Billy Bragg announces new album "The Million Things That Never Happened"

Billy Bragg will release ‘The Million Things That Never Happened’, his tenth studio album, on October 8th 2021 on the Cooking Vinyl label. The album, the first pandemic blues album of our times but also a heartfelt paean to human resilience, features 12 soulful country rock gems. The record was produced by Romeo Stodart and Dave Izumi at Echo Zoo studio in Eastbourne. All songs are written by Billy Bragg apart from the final song (Ten Mysterious Photos That Can’t Be Explained), which is co-written by Billy’s son Jack Valero.

Bragg today releases the first taster from the album, and a personal favourite, the beautiful love song for our times, ‘I Will Be Your Shield’.

Says Billy: “To me this (I Will Be Your Shield) is the heart and soul of the album. I’ve come to the conclusion that empathy is the currency of music – that our job as songwriters is to help people come to terms with their feelings by offering them examples of how others may have dealt with a situation similar to that in which listeners find themselves. After what we’ve all been through, the idea of being a shield, physically, emotionally, psychologically, really resonates.”

On Thursday 9th September, a month prior to the album release, an online concert experience exploring the music and mind of Billy Bragg will be streamed on the Stabal platform. The show will feature the first outing of some songs from the new album, plus some nuggets from Bragg’s illustrious catalogue. He is joined onstage by Romeo Stodart (gtr), Michele Stodart (bass), Darren Beckett (drums), Nick Pynn (lap steel gtr, violin) and Jack Valero (gtr), who all played on ‘The Million Things That Never Happened'

Billy Bragg has been a fearless recording artist, tireless live performer and peerless political campaigner for over 30 years. He has released 9 solo studio albums: Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy (1983); Brewing Up With Billy Bragg (1984); Talking With The Taxman About Poetry (1986); Workers’ Playtime (1988); Don’t Try This At Home (1991); William Bloke (1996); England, Half English (2002); Mr Love & Justice (2008); Tooth & Nail (2013); two albums with Wilco – (Grammy nominated) Mermaid Avenue (1998); Mermaid Avenue Vol II (2000); and one album with Joe Henry – Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad (2016). He released a mini album Bridges Not Walls in 2017. His most recent release was The Best Of Billy Bragg At The BBC 1983-2019 (2019). At their best, Billy’s songs present ‘the perfect Venn diagram between the political and the personal’ (The Guardian).

Billy Bragg added best-selling author/musicologist to his CV with the success of his acclaimed 2017 book Roots, Radicals & Rockers – How Skiffle Changed The World. His most recent book, The Three Dimensions of Freedom, an extended essay arguing that liberty must be tempered with a commitment to accountability, has been translated into German and Spanish.