What a great show! I just saw Jakob Dylan on Mountain Stage, and it is a fantastic place to hear new music. Didn't expect Billy Bragg to show up, what a treat. I'm going to feature this show on my website nightflypress.com where I feature a really cool show out of the archive every week. LONG LIVE The Internet Archive!

This Mountain Stage show was my first exposure to Billy Bragg, and I was slightly disappointed to find out later that the commercially-available lyrics of "Marching Song of the Covert Battalions" and "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards" weren't the same as these versions, which are funnier, edgier and more Gulf-War-1 topical than the mass-produced recorded ones.

What's ironic fifteen years later is how applicable many of his comments and lyrics are to the second Gulf War and to the son as well as the father.

However, Bragg's charm and political bent come out beautifully, and anyone who is interested in the works of this self-declared British Socialist and brilliant songwriter owes it to themselves to hear these versions of some of his best early work.