Manic Street Preachers front-man James Dean Bradfield has acknowledged a debt to the Billy Bragg song, To Have and To Have Not for early inspiration.
In today’s Observer, the musician recalls how seeing it being done by Billy Bragg made him realise that he too could write songs with relatively simple lyrics.
“This reminds me of that lonely summer in between comprehensive and college, where you see people everywhere with girlfriends, and learning how to drive, and you don’t feel as if you’re going anywhere yourself," declares Bradfield in the Soundtrack to My Life column.
“Up in the morning and out to school…” It sounds a bit adolescent, but sometimes the songs that really affect you are the ones that mainline into your soul as a teenager.
"It gave me some hope. This song made me feel like I could take on the world to a certain degree. We’d written our first song in 1985 and hearing this made me realise: 'Wow, you can write a song with quite basic ingredients.'"
The musician also picks songs by soul queen Nina Simone, metal high kings Guns ‘n Roses, 70s pop merchants Badfinger and a song from 1980s indie act McCarthy.
Watch Billy Bragg perform To Have and To Have Not in Germany in 1985.
