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NPR Music: Tiny Desk Concerts
Tiny Desk Concerts from NPR's All Songs Considered features your favorite musicians performing at Bob Boilen's desk in the NPR Music office. This is the AUDIO only archive.Are you a fancy A/V nerd and need video? Visit our new Tiny Desk Concert video channel. Eye-popping video and all of the music you've come to expect.

Billy Bragg: Tiny Desk Concert

By Bob Boilen
Published June 17, 2013 at 12:12 PM MDT

helped us from our old building to NPR's new headquarters, and performed the we posted to the site, but gave us the first full Tiny Desk Concert we actually recorded in our new office.

Bragg, one of the world's finest contemporary folksingers, appropriately sang "Handyman Blues" as his first tune — and was quickly met with lot of hammering on our rooftop by some real handymen as they put the finishing touches on NPR's new home.

Bragg, along with Dobro player C.J. Hillman, also channeled the spirit of legendary American folksinger , with whom Bragg collaborated — albeit posthumously, in Guthrie's case — when he took Guthrie's unsung words and set them to song with the help of . Here, he takes a song Guthrie himself co-opted and altered: a gospel tune ("This World Is Not My Home") he'd turned into an anthem against inaction.

In "I Ain't Got No Home," Bragg follows in the folk tradition by altering the song to address the issue of universal health care. It's a rare talent to make it work, but Bragg, as always, finds a way to blend politics and music with grace, charm and a rough edge.

Set List

  • "Handyman Blues"

  • "I Ain't Got No Home"

  • "Sexuality"

  • "No One Knows Nothing Anymore"

    • Credits

    Producer: Bob Boilen; Editor: Denise DeBelius; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Denise DeBelius, Gabriella Garcia-Pardo; photo by Marie McGrory/NPR

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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    Tiny Desk Concerts
    Bob Boilen
    In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.
    See stories by Bob Boilen
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