Billy Bragg Quotes

When punk really started to happen, it was a reaction against the disco craze of the time.

Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s.

So many big magazines just dissed the whole punk thing as nothing, but really, it was a big thing. It really changed, and that's what we wanted to do - change the system.

Punk is not dead. Punk will only die when corporations can exploit and mass produce it.

All punk rockers hate Christmas.

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

There is something familial about punk. There is something positive. Even though some punk is destructive, nihilistic, explosive.

I love punks!

All punk is is attitude. That's what makes it. The attitude.

Not long ago, a hat was a conformist accessory. Then the 1960s came along, and young people didn't want to wear hats.

When the punk thing came along and I heard my friends saying, I hate these people with the pins in their ears. I said, Thank God, something got their attention.

On one level the sixties revolt was an impressive illustration of Lenin's remark that the capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with.

It's true the punk fashion itself was iconographic: rips and dirt, safety pins, zips, slogans, and hairstyles. These motifs were so iconic in themselves - motifs of rebellion.

When we started to do punk, we put all of these things together to create the look of an urban guerrilla - a rebel.

The reason why I am proud of my part in the punk movement is that I think it really did implant a message that was already there. The hippies told it to me, but punk made it something cool for people to stand up for, which is that we do not believe government, that we are against government.

The whole 'anniversary of punk' thing really compounded what I thought was wrong. I was so disillusioned. I remember thinking, 'I don't want anything to do with this.'

A lot of people get into alternative music as part of their identity. It's something that isn't the mainstream, that their brothers and sisters don't know about, and that their parents don't like. It's something they can have as their own.

We need punk now; we need it more than ever. We need rebellion by youth.

PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.

Punk is the way of those who are unable to express themselves, but they aren't dangerous; at worst, they may kill their audience.

Punk became a circus didn't it? Everybody got it wrong. The message was supposed to be: Don't follow us, do what you want!

I think for it to be hip to be idealistic is weird, you know? I mean, even all the best rebels to me, had some sense of hope in them.

I took Punk to be the detonation of some slow-fused projectile buried deep in society's flank a decade earlier, and I took it to be, somehow, a sign.

During the sixties, all the risk-type sports were very popular, because everybody was rebelling against their parents, or rebelling against the whole system. But those days are over. This is the day of conservatism.

To me, the punk rock kids I grew up with were really, really smart, and to me, respecting those kids was a really big deal.