Talking With the Taxman About Poetry With Bonus CD (Bonus Tracks)

Album Review

The cover to Billy Bragg's Talking with the Taxman About Poetry features the subtitle "the difficult third album," and while it's obviously meant as a joke, there's also a certain truth to the statement — after two EPs and a full-length album that rarely featured anything other than Bragg's voice and electric guitar, Talking with the Taxman found him (and producers John Porter and Kenny Jones) trying to add a bit of polish to Bragg's stark approach without losing either the charm of his performances or the power of his political statements. While nearly all the tracks on Talking with the Taxman feature Bragg alongside other musicians (among them Johnny Marr and Kirsty MacColl), the arrangements are purposefully spare, and ultimately they sweeten the songs without getting in the way of Bragg's homey melodies or passionate lyrics. However, as a songwriter, Bragg's heart was a bit stronger than his head on this album; while Talking with the Taxman features several of his best love songs (such as "The Marriage," "Greetings to the New Brunette," and "Wishing the Days Away") and some superb character studies ("Levi Stubbs' Tears" and "The Passion"), the political numbers are unexpectedly strident and obvious, especially the clumsy "Ideology" and "Help Save the Youth of America," though "The Home Front" is almost strong enough to compensate. Talking with the Taxman About Poetry proved that Bragg could take his music in a new direction and still hold on to the qualities that made his songs so special; too bad his political instincts were not as keen as his musical ones at the time. In 2006, Yep Roc Records released an expanded edition of the album featuring a bonus CD with ten tracks, six of which are unreleased outtakes from the Taxman sessions. Covers and alternate takes dominate the extras disc, and include compelling versions of Smokey Robinson's "The Tracks of My Tears" and Woody Guthrie's "Deportees," as well as subtle and simpler takes of "Ideology" and "Greetings to the New Brunette," both of which boast different lyrics. Only two otherwise unheard Billy Bragg songs surface here, the spare and downbeat "Only Bad Signs" and "A Nurse's Life Is Full of Woe," both of which sound like they would have fit comfortably on Brewing Up with Billy Bragg. The bonus material doesn't make Talking with The Taxman any more or less "difficult," but it does suggest the album's more elaborate approach was as much a matter of choosing the material as the way the songs were arranged and recorded.