milkman of human kindness

Here are the lyrics:

If you're lonely, I will call -
If you're poorly, I will send poetry

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

If you're sleeping, I will wait
If your bed is wet, I will dry your tears

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

Hold my hand for me I'm waking up
Hold my hand for me I'm waking up
Hold my hand for me I'm making up
Won't you hold my hand - I'm making up

If you are falling, I'll put out my hands
If you feel bitter, I will understand

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

Here is a picture of Billy Bragg:

http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~matt/choir/billy_bragg.gif

MY favourite from this era is The Saturday Boy

There has been a lot of talk about this song recently.

First: they use it under a report about the decline of the Milkman on 'Home Truths' a couple of weeks ago. I find myself thinking how good it sounds, and wishing I hadn't sold/taped over/lost all my old Billy Bragg records. (They all went out the winda in my Red Wedge -> Blissed Out aesthete late 80s volte face)

Second: I meet the Pinefox on a train into London Bridge at the weekend and we comment on the charming dolorous clang of early Bragg.

Third: I meet a friend in a restaurant later that day, and she recounts the same experience of hearing Bragg on 'Home Truths' - except she still had her old Bragg records and could bask again in their simple pleasures.

Following this flurry of Braggolatory I was moved to download a few of those old 'Back to Basics' tracks - and I find them thrilling again. In fact, I probably like them more now than all that shoegazy stuff I originally gave them up for.

Taste is a funny thing.

"charming dolorous clang" = three words which sum up Mr Bragg better than any other. I'm a very recent convert to the Church of Braggology but boy is he fantastic.

My wife screams like a vengeful, exhorting kettle whistle of utter, abject damnation every time I go near the stereo with a Billy Bragg disc, so I'm afraid I'll have to sit this one out. I remember liking it, though.

Good song, good songwriter. But as a performer, Bragg is such an annoyance. He never shuts the fuck up. I saw him 15 years ago and he preached politics for more than half the show.
More recently, I caught him on television playing his (and Wilco's) version of Woody Guthrie's "Ingrid Bergman." Great song, but he completely ruined it by rolling his eyes and making other coy facial gestures during key lyrical passages.
We get the rather obvious double entendre, Billy. There was no need to underline it for us.
It reminds me of why "Sex and the City" sucks so much: After one of the girls says something funny, they actually have the other characters laughing (sometimes the camera even pans around the table to each of them). Which immediately makes the joke NOT FUNNY.

"My wife screams like a vengeful, exhorting kettle whistle of utter, abject damnation every time I go near the stereo with a Billy Bragg disc, so I'm afraid I'll have to sit this one out. I remember liking it, though. "

Ha ha Alex, my wife had an even better response:
"Is this a friend?"

The real milkman of human kindness:

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/01.08.98/gifs/comics-9801.gif

All together now:

"I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!"

REID FLEMING!!!

I think I've told this story before, but back in 1988, I went to a GWAR show at City Gardens in Trenton, NJ. (GWAR's opening band was Mudhoney—ah, how indie-rock fortunes rose and fell in those days.) Anyway, since the show was on 10/28 or thereabouts, and it was a GWAR show, thus conducive to costumery, there was a Halloween costume contest. And the winner was dressed as...you guessed it...Reid Fleming.

World's Toughtest Milkman!

But back on topic, I agree, early Bragg (all the stuff from Life's a Riot..., for example, plus a lot of Back to Basics and Talking with the Taxman...) is a wonder to behold. "Charming dolorous clang", exactly. I always loved how he combined his politics with this completely endearing, everyman tenderness. Sure, he talked a lot live, but it was occasionally funny, like his haranguing of Canada at the Commodore in Vancouver for unleashing Bryan Adams' "Everything I Do..." on the UK charts (what, 16 weeks at #1 or something?). Admittedly, I also saw him earlier than that, in England, during the miner's strike, in scab-filled Nottingham, and it got somewhat ugly, as you might imagine.

Reid Fleming WORLD'S TOUGHEST MILKMAN!!!!!!! awesome!