This is intended to be a “Choose Your Own Adventure ” celebration of the life, work, and passion of Joe Strummer. I only ask that you read this paragraph and the last sentence. No other words need to be read. Each optional section will be separated by a picture. The rest is all your choice.
I think people ought to know that we’re anti-fascist, anti-violence, anti-racist, and we’re pro-creative. We’re against ignorance. – Joe Strummer
Joe Strummer: Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control and it didn’t have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realized that you either became a power or you were crushed.”
Notice: This is a public service announcement with guitar
Especially this guitar
Anything accidentally inaccurate within what follows will be updated and fixed because its subject was all about the truth.
Facts have sadly become pliable, and the facts have already been cynically fucked with especially by George H W Bush beginning in 1990 and resulting in the initially debilitating pure, distraught tears of the subject. No apologies will be made for adding to what may be mythical. If anything within is indeed a myth and wrong, the truth will hold sway if pointed out.
No apologies will be made for adding to a myth with the best intentions, because even if what is a myth follows within that myth remains so vital and important. Certain legacies need to be defended fiercely and accurately this one perhaps more than any. Joe Strummer would likely hate to be idolized at all especially without precision. No apologies will be made for my idolization of Joe Strummer.
Beware of propaganda. This band was almost all propaganda used in the best possible way.
This is not the best possible telling of this story, but it is like its subject passionate. If the telling has a point it is to find every telling of the story and take from it what you need and further its telling and its ambition.
The following account criminally underestimates the contributions of Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Topper Headon, Guy Stevens, even Bernie Rhodes, and many others, which I apologize for and regret. The account of the modern civil rights movement both at the time and now overestimated the role of Martin Luther King mostly because there was seen a need at the time to generously throw all their forces behind a charismatic leader. Charismatic leaders are extremely dangerous, especially now. “Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters.” If you must follow a leader choose wisely and choose solely based on the real love within you and them.
The judge said five to ten-but I say double that again
I’m not working for the clampdown
Joe Strummer: You have to have some regrets
Topper Headon: I feel a lot of guilt about all that because had I kept my act together, I could see the band you know possibly still being together today in a way … I’d like to kind of apologize to them for kind of letting the side down for going off the rails, but uh I think if I had to do it again, I probably would do the same thing. I’m just sort of that sort of person you know.
Mick Jones: I didn’t know about self-control until much later.
Joe Strummer: (on Mick Jones’ lack of punctuality and ego) Talent is worth waiting for when all is said and done.
Joe Strummer: Whatever a group is it was the chemical mixture of those four people that makes a group work. That’s the lesson everyone should learn and don’t mess with it if it works, just let it do whatever you have to do to bring it forward, but don’t mess with it. We learned that bitterly.
Paul Simonon: If I could do it all again I wouldn’t change anything. I think it’s fine the way it is … We did our job and that’s the story, and now we’re gone, and that’s it. It suits me fine.
Right now likely for a brief period and perhaps never again you are on my website Brad Laidman: Elvis Needs Boats.
If you look at it’s sparse layout it brazenly glorifies two things. Elvis Presley and me. Subtly, and I’m rarely subtle, it also pays joint homage to the love for two mothers by their sons Gladys Presley and my own.
The name comes from the best joke ever written about Elvis Presley by Mojo Nixon in the song “Elvis is Everywhere” to again make me look hip and clever if someone actually gets the reference.
My site only references one other artist or group, and perhaps it is yet another attempt to show how clever I am, by referencing the greatest album cover in this history of rock and roll, “Elvis Presley,” his debut, to the homage paid to it on perhaps the greatest double album in rock and roll, “London Calling.” Now had I been able to steal a better picture of the second the comparison would have been made better, but again the color scheme of the sites heading is clearly no coincidence.
So was it another joke to again boast about my ingenuity?
I’m a huge fan of the Beatles and had I been a bigger one perhaps I could have done this.
But I rarely if ever joke about Joe Strummer and the Clash.
Like the Kinks, this is the story of a pretty financially incompetent band, but the Clash made the Kinks seem like they were run by Warren Buffet. The Clash were perhaps, and also perhaps mostly on purpose, the most financially incompetent rock and roll band of all time.
Joe Strummer had a strong if sometimes odd sense of morality.
Strummer was born John Graham Mellor in 1952.
For a few years he had the audacity to do something that even Bob Dylan never dared to do, he insisted that people call him “Woody”
In many ways, Joe would have been very happy to be just like Woody Guthrie and live his life as a busking hobo. You take your guitar wherever you go and whenever you feel like it you throw your hat down and hope people toss in some spare charge and if you are lucky some paper currency.
He would at various times in his life refuse to play big gigs and return to busking.
Another guy loved the idea of Woody Guthrie and busking, but he couldn’t imagine doing it without being accompanied by the sound of his other idol’s electric guitar, and for many years that was the only way you would hear Billy Bragg play live or on record.
I don’t know why, but a lot of significant times in my life were marked by listening to Clash songs over and over again ad nauseam, which is sort of the wrong term because I was pretty much insistent that they be played exactly that many times in a row and I did not get sick of them.
In 1982, another good friend of mine and I went to a summer debate camp at the University of Kentucky, I had gone to one the year earlier, but these two weeks were more of my first taste of true freedom and we started them off joyfully frolicking around listening to a song we had discovered called “London Calling” about 27 times in a row, throwing “snaps” at each other until they ran out. 
By the end of the year, I had fallen deeply in love with my debate partner, and we won a regional tournament, which qualified us for the National Tournament, and then we won the state tournament. This meant a long road trip to and from “Kansas City” with her, which sounds magnificent, except for the fact that while I was possibly her closest friend, she was more in love with someone else than anyone I’ve ever seen in my life.
She was more in love with her boyfriend than Elvis was in love with his mother. He was a freshman in college that year who would sometimes judge debate tournaments for our team and when we dropped him off at the University of Toledo she would cry for the entire two hours that it took us to get home.
Still, I was so in love with her that I lied and said that I liked Hall and Oates (actually now I sort of do like Hall and Oates). When the trip and the tournament, turned out to be less than what I dreamed of, I walked into the host school’s cafeteria and put $4 in quarters in the jukebox and played “Should I Stay or Should I Go” 16 times. I’m not sure if I wanted to hear it that many times or if I wanted to make everyone else hear it that many times, but it did indeed happen.
For a very long period of time, the only way to see Joe Strummer play (and a ton of people were begging him to do so) was when he was lurking in the background on stage with the Pogues over perhaps the course of eight or more years.
The Pogues were a great band when Shane McGowan was able to drunkenly find his way to the show (whether the shows were better or worse the more or less sober he was is something his fans will likely debate for hours), but this was roughly the equivalent of John Lennon leaving the Beatles to be the backup rhythm guitar player for Badfinger.
I’m pretty sure he’s on stage there, but I can’t find him, and the Pogues had up to eight “real” members of the band on stage. It was just odd for perhaps one of the most passionate, magnetic frontmen of all time to be doing that, but maybe it was just exactly who he was too.
He’d make brief appearances in odd films made by oddball directors
He would add some stuff to former bandmate and co-writer Mick Jone’s post-Clash band, Big Audio Dynamite, but it wouldn’t be advertised at all.
He wrote and performed the song “Love Kills” for the movie “Sid and Nancy,” a film I’m still so ambivalent about that I once titled my essay on it “The Funniest Tale of a Mortal Descent into Heroin Oblivion Ever.”
Sometimes you’d just hear things that sounded like Mark Twain tall tales like he decided to run a marathon with no preparation, despite the fact that he had been a chain smoker forever, which probably wasn’t true, but did happen a couple times randomly when he was with The Clash.
“That One Time Joe Strummer Ran A Marathon”
In a 1999 interview with Steppin’ Out magazine, Joe Strummer, talked about his “training regime”:
Q: Didn’t you once run in the Paris Marathon?
Joe: Yep. I ran three of them.
Q: Correct me if I’m wrong but is it also true that you never trained for any of them?
Joe: You shouldn’t really ask me about my training regime, you know.
Q: Why?
Joe: Because it’s not good and I wouldn’t want people to copy it.
Q: Don’t make me beat it out of you.
Joe: Okay, you want it, here it is. Drink 10 pints of beer the night before the race. Ya got that? And don’t run a single step at least four weeks before the race.
Q: No running at all?
Joe: No, none at all. And don’t forget the 10 pints of beer the night before. But make sure you put a warning in this article, “Do not try this at home.” I mean, it works for me and Hunter Thompson but it might not work for others. I can only tell you what I do.
Did Joe Strummer actually run the Paris Marathon in 1982? Who knows. Joe liked to stretch the truth and make some things up from time to time, but it honestly wouldn’t surprise us if Joe woke up one morning after a night of drinking and said I’m going to run a marathon today, and it wouldn’t surprise us if he didn’t register, and it wouldn’t surprise us if he finished.
Joe Strummer died December 22, 2002, of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. It was a complete shock to everybody especially because he had finally returned to making music, and good music too with his band the Mescaleros. His estate was worth about a million pounds, which doesn’t sound so bad for an artist that never really made any money. This is a better article than I could write about what happened after he perhaps kicked Mick Jones out of the Clash in 1983 until he finally reappeared with his new band in 1999.
Joe Strummer: The Struggle after The Clash
It appears that after the Clash imploded he didn’t really know what to do with himself, and perhaps lost all confidence in himself, which is incredibly perplexing for someone who was perhaps the most adamantly, stubborn and publicly confident person you could possibly imagine for at least the six years where he rudely broke through every barrier he could find in his peak even if he had to wander around determined to find ones to confront.
Clearly energised by music again, Strummer told me he had spent much of the last decade “running into brick walls.” It seemed bizarre that such an explosively dynamic, fiercely charismatic performer should have suffered such a prolonged slump.
“Yeah, but those are probably the people who are the most unconfident, really,” Strummer shrugged. “The ones who give it the mouth and trousers. I’m like that. Like, if you stormed in here and said the new record was rubbish, I would probably quit.”
Tellingly, there were big offers if he had just agreed to reform the Clash again especially in 1994.
“It was five million dollars for 50 gigs or something. But you can’t put something together for money that was originally for an idea. We could probably knock up a few gigs, but it’s not going to do anything for the world, is it? Creatively you’re really The Searchers on a chicken-in-a-basket tour. If you’re confronted with a choice: take one million dollars for the death of an artist, or you can live as an artist forever – maybe – you’re gonna take the second option.”
No one could have criticized him for taking that money. No one ever really thought he would. Had he reformed the Clash he probably would have insisted that they just show up randomly and busk, which is actually how he started off the disastrous Clash Mach II after the departure of the irreplaceable Jones.
Had he lived another six months or so he would have been there when his band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but perhaps it was fitting that he wasn’t.
I was in my grandparent’s basement when I head that he died. I was very sad. Sad that he was dead, but perhaps even sadder that I was in Cleveland and no one else seemed to care. Had I owned a polka radio station that day everything would have stopped, and nothing but Strummer material would have been played for at least 24 hours. There may have been some activity on a college radio station or two, but the way I remember it, in the “birthplace” of rock and roll, home of WMMS, the station that sometimes legitimately was named the “Best Large Market Radio Station” in the country by “Rolling Stone” magazine nine years in a row, three or four stations in town may have said, “We just heard Joe Strummer died” and played “Rock the Casbah” once.
This was said in “Rolling Stone, “That heart of his always worked too hard,” said Pete Townshend. “I will really miss him.”
I remember Townshend saying at some point how sad he was that Joe had died right when he had finally refound his path. Pete Townshend at his peak was one of the most arrogant men alive and had a very high opinion of his very huge band. When Pete Townshend saw the Clash at their peak he felt the same way he did the first time he saw Jimi Hendrix play guitar, Salieri to their Mozart.
In February of 2003, this happened at the Grammy’s:
It seems impressive especially at the Grammy’s, but a very similar money plagued artist said this upon becoming more and more irrelevant:
Orson Welles: Now I’m an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needles fall off me replace them with medallions.
“Rolling Stone” in 2016 described it like this:
A song as caustic as “London Calling,” with its apocalyptic images of nuclear meltdown, police brutality and – gasp! – the demise of Beatlemania hardly seems appropriate fodder for an event as staid and slick as the Grammys. Then again, Joe Strummer, the Clash leader who had passed away just months prior to the 45th awards show, was hardly your average punk; for evidence of that look no further than the fab four — Bruce Springsteen, E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt, Elvis Costello and Dave Grohl — who stepped up to lead this tribute. The murderers’ row of musicians stood in a straight line at the front of the stage, bearing down hard on their guitars as they took turns snarling Strummer’s desperate lyrics.
Had that been the case, another sad case of an artist saluted too late, it would be fine, but it isn’t very accurate.
First of all, Joe did not write about the demise of Beatlemania, what he did write was “London calling, now don’t look to us/Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust.”
Which to me at least is a lot different, and Joe while saying “don’t look to us” did perhaps more than any other leader of a band tell people “look to us.” He wasn’t bemoaning the loss of the Beatles, he was thumbing his nose at shallow pop bands or corporate behemoths.
The song he did write in that very key year for punk rock “1977,” he defiantly sang, “No Elvis, Beatles, or the Rolling Stones.”
It was the B-Side of their first single released in March of 1977. The Beatles had broken up years before. Elvis would die in a few months. John Lennon was either taking some time off to raise his son or in hiding depending on your point of view.
The last album the Rolling Stones had released was Black and Blue.
In Creem, Lester Bangs wrote, “The heat’s off, because it’s all over, they really don’t matter anymore or stand for anything…This is the first meaningless Rolling Stones album, and thank God.”
That’s mostly Bangs going Bangs, and probably not a really fair assessment of the Stones at that time, who were looking more to blacker disco, funk, and rhythm and blues, and the Clash would eventually kind of go there too. What can’t be denied is that the last truly great defiant Keith Richards song came out right after the arrival of punk.
When Joe wrote “1977,” he was nobody, but as a nobody he came out roaring like he was Babe Ruth calling his shot. So he was definitely saying “look to us.”
Keith was still defiant, but he’d been arrested in Canada in February of 1977 for Heroin possession and was battered and bruised and worse for the wear. He faced a life sentence, was rushed to rehab, did a charity concert for the blind and spent no time in jail. I don’t really think Keith was ever really a “Street Fighting Man,” although Strummer was exactly that, but in Keith’s last defiant statement he’s basically saying goodbye. It still wouldn’t ever be wise to fuck with Keith in person, but that was his goodbye. Not that the Rolling Stones ever wanted to save the world, but when Keith wrote this you knew for a fact that it would never happen.
Worked the bars and sideshows along the twilight zone
Only a crowd can make you feel so alone
And it really hit home
Booze and pills and powders, you can choose your medicine
Well here’s another goodbye to another good friend
So, after all is said and done
Gotta move while it’s still fun
Let me walk before they make me run
After all is said and done
I gotta move, it’s still fun
I’m gonna walk before they make me run
Watched my taillights fading, there ain’t a dry eye in the house
They’re laughing and singing
Started dancing and drinking as I left town
Gonna find my way to heaven, ’cause I did my time in hell, oh yeah
I wasn’t looking too good but I was feeling real well
Oh after all is said and done
I gotta move I had my fun
Let us walk before they make us run
After all is said and done
I did alright, I had my fun
But I will walk before they’ll make me
The biggest problem I have though with the Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello super group tribute is that it thinks it knows punk rock, but for me it doesn’t know Joe even if they knew him in real life and I was watching in my grandfather’s basement.
It is a song about apocalyptic fear and those guys are raging defiantly like they are at ground zero about to proudly take the first blow, but Joe Strummer had a very refined sense of humor. Depite their best intentions, they don’t get that London Calling while striking, bold and yes defiant is a really funny song. In reality, the only reason they had to sing that song in that manner was the fact that Joe Stummer was indeed dead, and that is truly the scariest thing ever because the world needed Joe then and it needs him perhaps infinitely more right now.
“London calling to the faraway towns
Now war is declared and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls”
Joe’s not scared it’s an invocation to grow up, get out from under the bed and fight.
“I have no fear. ‘Cause London is drowning, and I, I live by the river.”
What the hell does that mean? It means he’s not afraid and perhaps hilariously because though London may be underwater, he is in a skyscraper and will survive. It’s very likely a shitty, tenement skyscraper, but all the better for Joe to look out from and issue the battle orders.
“London calling to the imitation zone
Forget it, brother, you can go it alone
London calling to the zombies of death
Quit holding out and draw another breath
“London calling and I don’t want to shout
But when we were talking I saw you nodding out
London calling, see we ain’t got no high
Except for that one with the yellowy eye“
Joe was about everything, but going it alone, if you wanted to call him a Marxist or any other socialist pejorative slur that was fine by him.
Telling the zombies of death to quit holding out and draw another breath, fucking hilarious.
“That one with the yellowy eye?” That’s Joe making fun of his bout with hepatitis. So yeah, he again is saying “I’m your guy.”
Joe’s seagull war cry? Defiant and hilarious.
“London calling, yes, I was there, too
And you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
And after all this, won’t you give me a smile?”
All hilarious and inspiring!
Here’s how Mel Gibson’s inspirational speech from Braveheart ends.
“Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live — at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!”
Keith Richards is not running from everybody, but he’s going to walk away and have some more fun.
William Wallace is basically saying, we’re fucked, but we’re going to go die proudly without bowing down to those who will otherwise inevitably enslave us.
Jim Morrison?
“But I tell you this, man, I tell you this
I don’t know what’s gonna happen, man, but I wanna have
My kicks before the whole shit house goes up in flames
Alright!”
The shit house was going up in flames in 1970 and Jim, and I love Jim, was off to Paris to get in some final fun and would be dead in a year.
Churchill?
Winston’s fighting, things look bleak, he plans on surviving until help comes, but to me, he knows the days of the British Empire are over.
Joe Strummer?
Who else writes the perfect battle cry and sums it off leading his charges into the breach with not let us make our final proud stand, but instead, “Won’t you give us a smile?” Joe not only plans on winning this motherfucker, but he’s telling you that it’s gonna be fun kicking those monsters asses.
Here is something you must never forget:
The whole relationship between CBS and the Clash was completely insane.
On 25 January 1977, the Clash signed to CBS Records for £100,000
Now I have no idea why CBS gave them that money, they had barely played any gigs, much less many as the main attraction.
English punk was hot though.
The Sex Pistols started it. It is said that the early Sex Pistols shows were not attended by many people, but that pretty much everyone that did see them started a band.
The Sex Pistols manager was a complete con artist, thought the whole thing was a joke, and indeed wanted to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible, because he didn’t think his boys were all that talented, and he didn’t think it was going to last.
John Lydon/Johnny Rotten though wanted to start a movement. He wanted everyone at those shows to start their own bands.
And as legend has it once Joe Strummer saw the Sex Pistols he quit his “pub rock” band the 101’ers.
Joe Strummer: I knew something was up, so I went out in the crowd which was fairly sparse. And I saw the future with a snotty handkerchief right in front of me. It was immediately clear. Pub rock was, “Hello, you bunch of drunks, I’m gonna play these boogies and I hope you like them.” The Pistols came out that Tuesday evening and their attitude was, “Here’s our tunes, and we couldn’t give a flying fuck whether you like them or not. In fact, we’re gonna play them even if you fucking hate them.”
So Joe cast his vote for punk.
The Sex Pistols had a lot going for them in terms of causing outrage and getting publicity. They had a shrewd manager who could sell snow to Alaskans over the phone from England, named Malcolm McLaren. If you saw them early, they were probably a shambles and you probably thought that no one could play.
In fact, they boasted that they could not play, and made fun of anyone that could play. They mercilessly mocked anyone they could. The richer and more respectable the better, and England had a ton of pissed off kids that were on the dole.
They were not without talent. Johnny Rotten could write amazing lyrics, and if you wanted someone to piss everyone off he was your man.
Simon Cowell at his worst is a pansy ass, mild imitation of exactly who John Lydon really was. You probably first heard a guy with an English accent calling music rubbish for the first time from Simon Cowell.
John Lydon pretty much thought everybody and everything really was “rubbish” and he was never happier than when he was telling you that. He also had a lot of ideas about what things in life were rubbish, and whose side he was on.
Simon Cowell loves just loves the Righteous Brother’s song “Unchained Melody.”
If Simon Cowell had been lucky enough to have been there when Phil Spector lavishly recorded Bobby Hatfield sing “Unchained Melody” in 1965, he would have had a bigger hard on than Patrick Swayze did when he and Demi Moore basically had really filthy relations with clay while it played in “Ghost.”
Simon would have had the world’s biggest orgasm, and spent the next ten hours thanking all involved for letting him witness it.
Had Johnny Rotten been there he would have told everyone that it was “rubbish,” whether he liked it or hated it, and truly he’s a pretty honest guy when pushed, he probably really would have hated it.
Malcolm McClaren owned a hip clothing store and was associated with a hip fashion designer named Vivienne Westwood. So they always had a look and some bands make a ton of money just from having a look. Johnny also had a look: striking, spiky, bright, orange hair and a willingness to wear whatever he wanted no matter how badly it “clashed,” and sometimes he was genius enough to just buy a cheap used Pink Floyd T-shirt and write “I hate” above the name of the band.
Their guitarist, Steve Jones, was limited, but what he could do he could do very well.
Their real bass player (and it was never Sid Vicious) was Glenn Matlock, who was famously said to have been kicked out of the band for “liking the Beatles.” That’s a funny story that wasn’t true but Matlock could play the bass and he could also write songs.
They also had a producer named Chris Thomas who “oddly” had worked with not only the Beatles but Pink Floyd as well and he gave those guys an incredibly bright and magical sound. When all those singles were compiled into the album “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.” It may have been punk, but it’s pretty much the most pop friendly sounding punk album ever. The lyrics were however scary, insulting, and threatening.
But until that album was compiled and released the Sex Pistols kept releasing monster singles that hit the charts and sold well, and each one pissed people off and made them crazy, which caused them to sign record deals and lose them, and then sign bigger record deals and lose them. Not sure how much the band got, but they generated a ton of money with probably most of it going to McLaren.
This was something that caused a lot of furor and made them a ton of money.
“Not the nice clean Rolling Stones!”
Immediately, Grundy challenges them about the “apparent” hypocrisy of their “anti-materialist” lyrics. Matlock tells him “The more the merrier.” Steve Jones assured him that if he wants to know what they did with it, the answer is that “we fucking spent it.”
So had the Who not already have released “The Who Sell Out,” a decade earlier, it’s not out of the question to say that that band’s debut might have been called “The Sex Pistols Sell Out and Fucking Spent It.”
Johnny does have an interesting worldview, and a social conscious, but his lyrics with the Pistols were pretty nihilistic and in fact, the number one message he had for his audience was “No future for you!”
Meanwhile, the guy who wanted to be Woody Guthrie was broke and”sqautting” wherever he could to get by.
He had a guy with musical talent named Mick Jones, who in every way DID want to be a rock star, and a cool as hell art student named Paul Simonon, who had basically started to learn how to play the bass about three days earlier.
So whereever the “no sell out,” ” we don’t care about money” thing came from, it was the Clash who took the shit about it.
A guy named Mark Perry was clever enough to write “Punk died the day the Clash signed to CBS,” and the one guy who actually had the biggest social conscience and didn’t really care about making much more money than it took to keep him clothed and fed (again he wasn’t paying rent he was “squatting” with other poor kids wherever he could), had to take the brunt of it.
Within three months Joe was already saying this, “Signing that contract did bother me a lot. I’ve been turning it over in my mind, but now I’ve come to terms with it. I’ve realized that all it boils down to is perhaps two-year’s security … Before, all I could think about was my stomach … Now I feel free to think—and free to write down what I’m thinking about … And look, I’ve been fucked about for so long I’m not going to suddenly turn into Rod Stewart just because I get £25.00 a week. I’m much too far gone for that, I tell you.”
I don’t think Joe had an issue with getting paid, he had an issue with his artistic freedom and how much he was going to charge for his music.
Right away CBS released a song as a single “Remote Control” that the band didn’t want released as a single.
By the time they finally found their real drummer, Topper Headon, who was magnificent and could not only play he could play funky, the first thing they then released was the song, “Complete Control,” which was about how pissed they were at CBS over the release of “Remote Control.”
“They said release ‘Remote Control’
But we didn’t want it on the label
They said, “Fly to Amsterdam”
The people laughed but the press went mad”
“They said we’d be artistically free
When we signed that bit of paper
They meant let’s make a lotsa money
An’ worry about it later”
“This is Joe Public speaking
I’m controlled in the body, controlled in the mind”
In fact, whenever “Joe Public” took any shit he had a quick and more inspiring comeback.
Before they even signed that deal NME critic Charles Shaar Murry had said, “The Clash are the sort of garage band that should be speedily returned to the garage, preferably with the motor still running.”
Joe responded with this:
Back in the garage with my bullshit detector
Carbon monoxide making sure it’s effective
People ringing up making offers for my life
I just want to stay in the garage all night
We’re a garage band
We come from garageland
Meanwhile things are hotting up in the West End alright
Contracts in the offices, groups in the night
My bummin’ slummin’ friends have all got new boots
An’ someone just asked me if the group would wear suits
We’re a garage band
We come from garageland
I don’t want to hear about what the rich are doing
I don’t want to go to where the rich are going
They think they’re so clever, they think they’re so right
But the truth is only known by guttersnipes
There’s twenty-two singers! But one microphone
Back in the garage
There’s five guitar players! But one guitar
Back in the garage
Complaints! Complaints! Wot an old bag
Back in the garage
All night
The lyrics in that live performance don’t sync up with the recording, but the live performance tells you that the answer is “You’re correct, we don’t care, we’re going to get better and better, and by the way feel free to go fuck yourself. We will not be stopped!”
That’s their first album cover, they have no real drummer yet.
It was so hardcore that the US didn’t even release it for years, but it sold a lot of copies as an import, and when it was released in the US it was very different.
All the chops aren’t there yet, but aside from the album in whatever form they were always releasing music like they were Prince when he wore that slave imprint on his face.
The most interesting?
Their first single, “White Riot.”
Despite what people will tell you and in fact other punks WERE wearing swastikas (Go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and see, actually I haven’t been there for a while maybe they’ve “white washed” that out by now, or go back and look at the Grundy clip again), but the Clash were anything but racist.
The lyrics eventually evolved into this, but I won’t keep inserting the chorus
White riot – I want to riot
White riot – a riot of my own
White riot – I want to riot
White riot – a riot of my own
Black people gotta lot a problems
But they don’t mind throwing a brick
White people go to school
Where they teach you how to be thick
An’ everybody’s doing
Just what they’re told to
An’ nobody wants
To go to jail!
All the power’s in the hands
Of people rich enough to buy it
While we walk the street
Too chicken to even try it
Everybody’s doing
Just what they’re told to
Nobody wants
To go to jail!
Are you taking over
Or are you taking orders?
Are you going backwards
Or are you going forwards?
The single starts out with what sounds like police sirens, which would return often.
Joe and Paul saw black kids at the Notting Hill Carnival of 1976, and as he wrote he wanted “a riot of my own.”
Joe did not want a racial dust up. This was not a case of finding “very fine people” on each side.
Joe had heard Bob Dylan’s “Only a Pawn in Their Game.”
Joe knew no one had any jobs. Joe wanted to riot with the black kids, and if you read the lyrics Joe not only knows what Dylan merely points out, Joe knows what he wants to do about it.
But if Joe was rioting it was actually with his words.
Despite what Johnny told him, Joe wanted a future for his fans.
Joe had issues with certain people. When Mick had a sort of anti-love song called “I’m so bored with you.”
Joe felt the anger was perhaps better aimed at a bigger target.
The whole band was already into reggae which would just grow, but their cover choices picked certain targets. They weren’t merely doing the “cultural appropriation” thing either because Mick Jones would add extra kicks into the standard reggae rhythm as counterpoint and created something new.
Later they would pick the same target and make Eddy Grant’s (yes the “Electric Avenue” Eddy Grant) “Police on My Back” and bring back the sirens and make it totally punk in the middle of a sprawl of dub, funk, rap and whatever else they could sponge up and work in on the album Sandanista.
Whatever they were doing, immediately in 1977 Bob Marley was a big fan and name checked them in “Punky Reggae Party.”
Rejected by society (do re mi fa)
Treated with impunity (so la te do)
Protected by their dignity (do re mi fa)
I face reality (so la te do)
New wave, new rave
New wave, new wave, new rave
Wailers be there
The Dammed, The Jam, The Clash
Maytals will be there
Doctor Feelgood too, ooh
And the only time anyone ever recorded Sonny Curtis’ “I Fought the Law,” and it was even remotely possible that “and the law won” might not happen was here.
That’s an overview of their purely punk stage, but we are really talking about CBS and their artistic freedom.
By the time this came out they were already releasing too many singles and EPs and demanding that they be priced too cheaply for CBS’s tastes.
This is their second album:
People will tell you that it was an attempt at a more polished commercial sound, and in a way, it was and having Blue Oyster Cult’s guy Sandy Pearlman producing seemed indicative of it.
But do you really sell out by giving your album a name that seems to suggest you want Nikita Khrushchev’s prophesy to come true? Actually, Pearlman’s recording messed with themes that were even more radical and their musicianship and songwriting was growing and maturing.
What was deemed a sell out to CBS was actually one of the worst contracts ever, what they thought was a five album deal was actually something like a thirteen album deal. One album a year is tough enough, but by 1979, they were not only not making money off all their singles, albums, and EP’s. They were even losing money touring (cheap ticket prices no matter what the consequences), which made them further in debt with CBS.
They also fired their inspirational, but crazy manager Bernie Rhodes, who had signed that bad deal. He sued them, which obviously did not help their financial situation much.
When they got to this:
They had two albums worth of material (and stuff that was left off).
I’m not sure what the best way to get out of debt is, but this isn’t it.
The band insisted that it be the double album that it was. They also insisted that it only cost as much as a single album. To which CBS said after much bickering fine, but we will pay you less royalties and it will only count as one toward the 13 that you owe us, which may be the first time that they realized they had a 13 album contract.
Their engineer Bill Price recalls this happening with the bands equally inspirational, not willing to give an inch artistically new producer Guy Stevens.
The UK head of CBS came by one day in his limousine expecting a single album.
“This was when Maurice learned that London Calling was going to be a double LP,” recalls Price. “A bit of a brawl ensued that ended up with a rather tired and emotional Guy Stevens lying in the driveway in front of Maurice’s limo so that he couldn’t leave – for quite a long period of time. I remember that, at the time, this did not appear to me to achieve much at all, but thinking about it a little bit more over the years, I think it was probably quite a contribution in influencing CBS to allow The Clash to do what they wanted – to in fact give ’em enough rope. It’s another example of Guy Stevens’ `direct injection’ method, and I think it made a big difference. There had been endless arguments, people had been shouting, talking about musicality, talking about profit, talking about how much the sleeve cost, talking about the songs of their lives, and there had been absolutely no meeting point. But the fact that Guy Stevens lay down in front of the limo and had to be carried back into the studio by myself and Jeremy Green – when he finally stopped fighting us – I think made a big impression on Maurice.”
There’s integrity and there is insanity, and then there is whatever Joe and the Clash were doing, which wasn’t making any money.
You can find out how good the album is in a million different places. The only thing I would advise you is that it is not a classic “punk’ album. It’s a rock and roll album that delves into basically every genre imaginable. Punk, reggae, ska, rockabilly, songs that indeed could have come out right at the same time as Elvis’ debut, and stuff no one had ever heard before. At this point, they could do basically anything imaginable except make money, which was likely fine with Joe, because nearly every single song decries greed, selling out and capitalism. One song is indeed called “Koka Kola.” Pete Townsend wanted to write an ironic Coke jingle for his satirical “The Who Sell Out,” which didn’t happen, but had it, it would have been infinitely more subtle than “Koka Kola” in satirizing advertising.
Joe doesn’t satirize advertising. He predicts and embodies this statement that would take over a decade to be made.
Bill Hicks likely loved the Clash, but he knew he had to sprinkle his Noam Chomsky with dick jokes. Joe again could be very funny, but sometimes he saw no jokes to be had.
Elevator! Going up!
In the gleaming corridors of the 51st floor
The money can be made if you really want some more
Executive decision, a clinical precision
Jumping from the windows, filled with indecision
I get good advice from the advertising world
Treat me nice says the party girl
Koke adds life where there isn’t any
So freeze, man, freeze
It’s the pause that refreshes in the corridors of power
When top men need a top up long before the happy hour
Your snakeskin suit and your alligator boot
You won’t need a launderette, you can take it to the vet!
I get my advice from the advertising world
Treat me nice says the party girl
Koke adds life where there isn’t any
So freeze, man, freeze
Koka Kola advertising and kokaine
Strolling down the Broadway in the rain
Neon light sign says it
I read it in the paper, they’re crazy!
Suit your life, maybe so
In the White House, I know
All over Berlin (they’ve been doin’ it for years)
And in Manhattan!
Coming through the door is a snub nose forty four
What the barrel can’t snort it can spatter on the floor
Your eyeballs feel like pinballs
And your tongue feels like a fish
You’re leaping from the windows saying don’t
Ayaiiiiirrrghhh!
Don’t give me none of this!
Koke adds life, advertising world
Treat me nice says the party girl
Koke adds life where there isn’t any
So freeze, man, freeze
Hit the deck!
Now Joe obviously knows that Coca-Cola originally had cocaine in it, but that’s not really his point.
His point and he makes it humorously, but deadly serious is that everything sold is worthless shit promulgated by greedy coked up weasels that he’d indeed love to see shot, and he says that in one minute and forty-seven seconds.
The original punks had a lot of fun berating rich lazy decadent rock stars. The ones who made money doing so pretty much became them (read animal farm).
One of the worst days of Pete Townshend’s life culminated in realizing that his managers, and especially the manager that had inspired him to reach the heights that he did (Kit Lambert), had cheated him, and the only way to resolve it was with a big check. Devastated Pete got really drunk saw Steve Jones and Paul Cook at a bar, didn’t realize that neither of them were John Lydon, and begged them to take the torch. One of them supposedly said something to the effect of “The Who aren’t breaking up are they? That would be a shame, we love the Who!” That was not the answer Pete wanted to hear at that time and he got drunker and wrote perhaps his last masterpiece, “Who Are You,” the last song of the last album on which Keith Moon would ever play.
Joe, of course, was willing to grab and carry the torch from Pete, and Pete Townshend was perhaps Joe’s biggest fan and supporter.
This did not spare Pete from his wrath.
The most famous couplet Pete ever wrote was in My Generation. “Things they do look awful cold/ Hope I die before I get old.”
This is, in my opinion, is the first real punk album of all time.
Billy Idol’s first band Generation X had already attacked Pete’s song with their own “Your Generation.”
Every line of that song attacks Townshend’s song and it even takes a poke at Pete’s song “Substitute.”
“There ain’t no time for substitutes.”
So Billy was telling Pete that he was indeed old now and it was time to step aside. He got there before Joe Strummer did, but it was a pose.
For all his debut’s talk about violence. Billy Idol just wanted to be Pete Townshend the rock star. He wasn’t marching in the streets.
He soon released the song “Ready, Steady, Go,” which was a lullaby to one of the television shows that made Pete a rock star.
I’m still in love with the Beatles
I was in love with the Stones, no satisfaction
I was in love with Bobby Dylan
Because I’m in love with Rock ‘n’ Roll
Ready steady go, all things she said
Ready steady go, wasn’t it fabulous
Billy Idol wanted Pete to step aside so he could have room to replace him as a rock star.
The one guy who worshipped Woody Guthrie potentially as much as the kid who went by that name before becoming Joe Strummer had a similar message even before Pete wrote his song.
Old people should step aside politically.
Dylan was never really one for marching in the streets though. He was a restless artist, who tried things on.
He was Woody Guthrie for a bit, wrote a lot of amazingly incredible, still relevant political songs (whether he admitted it or not).
Basically, he said everything he had to say about politics, left it as a blueprint and moved on.
Was he too old to carry the torch? Probably not.
He was only 24 when he pissed off all of his followers and decided to indeed see what being a rock star felt like for a while. Then he got bored of that and did something else, as he would over and over again pretty much until this day. Dylan was never really Woody Guthrie’s heir. He just wanted to be him for a while, try on his clothes and then try on some other clothes, which makes him an artist who had a huge political impact, which is fine.
Joe Strummer perhaps was psychotically Woody Guthrie, which doesn’t mean I think Joe was unbalanced. I think Woody Guthrie followed his own muse and supported his people by listening to his heart. “This Land Is Your Land” is not a patriotic song for kids it is an ode to socialism. The reason kids sing it and don’t realize that is because it is a gentle one. Guthrie still saw fascists after the end of World War 1 and kept fighting the good fight.
After Pete Townshend questioned himself in ” Who are You” he probably had no idea if he was merely a rock star, “preachin’ from my chair.”
“I stretched back and I hiccupped
And looked back on my busy day
Eleven hours in the tin pan
God, there’s got to be another way”
If Pete “felt a little like a dying clown” the day he wrote “Who Are You”, God only knows how he felt when he was told in no uncertain words by Joe Strummer that perhaps he saw no other way. He was willing to go to jail he was willing to go much further and in his fight for the underdog, he had nothing but contempt for people who were hedging their bets and making a ton of money even if they had done so ambivalently.
Joe Strummer was not a violent man, but his words and ideas were, and he had little time for ruminating.
When Joe specifically told his biggest fan that his generation was spent and had nothing left to offer, it was viscious, visceral, brutal, and very specific.
‘N’ every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock ‘n’ roll
Grabs the mike to tell us he’ll die before he’s sold
But I believe in this and it’s been tested by research
He who fucks nuns will later join the church
That last couplet isn’t going to make any fans of the faint of heart. But there has been no funnier or more malicious insult aimed at anyone ever. In this case, it was indeed aimed at rock stars.
There is plenty of wicked humor in “Death or Glory,” but I wouldn’t test this guy.
Now every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the world
And ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl
Love ‘n’ hate tattooed across the knuckles of his hands
Hands that slap his kids around ’cause they don’t understand how
Death or glory becomes just another story
Death or glory becomes just another story
‘N’ every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock ‘n’ roll
Grabs the mike to tell us he’ll die before he’s sold
But I believe in this and it’s been tested by research
He who fucks nuns will later join the church
Death or glory becomes just another story
Death or glory becomes just another story
Fear in the down sex
They say lie low
You say okay
Don’t wanna play a show
No other thinking
Was it death or glory now
Playing the blues of kings
Sure looks better now
Death or glory just another story
Death or glory just another story
From every dingy basement on every dingy street
Every dragging hand clap over every dragging beat
That’s just the beat of time the beat that must go on
If you’ve been trying for years we already heard your song
Death or glory becomes just another story
Death or glory just another story
Gotta launch long way
Fight a long time
Get to travel over mountains
Got to travel over seas
We gonna fight your brother
We gonna fight til you lose
We gonna raise trouble
We gonna raise hell
We gonna fight your brother
Raise hell
Death or glory becomes just another story
Death or glory becomes just another story
Rock and roll was not a vehicle to having fun and getting kicks to Joe Strummer, and he had nothing but contempt for anyone who used it for that purpose even for a second.
Meanwhile, his genius musical collaborator, who was with Joe 90% of the way, but wanted to be a rock star, while doing it had written the perfect pop song.
It ended London Calling. Its title “Train in Vain” wasn’t even on the album’s song list. It would be more romantic to say that it wasn’t there on purpose, but Joe had places to go and it was just a telling accident. It is however, a heartbreaking and perfect look at love gone wrong, and faith misplaced especially sung by Mick Jones after his partner has been dead and gone for quite a while.
My heart was broken, and as gentle and as loving as Mick presents it here this is the sound of heartbreak.
That was a hit still the Clash were broke.
Now had Mick Jones wanted to just be simply a rock star, perhaps the Clash should have broken up, declared bankruptcy do whatever it is you do when your that deep in the hole, and I have no idea how that didn’t happen.
They kept touring endlessly (and affordably for their fans to see them) and kept recording endless amounts of stuff of all varieties. Jamaican dub and they were perhaps even influenced by hip-hop more than any white artists ever as it was happening.
Sometimes I guess that you are so much in debt that there is little need to worry about it anymore.
There is a scene in the hilariously stupid movie “Strange Brew” where the McKenzie Brothers are speeding off a cliff with no brakes and one of them (I can never remember which is Bob and which is Doug) says “no point in steering now.”
Which I think is where the Clash was at when almost exactly one year after they gave CBS London Calling they, in turn, gave them this, which was perhaps the most insane philosophical testament to not giving a fuck about anything other than your music of all time.
Let’s list how preposterously insane this release form December of 1980 was and still is :
One: They just insisted on releasing a double album for the price of a single album. It was an undeniable masterpiece that likely sunk them further in debt. It also had not a single bit of dead weight other than perhaps “Revolution Rock perhaps going on a bit too long. This was a TRIPLE album that they insisted on releasing for the price of a single album!!!
I’m guessing that they potentially could have released Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 each three months apart and gotten credit for three albums on their CBS deal, but of course, they did not do that.
Of course, they agreed to even less royalties to do that.
Two: There is dead weight on Sandinista about an album’s worth. It would have taken any reasonably sane fan one listen to this thing, and he or she would instantly delete perhaps all of side six and maybe four other songs, and they would have had an even more groundbreaking, barrier bashing, perfect double album than London Calling. Imagine the white album with Revolution 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 and you sort of have Sandinista. This did not happen.
Three: It is just all over the place genre-wise.
I’m going to just steal from Wikipedia here because I’m too lazy to put it into my own words and it is accurate enough. “Anticipating the ‘world music’ trend of the 1980s, it features funk, reggae, jazz, gospel, rockabilly, folk, dub, rhythm and blues, calypso, disco, and rap.”
Four: They have now delivered the equivalent of seven albums worth of material that only counts as four and between EPs and B sides and giveaways or whatever could have had another great album that would have made it eight. This has all happened in about four years, during which they were constantly touring and providing exhausting shows night after night for likely more debt on their balance sheet during most of this time they are basically letting fans in through the windows for free, and even I believe letting fans stay in their hotel rooms if they need to do so.
Five: Ronald Fucking Reagan is about to take power. American sales are fairly important to the profitability of this album. It already has very little music stylistically for your average young white urban professionals to listen to if these songs were all about getting drunk, falling in love, chasing chicks, and having a good time. None of those things are on any of the songs on this album.”Train in Vain” although dispiriting and about betrayal is at least a boy/girl song. There is nothing within a galaxy of that type of song on this album.
Six: The Ronald Reagan era will be about these things. Nationalism, patriotism, law and order, corporate consolidation, being white, making money, buying expensive toys, greed is good, getting rich, calling poor people lazy, military might, taking on the Soviet Union, and fucking with South America. Every single song on this album is either enthusiastically or violently against every single one of these things.
Seven: This might not have been so obvious if you have named your album Songs for Swinging Lovers!, but you did not instead you named it Sandinista. Again Wiki-stealing because it is condensed and accurate. “The title refers to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and its catalog number, ‘FSLN1’, refers to the abbreviation of the party’s Spanish name, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional.” The Sandinistas were socialists, and Ronald Reagan is about to start supporting and illegally fighting the Contras to overthrow them. The only song on this album that sounds remotely punk is indeed the Eddy Grant reggae cover “Police on My Back,” but the sheer existence of this album being released by a major label in America is perhaps the single most punk rock act of all time especially when it is going to probably cost you money. Green Day is considered punk rock for saying fuck the president once or twice in a two and a half hour concert. Joe Strummer and the Clash are saying fuck you to what is to be one of the most beloved presidents of all time and fuck America over 36 songs that last a little over 144 minutes, and it’s in the title, the cover art, and the lyrical inserts as well!
Eight: By the way, John Lennon finally came out of hiding after years of the FBI trying to deport him for seditious activity, he did so with an album of love songs and odes to domesticity. He got assassinated four days before.
This is not some hardcore band like the Dead Kennedys who have a small rabid fan base that allows them to say anything and whose work is released on a small independent label. This is a (perhaps broke) but internationally famous band coming off huge sales of a universally acclaimed double album that actually moved a respectable amount of units on a major label that has released albums by featuring the work of Gene Autrey, Irving Berlin, Chet Atkins, Aretha Franklin, Aerosmith, Bob Dylan, Benny Goodman, and innumerable similar artists.
Here is one of their biggest selling albums of the year.
It went platinum seven times!
Here is his statement about the current state of rock and roll:
Yes he is wearing a skinny tie, an orange jacket and white tennis shoes, and he is telling you what how he feels about punk rock and all of rock and roll with a bad Elvis impression (there are of course about 100,000 bad Elvis impersonators working the US right now. This is as rocking as he gets. this is as funky as he gets. He thinks he is a badass rebel and the whole country agrees with him!
This is you trying to explain your musical ambitions and politics in front of a completely baffled Tom Snyder.
This is you promoting your new single decrying the horrors of capitalism and the mundane corporate work week. You will mention Marx and Engles. It is a feedback-drenched, rock, funk, hip-hop, rap hybrid and you are about to release a remix dance version of it without lyrics that adds a little disco to it. Its conclusion is that for most people no matter how hard you work that you are going absolutely nowhere and its music implies that this is especially true if you are black. Tom is sitting there unable to make out a single word you are saying and is wondering if you are the same species as him. How the fuck is this all happening on the same planet?
A discussion of “The Outer Fringe of Sex” is going to follow you? To your credit, your haircuts are for you pretty conventional at this time, although Joe is soon to go full Mohawk.
Here is what you sang although the only thing Tom really caught was you howling “Cheeeeseboiiiiigerrr!”
Ring, ring, it’s 7:00 A.M.
Move yourself to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and your bankers too
Must get up and learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet
A.M., the F.M. the P.M. too
Churnin’ out that boogaloo
Gets you up and it gets you out
But how long can you keep it up?
Gimme Honda, gimme Sony
So cheap and real phony
Hong Kong dollar, Indian cents
English pounds and Eskimo pence
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, give it all you got
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, yeah
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, give it all you got
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, yeah
Working for a rise, better my station
Take my baby to sophistication
Seen the ads, she thinks it’s nice
Better work hard, I seen the price
Never mind that it’s time for the bus
We got to work and you’re one of us
Clocks go slow in a place of work
Minutes drag and the hours jerk
Yeah, wave bye, bye
(When can I tell ’em what I do?)
(In a second, maan, alright Chuck)
Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
It’s our profit, it’s his loss
But anyway the lunch bells ring
Take one hour, do your thang
Cheeesboiger!!!!
What do we have for entertainment?
Cops kickin’ gypsies on the pavement
Now the news has snapped to attention
Lunar landing of the dentist convention
Italian mobster shoots a lobster
Seafood restaurant gets out of hand
A car in the fridge, a fridge in the car
Like cowboys do in TV land
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, give it all you got
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, huh
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, give it all you got, yeah
You lot, what?
Don’t stop
So get back to work and sweat some more
The sun will sink and we’ll get out the door
It’s no good for man to work in cages
Hit the town, he drinks his wages
You’re frettin’, you’re sweatin’
But did you notice, you ain’t gettin’
You’re frettin’, you’re sweatin’
But did you notice, not gettin’ anywhere
Don’t you ever stop, a long enough to start
Take your car outta that gear
Don’t you ever stop, long enough to start
Get your car outta that gear
Karlo Marx and Frederick Engels
Came to the checkout at the seven on eleven
Marx was skint but he had sense
Engels lent him the necessary pence
What have we got? Yeah, ooh
What have we got? Yeah, ooh
What have we got? Magnificence
What have we got?
Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win fifty-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You’ll be given the same reward
Socrates and Milhous Nixon
Both went the same way through the kitchen
Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin
Who’s more famous to the billion millions?
News flash, ‘Vacuum cleaner sucks up budgie’
Ooh, bye-bye, bub-bye
Johnny Carson has signed off about a half hour ago, and Ron and Nancy wouldn’t have understood a word you said. Had they been given a transcript of any stanza of that song you would be in a secret detention center for foreign terrorists. Actually, how are you not in that center just by naming your album what you did?
Let’s take a look at some of the other highlights of your album.
“Ivan meets GI Joe”
A disco send-up of the cold war where America and Russia have a dance-off at studio 54. It probably ends with the United States obliterating the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons and then issuing a new dance challenge to China.
Fortunately, the president doesn’t really have a problem with that.
Then again that was your point, wasn’t it?
“Somebody Got Murdered”
You’re on pretty safe ground here. This is an upbeat pop song. This could have been a big hit if its chorus wasn’t this:
Somebody got murdered
Somebody’s dead forever
This is less than upbeat in a new proud reawakening America
Somebody got murdered
His name cannot be found
A small stain on the pavement
They’ll scrub it off the ground
As the daily crowd disperses
Noone says that much
Somebody got murdered
And it’ left me with a touch
You need to move on because no one else cares.
That’s also your point.
“Washington Bullets”
You list all of the horrors of the last 30 years of South American and Asian history and trace it all to the US Military and Corporate Greed.
The chorus is indeed “Sandinista.”
This probably isn’t going to be played at many 4th of July parades. If it is no one will notice anyway.
“The Call Up”
A cheery tune urging you not to join the military. There is no longer a draft, but were there you’d have the exact same advice.
All the young people down the ages
They gladly marched off to die
Proud city father used to watch them
Tears in their eyes
It’s up to you, not to heed the call up
I don’t wanna die
It’s up to you, not to hear the call up
I don’t wanna kill
“Charlie Don’t Surf”
Songs with references to cool movie quotes will be very fun in the future. You picked the most insane things said by one of the most insane characters in movie history and you attack Coca-Cola Enterprises again.
Charlie don’t surf and we think he should
Charlie don’t surf and you know that it ain’t no good
Charlie don’t surf for his hamburger Momma
Charlie’s gonna be a napalm star
Everybody wants to rule the world
Must be something we get from birth
One truth is we never learn
Satellites will make space burn
We’ve been told to keep the strangers out
We don’t like them starting to hang around
We don’t like them all over town
Across the world we are going to blow them down
Charlie don’t surf and we think he should
Charlie don’t surf and you know that it ain’t no good
Charlie don’t surf for his hamburger Momma
Charlie’s gonna be a napalm star
The reign of the super powers must be over
So many armies can’t free the earth
Soon the rock will roll over
Africa is choking on their Coca Cola
It’s a one a way street in a one horse town
One way people starting to brag around
You can laugh, put them down
These one way people gonna blow us down
Nice. Enjoy touring your asses off to make this thing sell!
Actually, they only played New York in support of Sandinista
They set up a series of small shows in the heart of New York City at Bond’s Casino on Broadway. Due to the greed of the promoters, who overbooked the shows, riots broke out, some dates were canceled. The end result though was that the band stayed there and played as many shows as it took (17!) for the people who paid not to get ripped off, they also had an incredible assortment of opening acts most of them emerging hip-hop artists, who were booed and harassed, and then defended by Joe. Pure ugliness that turned into sheer inspirational history, likely mostly because of Joe, but the whole band loved the cultural mix that was New York at the time.
“The band had a new opening act every night, including The Fall, Grandmaster Flash, and the Furious Five, Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Lee “Scratch” Perry and many more. Many of the hip-hop groups that opened were either picketed or booed off the stage, which prompted Joe to chide the audience as soon as The Clash came on stage afterward.”
The Clash gave to New York and New York gave to the Clash and they left with this, which is the single best amalgamation of hip-hop and white rock ever. It shows exactly Joe’s intent, Joe’s method’s, Joe’s message, and Joe’s incredible wit and humor. In a time where radio is dead, this is still the only radio station to listen to.
This leads us to the single most misunderstood Clash song in history. Their breakout hit in fact.
Their next album was again going to be a double album, but Topper the true soul of the band was completely messed up on heroin and would get fired after this was released in 1982. Just one disc this time.
Paul and Joe actually thought things were being run too professionally and wanting chaotic inspiration they insanely brought Bernie Rhodes, who true to form did bring chaos. Mick wasn’t happy. He was burned out. He perhaps thought it was time to be treated like a rock star. The one thing that Topper did provide was the music to “Rock the Casbah.”
The song made it to #8 in America, mostly due to its video being played endlessly on the demonically corporate MTV, which led to people saying that the impossible to sell out Clash had finally sold out.
In truth, it deserved to be played on MTV constantly and was still the funniest and perhaps most subversive thing on MTV ever.
Although the groove is Topper’s, that’s not Topper in the video. That’s the guy Terry Chimes who had recorded everything with them pre-Topper.
Here are as many amazing, funny and finally sad things about this song and video as I can list.
One: It’s funky as hell and it’s incredibly awesome how Mick has his face covered up until Joe rips off his mask at the exact moment he mockingly wails “This is not Kosher!”
Two: It’s set in Texas and the characters in the video are on their way to a Clash show at Austin’s City Colosseum
Three: The band is performing in front of an oil rig. Much of our oil did then and does now come from the Middle East
Four: I have no idea why there is an armadillo running around everywhere.
Five: Here are the lyrics. try to understand them few do
Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin’ to the top
The Sheik he drove his Cadillac
He went a’ cruisin’ down the ville
The muezzin was a’ standing
On the radiator grille
The Shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The Shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the Shareef
Had cleared the square
They began to wail
The Shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The Shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
Now over at the temple
Oh! They really pack ’em in
The in crowd say it’s cool
To dig this chanting thing
But as the wind changed direction
The temple band took fire
The crowd caught a whiff
Of that crazy Casbah jive
The Shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The Shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The king called up his jet fighters
He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah way
As soon as the Shareef was
Chauffeured outta there
The jet pilots tuned to
The cockpit radio blare
As soon as the Shareef was
Out of their hair
The jet pilots wailed
The Shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The Shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
He thinks it’s not kosher
Fundamentally he can’t take it
You know he really hates it
Six: Joe really hates the leaders in the Middle East, who control all the oil and have all the money, he truly wants to fuck them up!
Seven: At the onset of “Operation Desert Storm,” Armed Forces Radio played the song to start their coverage of the party.
Eight: At some point, a bomb or perhaps more than one bomb was detonated with the word’s “Rock the Casbah” on it
Nine: It basically became the catchphrase and theme song for the entire war.
Ten: What did Joe think when he found out? What do you think he fucking thought? This was the guy who had written “Washington Bullets.” He reportedly wept.
In every line of that song, in every image in that video, Joe denounces the rich leaders, anti-freedom, oil-addicted leaders.
Orders are given for bombs to fly. There are jet fighter pilots everywhere, and the single thing he hates the most about those leaders are the ones that ban music, which is indicative of every human rights violation made by those we do support and those we don’t.
America’s hypocritical support for the censoring policies of one leader or another is all based on oil and not freedom.
But the jet fighters don’t drop their bombs and the Kings, the Prophets, the Shieks, and the Shareefs get angrier and angrier. Why? Because they’ve banned music.
But in every case, the common people, the poor, and even the jet pilots resist them at every instance. Why, because all music and especially Joe’s music is too damn good to keep taking the abuse of those that seek to enslave them. Joe wants to free and solve the problems of the Middle East not with bombs, but with his music, and indeed perhaps part of the reason that the Soviet Union fell was that the kids and even the adults all wanted to hear Beatles albums.
Eleven: What’s happening in the video aside from the Clash’s performance? A Muslim hitch-hiker is picked up by a Hasidic limo driver and they take a journey, the whole time dancing and listening to music and having fun. They hit up Burger King, they have some “cheeeesboiiigers,” the Muslim drinks a beer. Where are they going? They’re going to a Clash concert, and that was Joe’s dream and intent from day one. He only really cared about his fans, and he always told his fans to appreciate all cultures and all music, ignore their differences, and to reduce it all to the greedy evil rulers vs. the Clash fans. Joe doesn’t want the killing and the bombing to continue, he wants as many people as possible going to Clash shows together and letting the overwhelming majority of decent, not rich, not greedy, not evil people overcome the minority that are exact not like that. Joe wants to free the world with his music and his concerts.
He expressed that over and over again with his words brilliantly. Mick’s music perfectly complemented his words, Topper provided the soul and Paul Simonon provided their artful looks and became a fairly accomplished bass player. In fact, if you remember something musical on the song London Calling it is exactly his dominant bass line, and that’s him smashing his bass on the cover photo.
For six years no band worked harder day after day in the studio and out of it. No one gave more amped up, rage-fueled, energetically passionate performances. Combat Rock was essentially their only real hit album, and it does finally contain Mick’s most perfect pure pop song “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” but it’s not a sellout. The whole album is pure Clash. “Straight to Hell” is a dark song about Viet Nam, another movie character is quoted extensively and this time it is the equally psychotic Travis Bickle, from huge fan Martin Scorcese’s “Taxi Driver” and it had their last stand and simplest, but possibly their most defiant song on it.
This is basically the finale to the real Clash.
On May 28th, 1983, the Clash were actually paid $500,000 by Steve Wozniak Apple’s co-founder to close the “New Wave” day at the US Festival (as in us not as in United States) in San Bernadino, California. They were probably running on fumes, but it was likely the biggest crowd for which they ever played. It was indeed, the last time Mick Jones would play with the Clash.
Before they went onstage, they held a press conference saying that they had been told that the tickets would be $17 and found out that they were, in fact, $25, and they wouldn’t go onstage unless Wozniak gave $100,000, which was probably misplaced rage because Wozniak’s intentions for the festivals were good and he lost money on the whole thing, but it was consistent.
They finally went on a couple hours late and played in front of a banner “The Clash not for Sale.” Joe wasn’t in the best mood. They got into a fight with some of the security after their set, but this was played and is as relevant as ever.
This is a public service announcement with guitar!
Know your rights
All three of them
Number one
You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a crime
Unless it was done
By a policeman
Or an aristocrat
Oh, know your rights
And number two
You have the right to food money
Providing of course
You don’t mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation
Know your rights
These are your rights
Oh, know these rights
Number three
You have the right to free speech
As long as
You’re not dumb enough to actually try it
Know your rights
These are your rights
Oh, know your rights
These are your rights
All three of ’em
And it has been suggested in some quarters
That this is not enough
Well
Get off the streets
Get off the streets
Know your rights!
The ending wasn’t pretty. Joe kicked Mick out of the band and Mick actually thrived creatively with Big Audio Dynamite.
Joe and Paul recruited a sort of Clash Mach II.
Joe had them busking on the streets for a while to get them road ready.
May 11th, 1984 was the only time I saw Joe and Paul perform and it was that Clash I saw. It was still an incredibly powerful and energetic show. It still means a lot to me and I wish I had seen the real thing because it would likely have been even better.
Joe may have lost some faith in himself, but he never strayed from his vision or principles.
There was one half-hearted attempt at a last album, Joe pretty much disowned it, and it is the only thing with the name Clash on it that doesn’t approach brilliance and pure fervor and passion., but it does have one last great Clash song on it. It took some time for it to be acknowledged, but I knew it was great right when it came out.
This isn’t particularly great, but I have a soft spot for it and it’s like a goodbye for me. There is at least one last ounce of passion in it even if it is a faded call of nostalgia for the dream and the mission. Perhaps it implies that there is no longer a Clash but in their wake, all of their fans step up and are the Clash from then on.
In 2002, Don Letts, who was part of the family and it was a big family, made a documentary with the four real members of the band.
There are moments of regret.
Topper feels horrible and feels his addictions let the band down and destroyed their movement. After all, that last album with him led them to the zenith of their popularity. It was like just when they finally broke through he wasn’t there to keep them going.
Mick feels bad that perhaps he’d been less than likable at the end and a bit of a primadonna.
There is a general sense that they shouldn’t have been working every moment of every day for six years and should have taken a break at some point to relieve the pressures.
Simonon, though and to an extent, it is sort of shared by them all, is adamant that it is as it happened and like Sandinista, he wouldn’t change a single note of it.
Wounds healed. Strummer and Jones performed one last time together. They finally made some money when a commercial or perhaps a few commercials licensed “Should I Stay or Should I Go.”
The iPod I made for my niece? That was on it, and it was the one that stuck out to her. She probably hasn’t heard anything else of them, but she’s heard that and that matters to me.
It’s the perfect pop song. It isn’t about all that much, but it has attitude and passion and whatever it is, in whatever language Joe is singing in the background.
That’s them for the first time and pretty much the only period, except the US Festival, in front of a stadium crowd. It’s the Who’s audience, not theirs, but by that time much of the Who’s audience was more passionate about them, just like the leader of the Who was at that time. There’s plenty of joy finally being in front of a crowd that big. They always played with die-hard passion, but perhaps deserved more joy than they had even with Strummer’s sense of humor, Jones’ happiness to be in the limelight, and Simonon’s sheer cool and determination to play bass on stage as wildly as Townshend once did guitar. Topper’s not there and he’s missed. It was one last moment of FUN, and they were enjoying it even if Mick and Joe were at each other’s throats at the time. I don’t think they are acting, I don’t think they were ever capable of acting. They were family and they always understood family.
And they did enjoy it way more than I have portrayed it here. The hostile crowds, the street fights with those who were or were not punks. The silly arrest that was turned into an epic song after shooting at pigeons from atop a roof. It was indeed one big riot and a street fight and that’s what they wanted it to be. The violence was only in the passion of their lyrics and their music not in their actions or in their hearts. They were always cheerleaders for a better world, not gunmen.
I don’t think any of them for a second considered any type of reformation or reunion.
Joe did know before he died that they’d been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Joe, Mick, and Topper at least were willing to do a one night only stab at it.
This is a 2008 interview with Simonon, who was from the start and is today a legitimate visual artist.
‘The Buzzcocks were very Mondrian and we were Pollock’
“Does he have any regrets that the group split just as America was ready to fall at their feet? ‘Not really. I mean, it would be nice to have loads of money, but that was never a consideration back then. It was always very fast-forward, let’s keep the urgency.’
“Treading carefully, I ask him how he coped with the news of Joe Strummer’s sudden death back in December 2002. He stares at the ground. ‘Well, me and Joe were tight, you know. We were very close throughout the early days, living on the street, sharing dole money. And then he stayed at my house a lot after the band broke up. So it was tough. Really tough. First, it’s like you are shocked so much you don’t even know you’re in shock. Then, you have to find some way of making sense of it.’
“The day before Strummer died, he sent Paul Simonon a text message. It said, ‘Come on, Paul. Give it a try. You might even like it.’ Strummer was referring to a possible reunion of the Clash for a one-off gig to celebrate their imminent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Simonon, though, was having none of it. ‘Joe was up for it, and so was Mick and Topper [Headon, the Clash’s drummer], but I wasn’t,’ he says, without a trace of regret. ‘I was the one who always said no. In this instance, I really didn’t believe it was the right moment. A big corporate event like that, two grand a seat. Nah, that wasn’t in the spirit of the Clash, was it?’
In the end, he went to the Hall of Fame ceremony to celebrate Joe Strummer’s legacy and to support his widow, Lucinda. ‘I wasn’t comfortable, though,’ he adds. ‘I just hate all those bloody awards ceremonies. There’s too many of them and they really don’t mean a lot to me. It’s that looking back thing again. It’s not what the Clash were ever about, and it’s not what I’m about.’ “
Does that mean that it wouldn’t have happened? No Joe Strummer was nothing, but an insistent and virulently stubborn prodder.
I don’t think Paul Simonon can ever say that he would ever be 100% on saying no to Joe about anything, but when it was suggested that the other three do it with anyone else? Completely out of the question. Silly and foolish to even think about it for a second.
A few weeks ago this came to my attention.
A bunch of unreleased Joe Strummer songs are on the way
Was I excited? Was I happy? Was I interested?
No actually, I was sort of disgusted.
It seems packaged well. It seems like the money is going to the right place. I guess I’m happy that stuff is being preserved. If someone that knows and understands Strummer wants all that to pore through, whatever.
If Beatles obsessives want to go through every single take of every single track or even every single isolated portion of every single track fine. If there are some Prince obsessives praying that they live long enough to see all of his vault emptied and evaluated? Fine.
But look at the quote that starts this piece.
We’re against ignorance. – Joe Strummer
We live in an extremely precarious time right now. Ignorance is rampant. Everything that Joe Strummer believed in is either dying or dead.
When I was around 17, there was a store that sold a lot of crappy really expensive bootlegs, and I spent maybe $25 on a Led Zeppelin bootleg that was essentially a pre-Zeppelin Robert Plant recording of “You Better Run” and some random Jimmy Page noodlings, when I did not even own all of the good real Led Zeppelin albums. I could have used that money and bought three. Now that’s some ignorant shit.
In 2006, The National Review ranked “Rock the Casbah” the 20th best conservative rock song of all time. That is some truly abhorrent, ignorant shit.
Do you know how sad I was when I heard that Joe Strummer died in 2002? Do you realize how sad I am that he is not alive today? With the very small appreciation that Joe did not have to witness the world as it is today, Joe Strummer is the single person I most wish were alive today.
If Joe Strummer were alive today, he’d put all of that shit on the internet for free, and be rattling the fence outside the White House with an amp and an electric guitar feedback blaring the sound of police sirens so loudly that the occupants of that building would never get a moment’s rest, and who knows who would be out there with him?
But he is dead, but where is the new Joe Strummer? Where are even perhaps ten bad Joe Strummer imitators?
The man has a canon and a message that was vibrant true and real and no one has a clue what that message was and aren’t even smart enough to realize that they should be looking for it and how easy it is to find.
We can’t write those lyrics, we can’t sing those songs, but we can pass them on. Wasn’t that the implied job of anyone who liked Joe Strummer for who he was and what he said, especially since nearly everything he did say was so true and so relevant exactly right now. Why aren’t these people posting his songs and performances everywhere they can. Why aren’t those songs being sung or shared with the young people who need to hear them now more than ever? Joe is dead. “We are the Clash.” Somebody is dead forever. Everybody needs to be degenerating “the faithful.”
With that “crazy Casbah sound!” until certain people fundamentally “can’t take it.”
Post this or something like it everywhere you can in hopes that they understand even a fraction of it. Especially the part “It’s the best years of your life they’re trying to steal.
I have more than one guitar I can barely play, but I do have a machine that kills fascists, and fascists are everywhere right now. They are writing “Rock the Casbah” on their bombs and pouring Koka Kola down peoples gullets.
What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
‘Cause they’re working for the clampdown
They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we’re working for the clampdown
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers
The judge said five to ten-but I say double that again
I’m not working for the clampdown
No man born with a living soul
Can be working for the clampdown
Kick over the wall cause government’s to fall
How can you refuse it?
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
D’you know that you can use it?
The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there’s nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don’t owe nothing, so boy get runnin’
It’s the best years of your life they want to steal
You grow up and you calm down
You’re working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown
You’re working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
Make your first kill now
In these days of evil Presidentes
Working for the clampdown
But lately one or two has fully paid their due
For working for the clampdown
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong! (working for the clampdown)
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong! (working for the clampdown)
Yeah I’m working in Harrisburg
Working hard in Petersburg
(working for the clampdown, working for the clampdown)
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!
Beggin’ to be melted down
And I’ll give away no secrets
If you truly love Joe Strummer’s music spread what he consciously released and its message to do not spend valuable time and money on expensively packaged rarities.
exactly everyone does
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