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“Waiting for the Great Leap Forward” – Billy Bragg
(Words/music: Billy Bragg, available on Worker’s Playtime, Go! Discs 1988)
My instincts want me to use “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward” as a way to look back at the past year of blogging. When I started writing this blog, I did it as a way to explore my taste in music. I’ve been secure in my taste, meaning that I like the things I like proudly with or without the validation of others, for a while now, but I wanted to go deeper and try to figure out why I liked the things that I like. In that sense, Bragg’s ode to contradiction seems strangely appropriate to a point. “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward” hinges not only on the allusion to the failed economic and cultural renewal plan in 1950s China but on his appropriation of the cliché “one step forward, two steps back.” He lists a series of moments where advancement and regression converge – events where the opposite outcome – whether intended or inevitable – becomes prevalent. The power of Bragg’s song, both in the original version and in the continually updated lyrics since – is that he confronts his own contradictions in addition to the glaring dissonance in our culture. Whether it’s growing old, adapting to technology, or the accidental isolation of fame, Bragg ponders where and how he fits in to a changing world.
After a year of writing about songs that cover a significant portion of my taste as well as my personal listening history, I’m left in a similar position of confusion. In some cases, I have a better handle on the kind of things I like, none of which surprise me. Still, I’ve found that I’ve raised more than enough questions, whether directly or tangentially, to offset any “progress” I might declare (or, at least, “progress” I had in mind at the beginning of the year). However, this isn’t a failure; after all, this isn’t the kind of thing with tangible results. Instead, I feel even more curious at this point than when I started. That, coupled with the list of songs and songwriters I haven’t touched yet, is enough for me to want to continue with this in 2010. The job feels incomplete not because I failed to find what I was looking for, but because I’ve found that there’s more to explore. Where I once imagined writing some kind of dossier of my introspection, I’m finding that the act of considering and writing about these songs is what I wanted all along – that the small epiphanies about a forgotten favorite or a new perspective on a personal memory are the reasons I sat down to write in the first place.
Which brings me back to the song – even if the piano chords are slow at first, Bragg and friends eventually kick into gear. For his mixed feelings about progress, Bragg isn’t moping about failure. Instead, he’s forging on the same way he has for the better part of three decades now, still singing “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward” just with different details. On a much smaller scale, that’s what I’m hoping for – continuing along with different details, hoping each day to figure out something else, or get a little better at what I’m doing.
More on Billy Bragg: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm
