My thinking was that if everyone is zigging and you’re zagging, you’re going to find your people. Nobody was doing it at the time – it was the era of the New Romantics – but it didn’t stop me. That balance between hardcore politics, electric guitar solos and emotional vulnerability was unique. I also had a vulnerable side that I wanted to express. That being said, testosterone can come in handy if used in the right way – it was the thing that got me in the army, and then got me up on stage to take on an audience. Even just going down to the pub involved confronting a lot of testosterone. Growing up wasn’t always easy – there was a period in my late school years where there was too much violence around me in Barking. It reinvented me from an anxious teenager called Stephen, to a songwriter called Billy Bragg. Music made a massive impact on my identity. I couldn’t carry much stuff and wasn’t thinking about my clothes I’m a content over style type of geezer, so I only needed my DMs, jeans and a jacket. It was a hit-and-run type of tour where I’d play and then get straight on a train to the next place, opening for the Icicle Works and New Model Army, and occasionally doing a solo show. My first album had been released, John Peel had played one of my sessions, and I was starting to build a fanbase. I was schlepping from my flat in west London to the north of England with a guitar, an amp and a bag when this photograph was taken.
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