Storming out from under London's Westway flyover came The Clash - a diplomat's son and ex-pub rocker for a vocalist, a Rolling Stones and Mott The Hoople fan on lead guitar and vocals, a taciturn but photogenic reggae aficionado on bass with a French surname (like the bassist in The Stranglers had too) and a spiky, wired but supremely versatile drummer from Dover. Seems like one hell of a conglomeration, doesn't it? However, it was a highly combustible one that lasted a mere five glorious but often chaotic years.
What were they? A bunch of clichéd sloganeers and right place/right time chancers or, as some described them at the time, "the only band that matters"? Here is their "best of". It's all up to you to decide. Me, I feel that they had something to say and said it loud at a time when it really needed saying, even though sometimes it didn't make complete sense. The thing was that it sounded like it was the absolute oracle. There had been nothing like The Clash before, and probably nothing like them since.
Their brand of aggressive punk mixed with a glam rock ear for a tune, wry lyrics, heavy dubby bass and the energy of rockabilly was pretty damn irresistible, let's be honest. The Clash were something truly special and will always have a huge place in my heart.
Anyway - on to this career-spanning, definitive collection. Sure, there are things that may have made it on to the list, but you can't have everything on only two CDs. The unusual thing about this is that Joe Strummer curated it to run as a gig set list (even including some "encores" at the end of disc two) as opposed to a chronological history of single releases. Not all the tracks were singles, so it functions very much as a "best of" as opposed to a "greatest hits".
So, we start with the one that everyone seems to know now - London Calling. Its chunky riff heralds a magnificent metallic and chunky call to arms to all who "live by the river". It positively overflows with post-nuclear and cold war imagery as Joe lets his political dictionary of a mind go into overdrive (this is far more of a Joe song than a Mick one, isn't it?). It will go down as the group's most memorable song. Bruce Springsteen has opened his shows with a storming cover of it on occasions. Everyone respected Joe.
Up next is another corker - Safe European Home was simply a fantastic, barnstorming opening to its album (Give 'Em Enough Rope) with a stunning guitar riff to begin things and then a frenetic, almost incomprehensible Strummer vocal about his experiences as a disconcerted white guy in downtown Kingston, Jamaica. Apparently producer Sandy Pearlman objected to Strummer's slurred voice and mixed the drums higher than his voice throughout the album. It certainly sounds as if that is the case here. I saw the band live in December 1978 and they opened with this. It was one of the greatest moments from one of the greatest gigs of my life.
Know Your Rights is a visceral, confrontational, politically-motivated minimalist opener that sort of harked back to the Give 'Em Enough Rope days, as opposed to London Calling or Sandinista! There was a starkness about it, though, that differentiated it from the sound of 1978. It was the first single from the Combat Rock album in 1982 (the band's last with their legendary line-up) and had a great 'b' side in First Night Back In London.
A simply superb non-album track is (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais. Released in the summer of 1978, between the band's first two albums and showcased their reggae influences. It told the tale of Joe Strummer attending a night at the Hammersmith Palais, expecting to hear lots of authentic roots reggae, such as Dillinger, Leroy Smart and Delroy Wilson (all name-checked in the first verse) and instead getting "Four Tops all night". Played out against a catchy rock reggae rhythm, it is chock-full of great lyrics, my favourite being "If Adolf hitler flew in today - they'd send a limousine anyway". Quite, indeed they would. I played the song non-stop upon its release. Its 'b' side, The Prisoner, was great too, with more killer lyrics.On Janie Jones, the first track on the first album, original drummer Terry Chimes’ upbeat drum riff launches the start of this great band's album career. Mick Jones’ guitar chops in, Paul Simonon’s bass rumbles and Joe Strummer’s rasping vocal enters the fray in this catchy song about a notorious 70s London madam who made the news for some reason that I cannot remember. Running a bawdy house, no doubt.
The Clash, and bassist Paul Simonon in particular, loved their reggae and he came up with a fine and authentic piece of dubby stuff with The Guns Of Brixton that featured a classic bassline - later sampled by Beats International on their Dub Be Good For Me big hit single in the nineties. Back to this one, it has a gritty, scratchy sound to it although I have never been too convinced by Simonon's vocals and his slightly odd enunciation that always sounded as if he had a terrible cold.
Train In Vain was the "hidden track" at the end of the London Calling album. It is an upbeat, harmonica-driven bluesy romp, sung by Mick, which again, is nothing like anything else on its parent album, or indeed anything else The Clash had done previously.
Bankrobber was a stand-alone single released in August 1980, between the London Calling and Sandinista! albums. It is an attractive, catchy Mick Jones song with a bit of a dubious message that somewhat glorifies crime, but I sort of know what Jones meant in his "daddy was a bank robber but he never hurt nobody" line. It harked back to the mythical days of the honourable thief. Get a load of that beautiful, dubby bassline too. I can't help but love it.Wrong 'Em Boyo is a totally irresistible, upbeat ska number perpetuating the old Wild West Stagger Lee gambling character and his mythology - all about cheating at cards and shooting those who do so. Ska was the thing in 1979-80, too, and this was seen as doing something right up to the minute.
The Magnificent Seven saw The Clash's first use of the burgeoning genre of hip/hop as an influence on a lengthy, lyric-laden, frantic urban rap. It has a totally infectious rhythm to it. Lyrically, it is wry and witty, again showing that the group had a sharp, humorous, observant side to them. A month before Blondie's Rapture, it was the first song from a white group to use hip-hop rhythms and, although the vocals were not pure rap as such, they were most definitely rap-influenced. The sound here was the first brick in the foundations of Mick Jones' next group, Big Audio Dynamite. Despite the rousing fare The Clash remain famous for, this is up there as one of their best ever songs.
The stylistically varied Sandinista! album's only truly punk riff can be found on the intro to a tub-thumper here in the rousing Police On My Back. It is a cover of an Eddy Grant song.
Rock The Casbah was largely written by drummer Topper Headon and I have to say that this was an absolutely great single, with a killer chorus and catchy piano riff. Lyrically, it dabbled in middle-Eastern references, with its accompanying video (they were fast becoming "the thing") showing several characters dancing around in Arab sheiks' gear.
Career Opportunities is a great track from the debut album, about unemployment and the lack of decent job opportunities - “they offered me the office, offered me the shop, they said I’d better take any job they got”. Finger on the pulse in a sub-two minute punk song. Great guitar and drum intro too. It featured in the scene in the film Rude Boy when lead character Ray put the album on in his grubby bedsit room.
Police And Thieves forms what is definitely the debut album’s oddity - a six minute cover of Junior Murvin’s reggae classic, but here given an almost rock, slowed down approach, with a great riffy intro. The reggae rhythms are guitar-based and clunky, almost not reggae at all, apart from the fact that they are choppy. Either way, it gave a firm hint as to directions the band would take in late years. They were certainly not prepared to be tethered down to the punk "two minute thrash" ethic. Stiff Little Fingers put a similar extended punky reggae cover on their debut album, their cover was of Bob Marley's Johnny Was, in very much the same style as this track. Incidentally, Junior Murvin is said to have hated the version.
The only remotely riffy/new wave number on the Sandinista! album was Somebody Got Murdered, along with Police On My Back. Jones's trademark melodious guitar and plaintively light vocal are great and it would not have been out of place on London Calling. On first listening to the album, I remember being taken aback, initially, by the music of the preceding tracks and being reassured by this one that The Clash were still The Clash.
In Brand New Cadillac, we had a frantic, rockabilly cover of a little-known sixties rocker by Vince Taylor that kept the energy levels up. It's a great track, actually, and it highlighted the group's love for rockabilly. Its pace kept the punks happy too, didn't it?
Clampdown is probably the London Calling album's first slightly punk-ish song. Only the track London Calling came close before this and the rockabilly of Brand New Cadillac. All of these songs were probably far more rock than punk. Anyway, this was a rousing, anti-fascist song starting with a classic line in "taking off his turban they said 'is this man a Jew?'". The song is also enhanced by a couple of two note Mick Jones bugle horn guitar parts after the first Strummer line of verses two and three. The song is also Stonesy in its riffiness and Topper Headon's drumming is solidly powerhouse. A fine drummer he was.
Now, in this imaginary live set, it is time for a few lesser-known "album tracks".
Ghetto Defendant is very beguiling, with its spoken lyric part about Jean Arthur Rimbaud and the Paris commune. This is quite a typical track for the Combat Rock album - apparently full of meaning, portent and importance - full of lyrics about nineteenth century Paris and so on, but maybe just full of pretentious guff, something exacerbated by the presence of legendary sixties beat poet Allen Ginsberg. I do like it, though. It is acceptable, but, previous to this, The Clash hadn't done simply acceptable, had they?
Armagideon Time, the 'b' side to the London Calling single, is one of The Clash's most authentic journeys into roots reggae. It is a cover of a comparatively little-known Willie Williams roots number and it is full of slightly menacing atmosphere. I love it. Never mind their rights, The Clash knew their roots.
Stay Free was Mick Jones' mildly reggae-influenced mid-paced rock reminiscence of the exploits of an old mate who went "on a nicking spree" and ended up with "three years in Brixton". Despite the questionable criminal morality of the guy in question, there is a touching side to Jones' loyalty to his mate. As well as singing lead vocals, Mick adds a killer guitar solo at the track's end as well.
Another track like London Calling that is known to everyone, I Fought The Law was released as the lead-off track on the Cost Of Living EP in the summer of 1979. It is a furious, rabble-rousing, fist-pumping cover of The Bobby Fuller Four's sixties Us hit. It suited the Clash down to the ground.
Now for a true Clash classic. Straight To Hell is a monumental, evocative Vietnam-inspired behemoth of a song, with an intoxicating South East Asian percussion sound and moving narrative. There is a case for this being one of The Clash's finest ever tracks, it builds up superbly and is packed full of atmosphere, both musically and lyrically. Topper Headon's South-East Asian-style drumming is completely captivating.
Can I let you in on a secret? I've never really liked the huge hit Should I Stay Or Should I Go! Unlike so many, I have never particularly liked this Stonesy and incredibly popular song, one that won the band many new fans, lots of whom knew nothing about the debut album, including a girl I met at a party who claimed she was a big Clash fan yet only really knew this song and the rest of this album, along with The Magnificent Seven. She was up for it too, but her obvious non-bona fide Clash credentials meant that it was never going to happen. Silly me. Anyway, enough of that, the song was made popular by its use on a TV advert, for Wrangler jeans, I think, and it gave the band a number one hit. Who would believed it? The hit singles kept coming at the end of the band;'s career.
Time for some classic earthy, proper Clash, I think. With the debut album's closer, Garageland, we saw pointer to the future in a semi-rock (as opposed to out-and-out punk) song - the story of the band’s progression to be a “garage band”. “I don’t want to hear about what the rich are doing” gargled Strummer. None of us did, Joe. With that, the main "set" finishes on this collection.
Jones and Strummer were caught up in some of the Brixton riots of the time, and felt somewhat detached from the protesting black youth all around them. The iconic breakneck classic punk rant, White Riot, was the result. The punk riff intro has rarely been bettered. The single version of the track was superior, more abrasive, however, in comparison to the one which appeared on the album. It is that definitive version that appears here, thankfully.
A truly great early single was Complete Control - superbly riffy, it was an aggressive protest about the chaos all around the band at gigs and the desire for control of their record company. "They said 'release Remote Control', but we didn't want it on the label", goes the first line, detailing the band's unwillingness to have one of the debut album's run-of-the-mill songs released as a single. Apart from a pace-slowing bridge in the song's middle, it is a frenetic punker, boiling over with youthful energy.
I have, for some reason, never been quite as a big a fan of the non-album single, Clash City Rockers, as some are. It is excitingly riffy, though, and features some wry lyrics name-checking Gary Glitter, David Bowie and Prince Far I. Aahh, I still quite like it, actually.
Tommy Gun - now you're talking. That rat-a-tat drum intro. Wow. Fucking wow. The morse code guitar part too. Tommy Gun is a magnificent piece of ebullient Clashery - about Middle-Eastern terrorism, arms sales and hijacking aircraft. Atmospheric and cutting.
Its predecessor on the Give 'Em Enough Rope album, English Civil War, is a rousing, contemporary update on the old, traditional US Civil War song, When Johnny Comes Marching Home - retitled as English Civil War. It features a throbbing bass intro and contemporary urban-inspired lyrics such as "he's coming by bus or underground..". It's not really a punk song, though, more of a rock one.
One of the Sandinista! album's more commercial-sounding numbers, The Call-Up contains a great hook, an evocative, haunting ambience and a strong anti-war message. Listening to those sirens and military drums at the beginning still sends shivers down my spine, as does Strummer's baleful, foreboding-laden vocal. It is even more pertinent these days in the line "maybe I want to see the wheat fields, over Kyiv and down to the sea...". It was released as the album's first, lead-off single but didn't do too well. It bloody well should have done.
From 1980, Mick Jones' then girlfriend Ellen Foley leads the vocals on the quirkily appealing, Motown-influenced Hitsville UK. It stands out completely from the rest of the Sandinista! album due to its unashamed poppiness and female lead vocal. Nobody could really say it was The Clash, it was just a good song, written by them. I have always loved it though.
We end this fine collection with one more stand-alone single, 1981's This Is Radio Clash. There are two versions of the song, both equally good. It is based on the idea of The Clash transmitting from their own pirate radio station and it is considered by the American music critic, Eric Schafer, to be the first British hip-hop record, following the bands pioneering use of rap (with a straighter disco beat) on The Magnificent Seven. With a track like, this, The Clash's times were definitely changing.
So, there you go. "The only band that matters"? Well, just maybe. Just maybe.
