PETE Wylie is in rumbustious form as he chats down the phone from his Liverpool home, affectionately known as Disgracelands.

“Listen to this lad,” he tells me, before bursting into song, crooning a verse from The Mighty Wah’s wonderful lament Come Back.

Wylie’s voice is warm and full. “Well did you ever hear of hope?

“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

“A small belief can mean, you’ll never walk alone.

“And did you ever hear of faith?

“Yes, it’s all to you.

“Come Back.’ Wylie, who arrives at Oswaldtwistle Civic Arts Centre on Sunday, said: “Do you know, no matter how that reads, every time I hear that second verse I want to go on marches, set up some community project, end unemployment or – best of all – just wave my fist in the air, nod my head and shout, ‘Up with this sort of thing.”

Musician, philosopher, soothsayer and showman, Wylie has always told it how it is. Someone once said his heart was not just worn on his sleeve, but was dripping blood down his arm.

“I’ve got this song, ‘We are all in this Together,” he says.

“I can’t believe George Osborne and all his cronies are still using that phrase.

“You look at what they are doing to ordinary people and they think they are getting away with it.

“The working class are paying everything and losing everything.

“Russell Brand goes on the television, and says ‘Don’t Vote.’ “That’s nonsense. Look at what happened in Scotland – they had Westminster on the run. Times like these make songwriters want to write, but we all need to be strong don’t we?

“I’ve been happy, sad, angry, depressed, the works, but the band plays on doesn’t it?

The fire and brimstone that saw Wylie produce dazzling records is still burning as molten hot as the mouth of a blazing blast furnace on a mid-winter night.

Those great singles, Wah Heat’s Seven Minutes to Midnight, Somesay, It’s Sinful and the hit single The Story of the Blues, remain timeless and poignant tracks.

“The other day someone went on Facebook and wrote: ‘Oh, Pete Wylie: one good song and twenty band names.

“This is what happens. If you’re not in the public eye, you cease to exist.

“I enjoy social media, but it doesn’t have the same impact as inter-acting at a gig or a protest march does it?“You do despair sometimes, though. Somebody comes on and says, ‘Hey, have you seen that amazing film of a tabby cat on You Tube playing with a cotton reel.’ “And I’m thinking, ‘What’s going on? Have I missed something here?

In 1991, Wylie suffered a near fatal fall, fracturing his spine in a freak accident.

“The NHS is under threat from the Tories and we have to protect this amazing thing we have.

“They saved my life. I broke my back and the care I had was incredible.

“Your hear David Cameron blabbing on about the bankers and executives, saying, ‘If you want the best, then you have to pay for the best.’ “The other week nurses and midwives were asking for a couple more quid, and the government said no.

“As far as I’m concerned they are the best, and should be paid for the amazing work that they do.”

Wylie talks about the day that changed his life as if it happened yesterday.

He said: “October 1, 1976, I was due to start at University to study French, Latin and Greek.

“Instead I went to a new club in Liverpool called Eric’s and met all these like-minded people – Julian Cope, Ian McCulloch and Holly Johnson – and heard the Velvet Undergound’s ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’.

“That changed everything and I was transported into another world.

“I look at it like this,” he added. “My life is a bit like Liverpool Football Club.

“In the eighties we were both doing well, then my accident was the Graeme Souness period, and now I’m back on the right track again.

“I just want people to be good to each other – just look after each other a bit more, eh.”

  • Pete Wylie of the Mighty Wah. Singing songs and Telling Tales – Acoustic with Tom Carroll. Oswaldtwistle Civic Arts Centre, November 9. £17.50. 01254 398319.