In 1977, The Clash famously sang "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones." Two years later their obvious yet unspoken agenda was "absolutely nothing but Elvis, Beatles and Rolling Stones," and tons of other old-timey favorites.
By which I mean, every single note on London Calling is a retrograde rocket-ride back to the pre-Punk past, a blatant and shameless move to build a niche by appealing to the nostalgia of the aging hippies and Boomer cokeheads who controlled US FM radio at the time.
However well made the album was, absolutely nothing about the double LP was new, now or even vaguely progressive. On the contrary, it was all reactionary to the extreme.
For all the ridiculous and insincere "radical" posturing the band engaged in, London Calling was a conservative, traditionalist response to the genuinely new sounds of post-punk and New Wave, a wound-licking retreat to the comforting sounds of The Clash's adolescence.
- London Calling is a minor-key rewrite of The Beatles "Getting Better."
- Brand New Cadillac is a cover of a Fifties rockabilly tune.
- Jimmy Jazz is a ripoff of The Rolling Stones ripping off Fats Domino.
- Hateful is a Bo Diddley knockoff.
- Rudie Can't Fail hails back to mid-60s Ska
- Spanish Bombs is a Peter, Paul and Mary singalong in all but name.
- The Right Profile is a ripoff of Mott the Hoople ripping off Exile on Main St.
- Lost in the Supermarket is essentially a Ray Davies song covered by Paul McCartney and Wings
- Clampdown is a cross between The Who and The Move
- Guns of Brixton is more Ska/rocksteady nostalgia
- Wrong Em Boyo is a cross between mid 50s rhythm and blues and mid 60s Ska
- Death or Glory is a rewrite of Strummer's 1975 single "Keys to Your Heart"
- Koka Kola is late-period British Invasion without the speedfreak energy
- The Card Cheat is a ripoff of early 60s Ronettes
- Lover's Rock is a ripoff of early 70s Rolling Stones
- Four Horsemen is more Mott the Hoople fetishism
- I'm Not Down is a Big Star pastiche
- Revolution Rock is a cover of a reggae song knocking off an old Ska song
- Train in Vain is a Spencer Davis Group bopper in all but name
It all confused me when I was a kid. Having listened to the radio around the clock since I could turn one on by myself -- and having spent hours listening to my aunt and uncles' old Sixties records -- I had no interest in hearing mediocre musicians like The Clash playing that worn-out, old-time bullshit. I wanted more Give 'Em Enough Rope face-punching futurism, and nothing less.
But the good news is that I got it -- and more besides -- 45 years ago tonight.
I won tickets to see The Clash at the Orpheum (the date there is wrong) and me and my sister took a Tiparillo box full of thin joints to smoke with us. We got extremely high (like out-of-body-experience high) just in time for The Clash to take the stage after three warm-up acts (punk band The B-Girls, Reggae MC Mikey Dread and R&B legend Lee Dorsey) and were unprepared for how crushingly loud and aggressive they would be in a live setting.
All the London Calling cuts I found so frustrating on record would be played in the same bruising style as the earlier punk tunes, which made me obsessed with live Clash recordings from that day forward. It might not amount to much today, but The Clash very much was a "you had to be there" proposition.
The Clash would sprint even further away from punk rock on their next two albums, but pretty much stick to their original sound onstage. It was extremely frustrating back then, but drove me to develop a taste for the apocryphal that served me quite well in later years.
It also taught me a valuable lesson: real rock 'n' roll is played live, in front of an audience starved beyond madness for noise and catharsis. Everything else is a simulacrum.
It also taught me a valuable lesson: real rock 'n' roll is played live, in front of an audience starved beyond madness for noise and catharsis. Everything else is a simulacrum.
Like I said, you had to be there. But if you were, you most certainly agree.
