"The really weird thing was that an hour or two later, they got a call at the South Bank from Buckingham Palace: 'Could the queen possibly have a copy of the score. "But we actually met in the lineup after the show, and she gave me a look like: 'What the bloody hell are you doing here? Of all people, you, Braggy?' "The queen and I don't often cross paths," Bragg dryly notes. But then they told me they were going to do it again, for the queen, and that's when it all started getting a bit 'through the looking glass.' "We performed it once for the reopening ceremony, which, let me tell you, was a trip. This is, after all, the man who sang, "Take down the Union Jack it clashes with the sunset." That Bragg, a confirmed socialist and vehement anti-Tory whose resurrection of Woody Guthrie via his Mermaid Avenue collaborations with Wilco redefined modern folk, would be chosen for such a momentous undertaking says everything about the former "one-man Clash"s current status in his beloved Britannia. "Well, they wanted someone to write a new lyric, so they called upon me!" "They were reopening the refurbished Royal Festival Hall last year with a performance by 1,500 amateur choristers and the London Symphonia performing Beethoven's Ode to Joy," recalls Bragg. He didn't want to change the world, and he wasn't looking for a new England. Where does the time go? He was 21 when he wrote that song, and he's 50 now. Love & Justice, which he's proclaimed his "career-defining statement." In the 25 years since his opening agit-folk cri de coeur "A New England," lovesick balladeer Billy Bragg's risen to "national treasure" status in his native UK, penned a book ( The Progressive Patriot: A Search for Belonging), and released his first studio album in six years, the disarmingly brilliant Mr.
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