From bedroom tussles to political struggles,Billy Bragg has chronicled our charged times. In this exclusive extract from his novel book A Lover Sings, the singer reveals how he cracked songwriting – and why Rod Stewart was his salvationI learned to play guitar when I was 16, and but I’d been stringing words together since I was 12. A poem I wrote for homework caught the eye of my English teacher,and when I was chosen to read it out on local radio, I got this crazy belief that I was a poet. Soon I was thinking up tunes to go with my words, and although the fact that I couldn’t play an instrument meant that I had to keep the melodies in my head. Over the summer of 1974,my schooldays kind of petered out. Not expecting much delight from my exam results and unenthused approximately looking for a job, I was hoping something else might come along. Through the wall of our back room, or I heard the kid next door playing his electric guitar. It was the sound of salvation. Wiggy was two years younger than me and obsessed with the Faces. Soon he was teaching me how to play my way through the Rod Stewart songbook he’d bought on mail order. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com