Clash – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Clash – Death Or Glory

I first heard London Calling with my friend who had an import copy of it in the early 1980s. He and his older brother had some great music that wasn’t mainstream at the time. Bands like Big Star, Grateful Dead, Replacements, and The Clash. I learned to appreciate the so-called “nonpopular” bands at that time. It’s a trait I’ve kept ever since. Search music out and you will find good music.

They started off as a punk band but The Clash, unlike some other Punk bands, could play and sing well…, especially Mick Jones. He was probably the best pure musician in the band. The Clash wanted to break out of Punk’s limitations.

When they released London Calling, they moved beyond pure punk rock and began exploring a variety of styles, including rock, reggae, ska, and more. This song has very accessible music but the words are biting. You can get many things out of it but I pretty much get the hypocrisy directed to us all. They were directing much of it at the rock scene of the time. It’s also about the difficulties of not selling out. It’s not easy to do when navigating the trials of adulthood.

The album was produced by Guy Stevens, an unpredictable producer known for his eccentric methods. He encouraged spontaneity while creating an unorthodox atmosphere in the studio. He would throw chairs or ladders to “inspire” the band while recording. After thinking about this…he sounds perfect for The Clash. He would die of an overdose in 1981 of a medication that was helping him to reduce his alcohol intake. The Clash wrote a song in tribute to him called “Midnight to Stevens“. Stevens also produced Free and they wrote a song about him called Guy Steven Blues.

The lyric “Love and hate tattooed across the knuckles of his hands” got me thinking about a film called The Night of the Hunter. I did some research and yes Joe Strummer was a huge fan of the movie when he was a teenager and that line is said to be a reference to Robert Mitchum’s sinister character Reverend Harry Powell who has that on his knuckles.

London Calling peaked at #9 in the UK, #3 in Canada, #12 in New Zealand, and #27 on the Billboard Album Charts in 1979-1980.

Death or Glory

Hey

Now every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the worldEnds up making payments on a sofa or a girlLove and hate tattooed across the knuckles of his handsHands that slap his kids around ’cause they don’t understand how

Death or gloryBecomes just another storyDeath or gloryBecomes just another story

And every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock and rollGrabs the mic to tell us he’ll die before he’s soldBut I believe in this, and it’s been tested by researchHe who fucks nuns will later join the church

Death or gloryBecomes just another storyDeath or gloryBecomes just another story

Ooh, ah-ah-ah, oohOoh, ah-ah-ah, oohOoh, ah-ah-ah, ooh

Fear in the gun-sights, they say lie lowYou say ok, don’t wanna play the showNow all you’re thinking, was it death or glory now?Playing the blues for pennies sure looks better now

Death or gloryJust another storyDeath or gloryJust another story

And every dingy basement, on every dingy streetEvery dragging hand clap over every dragging beatIt’s just the beat of time, the beat that must go onIf you’ve been trying for years, we already heard your song

Death or gloryBecomes just another storyDeath or gloryJust another story

Gonna march a long wayFight a long timeGot to travel over mountainsGot to travel overseas

We’re gonna fight you, brotherWe’re gonna fight ’til you loseWe’re gonna raise troubleWe’re gonna raise hellWe’re gonna fight you, brotherRaise hell

Death or gloryBecomes just another storyDeath or gloryBecomes just another story

Death or gloryJust another storyDeath or gloryBecomes just another story

…

Clash – Brand New Cadillac

This was a great cover by The Clash. It was on the London Calling album released in 1979. They started off as a punk band but The Clash, unlike some other Punk bands, could really play and sing well…, especially Mick Jones. He was probably the best pure musician in the band.

The song was originally by Vince Taylor and released in 1959. It was the B side to a song called Pledging My Love. Taylor wrote the song but Tony Sheridan is credited with the cool guitar riff running through the song. The song’s riff reminds me of the original Batman riff…or really the other way around.

The Clash’s version of the song is the best-known. They did it in one take. It was the B side to the single London Calling. The single peaked at #46 in the UK in 1988 re-release. It also peaked at #64 with another UK re-release in 1991.

Rolling Stone magazine named London Calling the best album of the ’80s. It should be noted that it was first released in the UK in December 1979. In the US, it was released two weeks into January 1980, meaning that from a US perspective, it’s a 1980s album.

I like Vince’s version just as well… a good rock song through and through.

Brand New Cadillac

DriveDrive

My baby drove up in a brand new CadillacYes, she didMy baby drove up in a brand new CadillacShe said, “Hey, come here, daddy”I ain’t never comin’ back

Baby, baby, won’t you hear my plea?Yeah, come on, sugar, just come on back to meShe said, “Balls to you, big daddy”

Baby, baby, won’t you hear my plea?Oh, oh, come on, just hear my pleaShe said, “Balls to you, daddy”She ain’t comin’ back to me

Oh GodBaby, baby, drove up in a CadillacI said, “Jesus Christ, where’d you get that Cadillac?”She said, “Balls to you, daddy”She ain’t never comin’ backShe ain’t, she ain’t comin’ backShe ain’t never comin’ backShe ain’t never comin’ backShe ain’t never comin’ back

…

Max Picks …songs from 1979

1979

I hate that it’s the last year of the seventies. A great decade for music and a lot of cool things. Now the eighties are coming…

A masterpiece. I was 12 when this was released and it sounded timeless even then. It was a great song in 1979 and will be great in 2079. Not only are the words inventive but this was most people’s introduction to Mark Knopfler. I wasn’t a guitar player when I was 12 but I knew he was something special.

I’ve heard this one at what seems like a thousand times but I’ll always turn it up when it comes on the radio.

Blondie members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein wrote the first version of this song in early 1974, shortly after they first met. They didn’t have a proper title for the song, and would refer to it as “The Disco Song.”

Evidently finding words to rhyme to “glass” that fit in a song were… a pain in the ass. American radio at that time frowned on that rhyme. To ensure airplay stations were sent an edited version with the offending line replaced with “soon turned out I had a heart of glass.”

This was the first song I ever knew by the Clash when I heard it on the radio in 1980. The song is credited to Mick Jones and Joe Strummer like most Clash songs. Mick Jones takes the lead vocals in this one.

They started off as a punk band but The Clash, unlike some other Punk bands, could really play and sing well…, especially Mick Jones. He is was probably the best pure musician in the band.

This song was released in 1979 was one of many signs a change was coming in music. Gary Numan on the inspiration of the song. “A couple of blokes started peering in the window and for whatever reason took a dislike to me, so I had to take evasive action. I swerved up the pavement, scattering pedestrians everywhere. After that, I began to see the car as the tank of modern society.”

Numan has stated that he has Asperger syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, but until he was diagnosed, he had a lot of trouble relating to other people.

I was never a huge disco fan but this song always meant a lot to me. I’m a huge baseball fan and my Dodgers really sucked in 1979. The Pirates on the other hand had a 39-year-old Willie Stargell leading them to a World Series championship and this is the song that will be forever linked to that year, team, and World Series. Here’s to Pops…Willie Stargell.

…

Clash – I Fought The Law ….Under The Covers Week

This is such a powerful song no matter who covers it. Sonny Curtis of the Crickets wrote this song and the most famous version is by The Bobby Fuller Four in 1965. This song was made for the Clash to cover and they do a great job on this.

The Clash’s version only charted in Ireland at #24 in 1979. It was on the EP The Cost Of Living. The original song sounded like a punk song before punk was a genre. The song was written two decades before The Clash recorded it in 1959. The song was ranked No. 175 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004.

The Clash covered the song after they heard Fuller’s version on a jukebox. When playing the song live they made the song bleaker, changing the line, “I left my baby” to “I killed my baby.” Their version got them noticed in America, where the song was released in 1979, with “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais” as the B-side.

The song was re-released in 1988 and peaked at #29 in the UK and #17 in New Zealand.

Sonny Curtis: “It was some time during the summer of 1959, and I would have been about twenty-one at the time,” the now 84-year-old songwriter tells Classic Rock. “I was sitting in my living room, about three o’ clock in the afternoon, in a little town called Slaton, Texas, outside of the city of Lubbock, where Buddy and a whole bunch of us started out.

“It was a real windy day, which happens a lot in west Texas. The sand was blowing outside. I picked up my guitar, and I can’t imagine where the idea came from, but I just started writing this song, I Fought The Law. It only took about twenty minutes. You can tell that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with those lyrics. But it’s my most important copyright.”

I Fought The Law

Breakin’ rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won [x2]
I needed money ’cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won [x2]

I left my baby and it feels so bad
Guess my race is run
She’s the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the

Robbin’ people with a six-gun
I fought the law and the law won [x2]
I lost my girl and I lost my fun
I fought the law and the law won [x2]

I left my baby and it feels so bad
Guess my race is run
She’s the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the

I fought the law and the law won [x7]
I fought the law and the

Clash – Hitsville UK

I love Christmas every year but when it’s over…I’m happy to break back into the routine of pop/rock songs.

Recently I’ve dived into Sandinista! by The Clash. A very good triple album set. It’s been years since I listened to this one and I’m enjoying it. Not every single song but most I do like. I tend to like double and triple albums like they are. I’ve heard some say about London Calling, The White Album, and Exile On Mainstreet…hmmm they could have had a great album out of this if they would have cut it down. Most of the time I don’t agree because I love some good album cuts but this one…I will have to say I agree…this triple album should have been a double album…but for all of you Clash super fans…you might like the entire album….if you do that is great and I know how you feel…I wouldn’t change a thing about the White Album…not even Revolution #9.

Clash Saninista!

Ellen Foley, who was Mick Jones’ girlfriend at the time, is singing on this track along with Jones. You might know her from singing with Meatloaf on Paradise By The Dashboard Lights. The title relates to Motown Records or known as Hitsville U.S.A…

The song is a duet between Clash guitarist Mick Jones and his then-girlfriend Ellen Foley (who also sang “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” together with Meat Loaf). It was rumored that “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” is about Jones’ and Foley’s relationship.

Bassist Paul Simonon was busy starring in a film called Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains when the Clash started the album Sandinista! Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ bassist Norman Watt-Roy filled in for him for a few cuts including The Magnificent Seven.

In 1981, Ellen Foley and Mick Jones teamed up for another duet on “Torchlight,” a track from Foley’s solo album Spirit Of St. Louis that Jones wrote with Joe Strummer.

The song peaked at #53 in the Billboard 100 and #56 in the UK in 1980. If you want to see a review of Sandinista! check out Aphoristic Album Reviews on this album.

The song according to Songfacts: The lyrics refer to the upcoming British Indie scene in the late ’70s and early ’80s. There are several independent label references in the song, including Small Wonder, Rough Trade, Fast Product and Factory, which in contrast with “slimy deals with smarmy eels.

Ellen Foley: “That stands out as the most fun and relaxed part of the whole thing and it was fun to multitrack my vocals on that one, it was a super lighthearted song that spoke to an experience that I understood, being an American and a fan of the original Hitsville.”

Ellen Foley: “For me, ‘Hitsville UK’ is about the history of The Clash and the beginnings of British punk rock, how it was by kids for kids. The lyric goes, “I know the boys and girls are not alone now that Hitsville hit UK. Motown was really an early soundtrack of my youth. I loved the Miracles because of Smokey Robinson’s voice and songwriting. Smokey is the consummate artist and songwriter. The Four Tops and the Temptations — that was like a battle of the bands in my mind. Having these male singing groups with the amazing harmonies and choreography was something new to me.”

Hitsville UK

They cried the tears, they shed the fears
Up and down the land
They stole guitars or used guitars
So the tape would understand
Without even the slightest hope of a thousand sales
Just as if there was a Hitsville in UK
Know the boy was all alone, till the Hitsville UK

They say true talent will always emerge in time
When lightening hits small wonder
It’s fast rough factory trade
No expense accounts, or lunch discounts
Or hypeing up the charts
The band went in ‘n’ knocked ’em dead in two minutes and fifty-nine

No slimey deals, with smarmy eels, in Hitsville UK
Let’s shake ‘n’ say we’ll operate in Hitsville UK
The mutants, creeps and muscle men
Are shaking like a leaf
It blows a hole in the radio
When it hasn’t sounded good all week
A mike ‘n’ boom, in your living room – in Hitsville UK
No consumer trials, or A.O.R. in Hitsville UK
Now the boys and girls are not alone
Now the Hitsvilles hit U

Clash – The Magnificent Seven

The bass intro to this song is worth the price of admission by itself. It still sounds alive and fresh 42 years later. When you namecheck Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Milhous Nixon, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and Rin Tin Tin…you are doing damn well.

There was a controversy after Sandinista! was released due to every song having the”The Clash” writing credit that failed to name outside writers like Norman Watt-Roy. This has been considered the first rap-style song to be written by a white rock band. It was recorded in March 1980, six months before Blondie’s own attempt at the genre with “Rapture.” For me, I do think it has elements of course but it’s a cross between rock, rap, funk, and Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues. I also hear elements of the next album Combat Rock in this one.

The song peaked at 21 on the Billboard Dance Chart, #18 in Canada, and #34 in the UK.

The song was recorded in March 1980 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Sandinista! was released as a triple album in 1980. It peaked at #24 on the Billboard Album Charts, #3 in Canada, #3 in New Zealand, and #19 in the UK in 1980. They did get the title from the famous 1960 movie.

Joe Strummer on the triple album: “I stand proud of it, warts and all. It’s a magnificent thing! I wouldn’t change it even if I could. And that’s after some soul-searching. Just from the fact that it was all thrown down in one go. It’s, like, outrageous. And that it was released like that, it’s doubly outrageous — triply outrageous.”

The Magnificent Seven

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

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 7-11
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

The magnificent seven
Magnificent
Magnificent seven