A really nice comment piece in the i newspaper today from Billy Bragg in which he talks about music having the power to heal the wounds of Brexit. He writes: “Although the Leave campaign was victorious in the EU referendum, the slim margin of their victory undermines their claim to speak for the British people as a whole. Brexit has split the country into warring camps, who seem only able to respond to one another with, at best, indifference and, at worse, outright abuse. How can we overcome our hostility and start rebuilding a society at ease with itself? How musicians can help ‘We seem to be in the midst of a war on empathy’ I believe musicians have a role to play in this process. Music has the ability to make you see things from another perspective, to feel for the plight of someone you have never met, in whose situation you have never found yourself.”
You can read the whole piece over at the i website and in the meantime, here’s one of Billy’s slightly less conciliatory finest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlkXQm7tSCY