organ
  • Traditional - composed by [tune]

More from Billy Bragg: full discography