32 Songs - Track 25
Levi Stubbs' Tears - Billy Bragg
Levi Stubbs' tears run down his face
I've often wondered why i am so enthralled by culture. Why do i enhale writings, sounds, pictures, shapes and all their combinations like they are oxygen? The best reason i've come up with is because it is a sharing experience. To be able to introduce someone to something new is one of the great pleasures of my life the other is discovering something new.
Drama Teacher Ernie Glass, Oscar to my father's Felix, played me Billy Bragg on a cold, dark night while a glass of mead warmed my insides. A better introduction to the singer/songwriter i don't think i could imagine. And on that night it was Levi Stubbs' Tears that really got inside me.
Bragg's song of the life, if you can call it that, of a woman is one of the most mournful things i have heard. To this day i refer to it as 'the saddest song in the world' and every time i hear it i almost have the same reaction as Levi Stubbs himself.
Strangely enough the song is also responsible for one of my great wishes, that one day i will be able to play the trumpet solo during the song on stage. A moment of happiness from something so sad, i wonder what Billy would think of that.
