Billy Bragg, singer-songwriter
I wrote the song in 1979 when I was 21, living in Northamptonshire and playing in the punk band Riff Raff. I was coming back from the pub one night and saw two satellites in the sky. I thought they were a great metaphor for a relationship, so when I got home I wrote down: “I saw two shooting stars last night / I wished on them but they were only satellites.” When I came back to the song the following year to finish it, I realised I could truthfully open it with the line, “I was 21 years when I wrote this song / I’m 22 now but I won’t be for long”, just like Simon and Garfunkel’s Leaves That Are Green.
