Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs' Tears

From A Videological Cuddle, a 1991 press kit for "Don't Try This at Home," the music video for the song from "Talking with the Taxman About Poetry"

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Billy
• Bragg
• punk
• folk

[purplesparks1]

@deljzc I'm 17 and Billy's politics, integrity and plain, impassioned speech resonates with me and many other members of "today's youth", probably more so for those of us who know his work than his original audience in some cases - simply because we've grown up in a fast-paced, flashing lights world where advertisers have shoveled bullshit down our throats from the moment we could open our mouths. Bragg's character & politics are refreshing because his open attitude is what is so lacking today!

[ppattley]

"Put a hole in her body where no hole should be" is probably one of the most haunting lines i've ever heard in a song.

[verilyveritas]

Bleeding heart leftist politics makes for good song lyrics, that's for sure! Incredible and memorable song about a girl who is an ongoing victim of her own bad choices - to leave home, to hook up with a loser, to squander the proceeds of her accident on a mobile home so she could get some enjoyment out of being alone....(sigh)... makes you feel sorry for her plight...

[perrystownTV]

though they stiched her back together , they left her heart in pieces on the floor....

[MrSiddeney]

@dublinpeter1 God forbid some irish people do that to him too.....

[7gazzad]

@csavronsk This is what I was lead to believe, I stand to be corrected. Levi Stubbs was the front man of the Four Tops (Motown band), who sometimes whilst singing shed tears. The lady in Billy's song saw them in concert and that moment was one of the most special moment in her life. Hope I'm right.

[HenryWaltonJonesII]

Russell Crowes favourite song!I know,he's a wanker but he's got great taste in music!!!Genius!!Not Russell,BILLY!!

[dublinpeter1]

billy bragg new england. hope he is enjoying it. his politics stinks. hope hes battered by a gang of muslims and left black and blue. and then go and live next door to them. fucking wanker.

[brucebut1]

seen a million guys do this kind of thing,&die on their arses! mr bragg can do it because of his connections,surely!

[csavronsk]

can actually explain me somebody what the song is about? why levi stubbs tears? what has he to do with the song?

[Infecti0nrock]

When the world falls apart, Billy Bragg will still be standing in place. Probably singing the songs we need to hear to put it back together again.

[jayfookinkay]

'when they stitched her back together... they left her heart in pieces on the floor'.... if you consider how old bragg was when he wrote this, and the wonderfully insightful and (female) empathy of the lyrics, i can't understand why he is not more broadly recognised for the utter genius that he clearly is. billy has enriched my life in many ways. god bless him.