Billy Bragg | Sexuality

[Heidi]

Run time: 03:56 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBroT-KrUvU   Posted on YouTube: April 17, 2015 By YouTube Member: YouTube Help Views on YouTube: 7303626   Posted on DU: March 04, 2007 By DU Member: Heidi Views on DU: 884

 
"Your laws do not apply to me. . .we can be what we want to be . . ."

Sexuality | Billy Bragg
I've had relations with girls from many nations
I've made passes at women of all classes
And just because you're gay I won't turn you away
If you stick around I'm sure that we can find some common ground
Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality - Your laws do not apply to me

A nuclear submarine sinks off the coast of Sweden
Headlines give me headaches whem I read them
I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade
He said that some things are really best left unspoken
But I prefer it all to be out in the open
Sexuality - Young and warm and wild and free
Sexuality - Your laws do not apply to me
Sexuality - Don't threaten me with misery
Sexuality - I demand equality

I'm sure that everybody knows how much my body hates me
It lets me down most every time and makes me rash and hasty
I feel a total jerk before your naked body of work
I'm getting weighed down with all this information
Safe sex doesn't mean no sex, it just means use your imagination
Stop playing with yourselves in hard currency hotels
I look like Robert De Niro, I drive a Mitsubishi Zero
Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality - Your laws do not apply to me
Sexuality - Come eat and drink and sleep with me
Sexuality - We can be what we want to be

[Fenris]

1. Yay! Billy Bragg!

:hi:

[Heidi]

4. Have you listened to his CD, "The Internationale"?

Stellar stuff. :thumbsup:

[Fenris]

5. That's my favorite!

:thumbsup:

[Bryan]

2. Love this song

As close as he's ever come to having a US "hit", IIRC-this song was all over college/alternative radio in the early '90s.

[Heidi]

3. Here's a great Tom Robinson Band video:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=7387

[Ken Burch]

6. That's the late, great Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals.

She wrote "They Don't Know", which was a big hit for Tracey Ullman, and was an amazing singer in her own right(check out her album "Electric Landlady" for a good sampling).

Kirsty was also a political radical, involved in Cuba solidarity work among other causes.
Her last album, "Tropical Brainstorm" had a lot of Cuban-influenced music

here's a sample of that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMY7FxMhVrE

Kirsty also sang the immortal "Fairytale of New York" duet with Shane MacGowan and the Pogues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5JjCMvqUvw&mode=related&search=


She was killed in Mexico in 2000 when a rich guy drove his boat into an area of water reserved for singers. Kirsty saw the boat coming, pushed her sons out of the way(they'd been scubadiving)but couldn't get out of the way herself. The rich guy got one of his employees to take the rap and the employee got a minimal sentence.

Her mother, Jean MacColl, runs a fund called Justice For Kirsty (http://www.justiceforkirsty.org/) and is working to bring her killer to justice. Send her a couple of bucks if can spare them. A good singer was lost and justice has so far not been done.

[Ken Burch]

7. Oh geez, I just realized...

That line should've read "an area of water reserved for SWIMMERS". oops.