Billy Bragg Has Softened His Voice of Outrage

British troubadour Billy Bragg has been one of the few voices of undiluted socialist outrage in pop music of the last two decades.

And although Bragg, who performs Saturday at the Coach House, isn’t about to be seen swapping warm smiles with Bob Dole any time soon, his latest album, “William Bloke,” presents a new perspective that would have been unthinkable coming from him just a few years ago.

Credit, or blame, can be placed upon the tiny head of Jack Bragg, who was born two years and some-odd months ago. “William Bloke” is chock full of loving odes from father to son. It also reflects a political mellowing that the singer-songwriter is downright warm and fuzzy about.

“I used to want to plant bombs at the Last Night of the Proms,” sings Bragg in “Brickbat.” “But now you’ll find me with the baby in the bathroom. . . . The sun came up and the trees began to sing, and the light shone on everything. I love you.”

Bragg hasn’t abandoned the righteous indignation that’s been the hallmark of his decadelong career, and “Bloke” has its moments of political piety. But a softening of stance and a blanket of parental devotion are the essential components.

“I can state unequivocally that [Jack] is the most important thing that’s happened to me in my life,” said Bragg in a recent phone interview. “That was bound to be reflected on the new record because I’ve always tried to make albums that reflect the things happening around me at the time.

“Subsequently, the albums we made in the 1980s were more ideologically political because Britain was a more ideologically political place. Now we’ve moved out of that ideological phase into a less clear phase like you have here in America, and my family life has changed completely, so those two things are what you’re hearing on the album. I’m looking to reorient the things that inspire me.”

But for all the personal and philosophical changes in Bragg’s life, some things are as they ever were: Bragg remains a composer of rare gifts, including a talent for poetic turns of phrase that often have belied the subversive nature of his work.

Among the most touching compositions of the album--and of Bragg’s career--is “Northern Industrial Town,” a sweetly melodic folk tune about a newly war-free Belfast. Bragg wistfully extols the simple grace of a city freed from its ancestral violence.

And you can see the green hills ‘cross the rooftops

And a fresher wind blows past the end of our block

In the evenings the mist comes rolling on down

Into a northern industrial town

“It took me a long time to even begin to try to write about the war in Ireland,” Bragg said. “It seemed to me that during the cease-fire I saw the first photographs on television of Belfast without any troops or police on the street. Suddenly I realized what a normal place it was. What was happening there was absolutely abnormal; it looked like Vietnam or Yugoslavia--but it ain’t, and I wanted to write a song that reflected that realization.”

Steven William Bragg was born 38 years ago in Barking, Essex, England, and grew up in a suburb of London, accounting for his ingratiating, cockney accent.

He left school at 16 and formed his first band, the punk-rock group Riff Raff, in 1977. By the early ‘80s Bragg was performing solo and was signed to the British indie Utility Records in 1983 before being picked up stateside by Elektra in 1986.

But Bragg has always been more popular among overseas listeners.

“I’ve always had difficulty explaining my politics straight across to Americans, because you live in a non-ideological society,” Bragg said. “The American left can usually be reduced down to those people who drive in carpool lanes.

“I’m sure the FBI takes down their number plates because they’re all socialists, aren’t they? Now the soccer moms are creeping in, which is something soft and unpatriotic, right? I don’t know what it means, but I’ve noticed it and it makes me laugh quite a bit.”

Bragg said he feels lucky to be working with Elektra Records in this country.

“You have to remember that Elektra has been putting out albums by people who were going against the mainstream for some time,” he said. “They’ve had the MC5, Iggy & the Stooges, Phil Ochs. Jackson Browne was making political music all throughout the ‘80s on Elektra. . . . I think Elektra has a fine bit of tradition going there.”

*

Ochs, in fact, is one artist to whom Bragg frequently has been compared and whom he readily cites as an inspiration. Ochs sang topical material almost exclusively throughout the ‘60s and to a lesser extent into the ‘70s, before depression and alcoholism drove him to suicide in 1976.

“I think Phil was a great lesson to us all,” Bragg said. “The lesson is that you mustn’t take it too personally. Part of the basis of Phil Ochs’ demise is that he was of the generation that had seen Elvis change the world socially, and they then believed they could use the power of pop music to change the world politically.

“He didn’t know that it couldn’t be done, although we all know that now in hindsight,” he said. “So when people ask me who I’m comfortable comparing myself with, I always say, ‘Phil Ochs, if he had seen the Clash when he was 19.’ ”

With the lessons of the past in his head and the present-day love of a son in his heart, Bragg’s legacy looks to be a happier one than his mentor’s.

“What I’d like to do, I’d like to carry on doing this job,” he said. “I’ve always enjoyed doing gigs and making albums. I used to spend my whole life on the road, but now I’d like to try and get some balance between my road life and my family life. Now, my home life informs my writing as much as anything else. The idea of soccer moms will now turn up in my songs someplace.”

* Billy Bragg and Robyn Hitchcock play Saturday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $24.50. (714) 496-8930.