Comments on: Remembering the Clash

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 08:45:41 +0000

The Card Cheat is my all time fave Clash song, though almost anything on London Calling is a close second. And I loved my London Calling button (basically a tiny version of the album cover) which I affixed to my nice winter coat, and which I thought made me look edgy.

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 17:34:11 +0000

Completely agree on the greatness of London Calling, and the bravery/ambition/creativity of Sandinista!. We’ll have to continue to agree to disagree on “Lost in the Supermarket” – for years I thought it was a Mick song, but later learned that Joe wrote it for Mick. From Wikipedia: “Strummer said he wrote the lyrics imagining Jones’ life growing up in a basement with his mother and grandmother.”

And in my opinion, “Broadway” from Sandinista! is not only the greatest song on that album, but the Clash’s greatest song period.

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 03:24:01 +0000

As a young punk fan I found London Calling and Sandinista to be disappointing because all I wanted to hear was loud guitars and drums. But of course a few years later I understood a whole lot more.
What saddens me about Joe’s early passing is that at that point he had fallen into relative obscurity. We had forgotten just how important he was.

By: Alan F.

Alan F. — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 14:36:48 +0000

London Calling had an even more astonishing historical piece in “Spanish Bombs,” which wove together the Spanish Civil War, Basque terrorism and the IRA (and an aviation reference!) Consider these lines:

The hillsides ring with “Free the people!”
Or do I hear an echo from the days of ’39?
Trenches full of ragged poets
Fixing bayonets to fight the other line
Spanish bombs rock the province
I hear the music of another time
Spanish bombs on the Costa Brava
I’m flying in on a DC-10 tonight

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 17:15:35 +0000

In reply to Sean Jewett.

That review of Sandinista is typical of those who’d give it only a cursory listen or two. I’d argue the opposite. It’s precisely all the various “excursions,” let’s call them, that enrich the album and make it special. There is very little filler. I could MAYBE see culling the 36 songs down to 20 or 25. Still that’s a lot more than you’d fit on a single LP.

By: Sean Jewett

Sean Jewett — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 05:52:09 +0000

I concur, London Calling is one of the all time great rock albums. For a number of years it’s an album I pull out every spring. It gets me going. As for Sandinista! — The review from allmusic.com has been the best summation I’ve found for the album: “As the cliché says, there’s a great single album within these three records, and those songs make Sandinista! worthwhile.”

By: Lurk

Lurk — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 07:53:06 +0000

I was at work when I heard of of his death, it was a gut punch. A reaction which really surprised me, I’d never met the man and had no personal connection with him.

It’s not been a good December for us of who grew up with late 70s, early 80s music. Terry Hall died yesterday and Jet Black a week or so ago.

By: Steven Rubio

Steven Rubio — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 23:27:25 +0000

I love that “Tommy Gun” video, which somehow manages to give a sense of the band’s live power, even as they are lip-syncing. But man, you make me feel old. I remember back in 1979, at the very first Clash show in the USA, I smacked Paul Simonon’s boot at one point. Now you remind me, I’m actually two years older than Paul.