Billy Bragg: Help Save the Youth of America: Live and Dubious (1986)

For some reason, Help Save the Youth of America is one of my favourite Billy Bragg releases, which is odd, because it is an EP and it contains a song that I hate. Allmusic describes Chile Your Waters Run Red Through Soweto as "an a cappella tour de force..." I really dislike the song.

On the other hand, Help Save the Youth of America is a fantastic song, though perhaps a bit dated. It's interesting to hear him sing that song to a Russian audience when the cold war was still ongoing.

And the cities of Europe have burned before
And they may yet burn again
And if they do I hope you understand
That Washington will burn with them
Omaha will burn with them
Los Alamos will burn with them

Bragg covers Think Again, the Dick Gaughan song. I've always appreciated that track, though there are moments when the lyrics are frankly way too simplistic.

Do you think that the Russians want war?
These are the parents of children who died in the last one
Do you think that it's possible, knowing their past
That they'd ever consider repeating the last
When 20 million were slaughtered by Nazi invasion?
They died fighting on our side, you know,
In a fight to defend humankind
Against Nazi terror and hatred

In the name of humanity, bitterly torn
In the name of our children as yet to be born
Before we do that which can never be undone I beg of you
Think, think again, and again and again and again and again

Do you think that the Russians want war?
They're the sons and the daughters of parents who died in the last one
Do you think that they'd want to go through that again
The destruction, the bloodshed, the suffering and pain?
In the second world war out of every three dead one was Russian
If we try with all of our power
Can we not find a way
To peacefully settle our difference?

Do you think that the Russians want war?
Will the voice of insanity lead you to total destruction?
Will you stumble to death as though you were blind?
Will you cause the destruction of all humankind?
Will you die because you don't like their political system?
There will be no survivors you know
No one left to scream in the night
And condemn our stupidity

The line "They died fighting on our side, you know" is really misleading. I think we can say that we shared a common enemy, but Stalin's war aims were certainly not shared in the west and vice versa.

Of all of the tracks, Days Like These (D.C. Remix) is perhaps the most dated. On this EP, the lyrics are largely rewritten adding references to El Salvador and Reagan: "It's no bloody consolation if Reagan cannot run again." But, the song resonated with me at the time and it remains one of my favourite Bragg tracks.