The Clash: London Calling
1979
CBS/Epic Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl and Compact Disc
Track Listing: Disc 1: 1. London Calling 2. Brand New Cadillac 3. Jimmy Jazz 4. Hateful 5. Rudie Can't Fail 6. Spanish Bombs 7. The Right Profile 8. Lost in the Supermarket 9. Clampdown 10. The Guns of Brixton
Disc 2: 1.Wrong 'Em Boyo 2. Death or Glory 3. Koka Kola 4. The Card Cheat 5. Lover's Rock 6. Four Horsemen 7. I'm Not Down 8. Revolution Rock 9. Train in Vain
I didn't have much time to put this post together, so it's probably going to read like shit, but whate else is new? Anyway, here are some of my favorite things in life:
Ice cold Cheladas at about 11 pm on a Friday night...
Payday! (Imagine those are bundles of one dollar bills (or McDonald's gift certificates) and the photo more accurately reflects my actual payday...)
Double Albums...
Contrast with my list of least favorite things...
Piss hot O'Doul's on a Monday morning...
The Day Before Payday...
Overlong CD's...
But we try not to focus on the bad things here...This is the Friday Night Record Party, and what could possibly be better than the Clash's 1979 double album "London Calling"?
I first picked this up in the early 90's after rediscovering the magic of "Combat Rock." "Combat Rock" was an album I loved as a really young kid, but I kind of forgot about it, and then as a teenager getting into punk rock, I snagged a copy of it and suddenly had a voracious hunger for all things Clash...
"London Calling" was the third Clash album I picked up, and I'll never forget the bolt of familiarity I felt when I heard "Guns of Brixton." I don't know if it was a song I had listened to as a kid and somehow forgot about, but the deep, dubby bass and Paul Simonon's deadpan vocals felt like something I had known my whole life...
"When they kick out your front door ,
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head,
Or on the trigger of your gun?"
Something about it struck a chord deep inside of me and I ended up playing the song over and over and over...
(Guns of Brixton Video)
To this day I still don't fully understand my reaction to the song, but I was eventually able to get past it and check out the rest of the album...Honestly, it took a bit of time for the whole thing to sink in...It's a vast landscape that manages to touch on just about every form of 20th century music, from punk, ska, jazz, reggae, country, soul, disco, and straight up Rock N' Roll...More than anything it was the album that showed me that punk was more than just 2 minute, three chord, buzzsaw music...It could mean almost anything...Everything these guys touched turned to punk...
But yea, I can still remember my initial listen to this album with supernatural clarity...The big rockers were the songs that jumped out at first...The apocalyptic title track with it's staccato fire-alarm rhythm, is nothing less than the punk counterpoint to "Gimme Shelter." An overwhelming sense of fear, dread, paranoia set to a catchy beat...Oh my, God...I finally heard it...A flawless song...
(Video for "London Calling")
I also remember "Clampdown" blasting my skull clean off...Is there anything better than that harrowing intro (that sounds like nothing less than the shit hitting the fan) giving way to the most wide-open and cutting riff I'd ever heard, as the group shout in unison, "What are we gonna do now?" To this day, it was the most powerful thing I'd ever heard and as decades pass I only find myself admiring it more and more...
I'd always wondered what Joe was singing in the intro...Like a lot of Joe's asides and improv's they weren't printed in the lyric sheet, but Q magazine ran an issue that's probably the closest anyone has come to figuring them out...the ending sounds a little iffy to me, and apparently it was pieced together from some liver performances where Joe often changed the words around, but still check these out:
"The kingdom is ransacked,
the jewels all taken back and the chopper descends.
They're hidden in the back,
with a message on a half-baked tape
With a spool going round,
saying I'm back here in this place.and I could cry
And there's smoke you could click on...
What are we going to do now?"
(Live Video of the Clash on "Fridays." Which was recently released on DVD...I watched the shit out of it...More! MORE!!!!)
My favorite Clash song tends to vary depending on the day of the week, but on most days there's a good chance I'm going to say "Death or Glory." I'd point to this album, and this song in particular, as the point where Joe truly takes his place as one of the rock's best lyricists...So many great lines here that lift the song to anthemic heights while giving it a real-world weight and grit...
"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's the kind of foul-mouthed wisdom I like...
(Death or Glory)
So yea,...It was all about the rockers at first, but my appreciation for the record grew as my own tastes expanded...As I started to get more into ska and reggae, "Rudie Can't Fail" and "Wrong 'Em Boyo" started to sound better and better to me...As I started to admire beauty as much as power, "Spanish Bombs" decided to reveal itself as one of the brightest moments on the album...As I learned about rockabilly and roots music, "Brand New Cadillac" and "Hateful" began to make more and more sense...
"London Calling" will always be a special album,because it's one of those works of art that continues to live and breathe...I learn new things about it every time I listen to it, whether it's a melodic guitar lead of Mick's that I hadn't noticed before or a lyric that hits me harder now than it did when I was a High School kid...So if you haven't dusted off this album in awhile, give it a play again this weekend...I can't imagine "London Calling" ever getting old...and besides , doesn't just looking at that cover make you wanna play it?
Before we go let's check out "Spanish Bombs" by the mighty Clash...
...and here's some unlisted song...
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