Musician and activist Billy Bragg spoke with host Zach McCormick about his song “City of Heroes,” dedicated to the city of Minneapolis, and shared words of support to Minnesota as resistance continues all across the state.

Listen to the full interview in the player above, and find a complete transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Zach McCormick: Zach McCormick on The Current, joined on the phone right now by Billy Bragg, who is talking to us from his home. His new single, "City of Heroes," is out now. Billy, you are a Brit that has always been incredibly engaged in the sort of social and cultural issues of the United States. When did you first become aware of the effects that ICE's presence was having on the Twin Cities?

Billy Bragg: It's been something that I've kept an eye on. Minneapolis, The Twin Cities, have always been a very special place for me. You know, there's a certain sensibility there that aligns with mine, my kind of progressive views. Since I first came in 1985, I've probably played in your city 20 times, and I feel it's like family, you know, it's kind of like a bit of a respite from the madness of the road where you're meeting strangers all the time. You come to Minneapolis and there's friends there that you've known for 40 years, so to see the city being laid siege to by Donald Trump's goons was a real concern to me. And I knew immediately why he picked on Minneapolis, why Minneapolis was going to be punished, really, for taking a stand, not just with regard to Trump, but with regard to immigration and bringing strangers in, and the whole sensibility with Minneapolis, the Twin Cities. So yeah, I've been keeping my eye on that very much, and talking to friends there about what it's been like.

Zach McCormick: You can immediately tell from the words of "City of Heroes" that this song comes from a place of genuine empathy. Can you take me back to those first few moments when you found out about the killing of Alex Pretti and then how you decided to translate those raw emotions into the building blocks of a song?

Billy Bragg: Much the same as everybody else, I learned on Saturday afternoon here, U.K. time. My son texted me in horror, saying something along the lines of: “My God, they're executing people in the street now.” And I'm like, wow. That was Saturday night here. Sunday morning, I saw a post by an old friend of mine, a guy named Steve Rapport, who I knew when he lived in the U.K., was a rock photographer, and he came in my feed with a post he made that was incredibly powerful, incredibly emotional. I didn't know, but Steve's mother was a Holocaust survivor. She was a child when she was taken from the Lodz ghetto in Poland in 1940. And she wrote a 40-page memoir that Steve was reading from a description of how her father, Steve's grandfather, as they were being taken from their homes by the SS, a woman stumbled, a pregnant woman stumbled, and Steve's grandfather went forward to help her, and the SS set upon him in a way, for Steve, that was played out exactly the same with Alex Pretti. I think it really triggered something in Steve to see that, and his post was incredibly passionate, and it really stayed with me all day.

And then I thought to myself something is different. What's different between what happened to Steve's mother and grandfather, and what's happening in Minneapolis, is the people of Minneapolis have put themselves in the way, they have stood between the oppressor and the oppressed in a way that never happened in Poland or anywhere really, where the Nazis went. Why is that? What was different? Why were the people of Poland so inhumane that they didn't react in the way that people are reacting, not just in Minneapolis and Minnesota, but all over America? And I think the reason is, is because they didn't have the lesson of history that we have from the Nazis. We know where this kind of treatment leads to, we all of us know it. We grow up, the most offensive words and the most offensive accusations in our culture — Nazi genocide, antisemitism, the words that people fight over viciously — all come from the same place, they come from Nazism in the 1940s. And so, it occurred to me that what is different is that the people in Minneapolis are standing up. And I thought that was something that kind of made me feel, not better about things, but I found it inspirational, not just because of what people were doing, but also because it meant that the awful fate of Steve's family was not in vain. Their extermination is what's in the back of the minds of those people who are standing in the streets in Minneapolis and elsewhere in United States of America.

And so, it wasn't much of a small step then to be reminded of Martin Niemöller’s famous poem: "When they came for the communists, I said nothing, because I was not a communist" and so on. You know, "When they came for me, there was no one to speak." So I thought, you know, it's different in Minneapolis, when people come for the Somalis, when people come for the Muslims, when people come for the immigrants, they're standing up. They're getting in the face of the oppressor.

Zach McCormick: I'm talking to Billy Bragg right now, Zach McCormick here from The Current. We're talking about his new single, "City of Heroes." In your statement about the song, you described the community resistance that you've seen to ICE's presence as an inspiration to us all. Would you be willing to kind of expand upon what you found inspiring about the Twin Cities, meaning this particular moment, and the way that the city has responded?

Billy Bragg: It's very easy to be a bystander for this, and you're in a situation in your country where the government are trying to encourage people to be bystanders, to look the other way, as Martin Niemöller did. Some people have said, and I think it's shameful that they said it, that if he'd only have stayed away, if he'd only have kept quiet, if he'd only have not confronted ICE. Well, you know, Martin Niemöller kept quiet. Martin Niemöller didn't confront the Nazis. Martin Niemöller ended up in Dachau, and when he went to Dachau, there was no one to come in the street and say, "Hang on" — it was a pastor, he was a Protestant pastor, “You shouldn't be putting this guy in jail.” I believe it actually comes from Holocaust studies that there's a series of categories of people in this situation when lawlessness has happened, and particularly when it's happening to a minority group, and the categories that have been developed are perpetrators, bystanders, upstanders, resistors and rescuers. And I think if you see that in the context of the Holocaust, you can also see it in the context of what's happening in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti is a rescuer. He physically went there to help that woman get up. Renee Good is a resistor, she was trying to stop what was going on. So what role do we have, those of us who are not there in Minneapolis? Well, we can be upstanders. We can stand up and express our support for the people in Minneapolis. And I think that's something that’s possible to do from a distance, and it does have an effect.

You know, this week, Bruce Springsteen has stood up, and that has generated a whole amount of discussion and commitment and solidarity for people there, for every band that does it, for everyone who writes something online, for everyone who gets in touch with their congresswoman or congressman or senator, you're being an upstander. You're taking a stand. So in that sense, music has a role to play in this situation; not to solve it, but to send a message to the people on the streets of Minneapolis that they are seen and that their resistance is inspirational to us all. That’s what I was trying to say in the song itself.  In this last week, people in the Twin Cities have proved Trump wrong, proved the MAGA idea wrong, that nobody cares, that empathy is toxic. Makes me want to say very foul words when I hear people say that; I'm not going to say it on air because I respect your program. But as someone who believes that empathy is the currency of music, that what we're offering people is a sense of connection, a sense of compassion by asking them to listen to our song and hear the story in the song and feel some empathy for it. It aggrieves me greatly when people say empathy is a new age word, invented — and no, it's not. It's the absolute fundamental basis of my politics. And always has been. If socialism isn't organized empathy, I don't know what it is.

Zach McCormick: I'm talking to Billy Bragg right now, Zach McCormick here from The Current. We’re talking about his new single, “City of Heroes.” I hear it echoed in the words that you were just saying there, the importance of bearing witness. It's in the final lines of the song, “I will bear witness.” And you describe different things that you will bear witness to, including fascism. I love how that ties into the cover art that you chose for the single as well. It's this super simple photograph of a protester in the Twin Cities holding a sign that says, “All of your favorite bands hate fascism.” And it was taken by a local scribe, a local singer-songwriter, a guy named Jim Walsh. Can you just talk about why you chose that photo, and maybe a little bit about that concept?

Billy Bragg: Sure, of course. Let me just say that Jim has been a friend of mine since the first day I stepped foot in Minneapolis. He, at the time was, I'm not even sure if he was working in First Avenue, but he certainly had some connection with First Avenue. And he asked him — I was coming in, I was playing the 7th Street Entry, this being February 1985 — and he said to Steve [Kramer], who used to run First Avenue, “Is anyone going out to meet Braggy?” And he said, “No, no, he's only playing The Entry.” So, Jim and his brother Jay came and met me unannounced at the airport, like a couple of fans, and kind of showed us around town. And ever since I've come back to the city, I've hung out with him. I had a great time with him last time we were in town.

He's been texting me, we’ve been talking via text about what's been happening, and he sent me that photograph from the day of the strike, which I think was last Friday, a week ago. And he sent me that brilliant photograph. I was like, “Oh, yeah, that is absolutely it.” So when I wrote the song and I'm looking for an image, I'm like, "Jim, listen, man, you gotta let me use your image, please, can I use that image?" Because it seems to me to sum up a lot about the way music has a role to play in this. So, I've been using that image. And on Facebook, the guy holding the sign posted on Facebook, “It's me!” So that's just brilliant.

But yeah, as I say, it needed an image like that. It needed an image of humanity. That guy and the other guy standing next to him saying, "Minnesota Loves Immigrants" on his sign. I wanted humanity rather than ICE thugs, rather than violence, rather than martyrs. I wanted something with the humanity, not just of the people of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the people of Minnesota, but the people of the United States of America. It's been my privilege to come to your country for the last 40 years, and I refuse to accept that America is a country where people don't feel empathy for one another. I refuse to accept that America is not a country where people believe in the universal nature of human rights, because that's the America that I've certainly connected with. I realize I’ve come in a privileged position, and that the people that like my music are those kind of people, but generally, around outside, I've found that most Americans, like most people in the U.K., believe that people should be treated with fairness and respect. I'm not about to give up on the people of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Minnesota or the United States of America, and that guy in that picture kind of was representing all those things to me.

Zach McCormick: Thank you, Billy. I just got one more question for you here about the song, and maybe advice writ large for the movement here. As an artist who spent many years on the front lines of issues like this one, I was wondering if you could share any advice or inspiration about how to sustain the momentum of a movement, especially in issues that could be a long haul. You've been on the front lines of stuff like this for years. How do you keep that momentum going?

Billy Bragg: I think ultimately, you have to organize together with one another. Who is playing the most important role in this? Is it the people who are physically putting themselves in the way, or is it the people who are turning up with coffee and donuts for the people who put themselves there? It's everyone. It's everyone. All of us. Me and Bruce as well. We all have a role to play. Yourselves at the station there. We all have a role to play in this fight, because it is really us and them. And they, just as they were in Nazi Germany, are a tiny fraction. Only 3% of people took part in the Holocaust, in perpetrating the Holocaust; it was a tiny number of people. And likewise, the situation in the United States of America with ICE, they are a tiny number of people, and it seems that they don't have the support they think they have out there. They're taking it for granted. But generally people are recognizing that what's happening in the United States of America is not the sort of thing that should be happening there. I mean, you'll be celebrating your 250th anniversary. And I know from my experience coming to America that generally, broadly, most Americans are very proud of being the longest democracy in the world. And they recognize that what's happening at the moment is driving away from that idea.

And we all see that around the world. We see that, and we see you, and we see you struggling. And we, all of us, hope that those people who believe in universal rights will prevail, because the alternative to universal rights, the alternative to every individual having the same basic fundamental rights, no matter where they come from, no matter what their ethnicity or their religion, the alternative to that is what went on before. And what went on before was the idea that “might is right.” And I think around all of the liberal democracies at the moment, America is not alone in facing the struggle, but in all of our liberal democracies, those “might is right” people, those people who are going to do this to you just because they can, some places they're getting the upper hand. “Might is right” is the closest I suppose, the Trump administration have to a driving ethos. And they call them post-liberals, but this is actually pre-liberal. This is before the idea of human rights came together. And your Constitution, your Declaration of Independence that talked about “We hold these truths to be self evident that all people,” they would have said, if they were doing it now, “are created equal,” and that idea of creating an ever perfect union. Well, you're not there yet. You know that. You all know that, of course you know that. It's a work in progress. America, like British democracy, is a work in progress.

But if we are true to ourselves and true to our neighbors, and we learn the lessons of history from people like Martin Niemöller, then those people who suffered before us will not have suffered in vain, because when you come and stand in the streets with the people of Minneapolis, St. Paul or wherever you are in the United States of America, and you come and stand in the streets, you're becoming part of a great tradition of freedom fighters who took a stand against brutality, against the forces of “might is right” and a stand for humanity. And that's our hope. That's all we have as humanity is we have hope, hope in the future. And I see that on the streets of Minneapolis with the whistles and the phones and the donuts and the coffee. That’s the front line at the moment. And I think the tide is flowing your way. And I'm really proud of that, I'm proud to be a friend of the city of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and I look forward very much to coming and playing there sometime in the coming years.

Zach McCormick: Billy Bragg, thank you so much for your words of solidarity. Your awesome new song, "City of Heroes," is out now, and you'll be joining us stateside at the Solid Sound Fest with Wilco in Massachusetts in June. Billy Bragg, thank you so much for joining us today on The Current.

Billy Bragg: Thank you very much, Zach.

Credits

Guest – Billy Bragg
Host – Zach McCormick
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Digital Producer - Natalia Toledo

External Link

Billy Bragg – official site