Billy Bragg is one of pop's great communicators. Hailed as The Bard of Barking, he was one of socialism's loudest voices during the Thatcher years - a period which left him stereotyped as something of an obsessed evangelist for the left. He will, of course, remind you that he also wrote many songs about love and sex, but it was the politics which drove his unique presence on the scene, and it was the politics which gave it all that admirable fire.
Still ready to debate and discuss, Bragg is even more interesting now that, like the rest of the British left, he has been left wondering what exactly has happened to the cause. He knows only too well that the audience for his version of Internationale has dwindled dramatically in Labour circles. What an artist like Bragg produces in circumstances like these may well turn out to be his best work - a touch of bewilderment being not necessarily a bad thing.
Maybe that's why, in recent years, Bragg has focused on the undiminished spirit of Woody Guthrie. Along with the American group Wilco, Bragg has released two albums of Guthrie's music in a unique and very successful project - Mermaid Avenue I and II. To say that he is somehow possessed by the spirit of Guthrie would be perhaps a bit strong, but Bragg is certainly talking like a man possessed. He speaks of Guthrie with both reverence and a sort of friendly iconoclasm, and, in Guthrie's presence, tends to refer to himself in the third person.
"Having been around this long, people kind of figure they know what Billy Bragg is, and what the Billy Bragg brand-name stands for. So to get a project which opens lots of different avenues is a great thing. Firstly to collaborate with Woody and also to work with a band like Wilco. Working with someone else's vision and then to construct it in collaboration with musicians who work in a different way from me is quite a mine opening. How that's going to affect my own songwriting I can't really tell you until I record my next record. The other thing is that like most people outside the US, I got into Woody Guthrie because I got into Bob Dylan. So I think you have to see Woody Guthrie as the founding father of the tradition which I am very much part of - the polemical, political songwriter."
Born in Barking, East London, Bragg was surprisingly late in coming to the politics: he claims he didn't even vote in the 1979 general election. His views were galvanised, however, by his distaste for Margaret Thatcher and the impact of her policies on the welfare state. Before long, he was an important and articulate representative of the left, heavily courted by a struggling Labour which badly needed the youth vote. Bragg (and others) decided to help out and did his bit as part of Red Wedge - a group of pop musicians who attempted to present socialism as a real alternative and encourage Britain's young people to vote Kinnock.
These, of course, were not the politics of pop success. But the curious thing was that, despite being mocked by those who preferred Wham! - and even despite being threatened by the record industry itself for insisting that Brewing Up with Billy Bragg should sell for no more than £2.99 - Bragg did actually manage to become a pop star, and made many memorable appearances on Top of the Pops.
His success was some vindication at least for Bragg's belief that a pop singer should write songs which reflect the times he lives in. And that perhaps raises some questions about the Woody Guthrie project. There are doubtless fan-base fears that maybe he has nothing of his own to sing about these days, and there are presumably fans out there who can't wait for Bragg to return to singing the thoughts of Billy Bragg (as opposed to the thoughts of Woody).
"Well I would guess that once I don't have to explain the Woody project to my audience, that I will be able to seamlessly go from The Milkman of Human Kindness into She Came Along to Me. The thing with other people's songs is that you always have their version to compare with - but as these songs weren't like that (there were no other versions as Guthrie never recorded them) they're kind of like my songs at the moment. They don't actually belong to me but I'm becoming synonymous with a song like Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key. It's a bit like Dionne Warwick and all those Bacharach and David songs. When I first played these songs they were Woody Guthrie songs, but now they're like Billy Bragg songs. But yes, I have some new songs and they're about subjects I haven't dealt with before like national identity. And Dublin will be the first time I'll have played them outside of England."
Bragg refers to the Guthrie project as "a collaboration". Although Guthrie is long dead, he saw it as an opportunity to work directly with Guthrie himself - someone Bragg describes as the first singer-songwriter. The notion had come from Woody's daughter, Nora, who thought it would be a good idea to get these songs out of the archive and onto the radio. And it was her inspired move to give them to Bragg and Wilco - page after page of complete lyrics waiting for music. Some had explanatory notes suggesting tempo ("supersonic boogie" was one such suggestion) but otherwise it was entirely up to Bragg and Wilco to do what they thought best. That said, these were songs, in Guthrie's own handwriting, which had been heavily protected for 45 years. Bragg was well aware of the weight of it all as he donned the white gloves in the West 57th Street archive.
"Yes, but the important thing was that Nora didn't choose someone who was a Woody Guthrie fanatic. Yes, I was scared and daunted but we got guidance and inspiration from her and she said just not to worry about the legend of Woody Guthrie but just to listen to the voice in the archive. So our remit was to collaborate with Woody. If I had gone in there and tried to play like Woody, it would have been a tribute record - an imitation, not a collaboration. My feelings were not only to bring music of my own but also to bring influences of my own. I can't undo the fact that I heard the first Clash record or The Basement Tapes by The Band. So I wasn't trying to be faithful to anything but these lyrics - to put them in the best possible light and make them most accessible to the largest number of people. That was my aim. It was like making frames for beautiful paintings."
Billy Bragg plays Vicar Street, Dublin tonight