Fury in Your Soul, Mate

From a 2004 interview in "Mother Jones" with Billy Bragg:

MJ: So when you look in the mirror, you see a Clash-inspired songwriter rather than a middle-aged family man?

BB: I am a middle-aged family man, too, but that doesn't preclude you from having the fury in your soul, mate. I've been singing a Laura Nyro song called "Save the Country" that has a great line: "I got fury in my soul. / Fury's gonna take me to the glory goal. / In my mind I can't study war no more." I still got fury in my soul and I can't write in any other way.

I haven't even thought of Laura Nyro in 20 years, but I saw Mr. Bragg play this song last night in a little New Hampshire opera house.

If you can watch Laura Nyro play this song in 1969 and imagine Billy Bragg playing it last night--alone with an electric guitar, just before a huge American election--you know it was a special moment. And you know he's right when he reminds us that the election is not the end of the story, it's when the work really begins.

Come on people
Come on children
Come on down to the glory river
Gonna wash you up
And down

Come on people
Come on children
There's a king at the glory river
And the king loved to sing
In the sun -
"We shall overcome"

I got fury in my soul
Fury's gonna take me
To the glory goal
In my mind I can't study war no more
Save the people
Save the children
Save the country

In my mind I can't study war
In my mind I can't study war
There'll be trains of blossoms
There'll be trains of music
There'll be music...