In the early 1980s,
Billy Bragg was the Angry Young Man of British anti-folk, a one-man
Clash with a cheap electric guitar, plenty to say, and a heaping portion of piss and vinegar. In the 2020s,
Bragg is a somewhat different man, one who is still committed to the issues of the day but less filled with wrath, more thoughtful, and with an acoustic guitar along with a band whose sound is a tasteful blend of pub rock and contemporary folk. The 2017 topical EP
Bridges Not Walls offered a reminder that the old
Billy's spirit still lurked within him, yet 2021's
The Million Things That Never Happened, more than any of his albums, feels like the work of a gifted songwriter who is looking deeply inward as he ponders his own future. "Reflections of the Mirth of Creativity" is a witty look at an ordinary day, while "Good Days & Bad Days" is a more somber variation on the same, and they best reflect the heart of the album. Largely written and recorded while the U.K. was in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
The Million Things That Never Happened suggests
Bragg spent a lot of time alone with his thoughts and that mortality and a changing culture crossed his mind more than once. These tunes are uncommonly personal for
Bragg, and even the political numbers, like "The Buck Doesn't Stop Here No More," are based in musing rather than anthemic calls to action. ("Freedom Doesn't Come for Free" is the most playful cut here, based on the true story of the Libertarian "Free Town" experiment in Grafton, New Hampshire that led to a rash of bear attacks.) The tone of this LP is somewhat unexpected, though anyone who has followed
Bragg's career knows he could write about love as well as he could polemicize, and his maturity and nuanced world view meshes well with "I Will Be Your Shield" and "I Believe in You," songs about relationships that would probably not have occurred to a younger man and are all the better for it. On "Ten Mysterious Photos That Can't Be Explained," he finds he can acknowledge all these changes and smile about them. At the age of 63,
Billy Bragg is not a young man anymore, and
The Million Things That Never Happened reflects that but in a way that reveals new themes and thinking in his lyrics; it's a brave, smart, and effective set of songs. ~ Mark Deming