Something About England: Strummer/Jones (The Clash) song-by-song

My intention with this thread, starting Thursday, September 15th, is to discuss the music of John Graham Mellor aka Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, who were the main drivers of the UK band The Clash.

I will be going through all of The Clash's songs, one by one, day by day, including the few not credited to Strummer & Jones -- not only their originals, but covers too. I will also include other songs written or co-written by the pair or credited to The Clash, outside of the Clash (I.e., Ellen Foley's The Spirit of Saint Louis, and the co-writes on No. 10 Upping Street, by Big Audio Dynamite.

I have yet to decide if I am going to hold up other songs from Joe Strummer and Mick Jones's post-Clash career, but I may do so if in my explorations I decide that it won't be a drag.


As always, I will also be rating songs on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the best.

I like doing this simply because, a) for some reason it helps me to focus my mind critically when I'm listening and b) although individual users' ratings mean nothing, collectively, when averaged, they are an interesting statistic. And I like to make playlists from the more highly-rated songs!

Having said that one does not have to rate songs to participate in the thread. The main thing is to discuss ,celebrate and tear apart the music of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, song-by-song and to have fun with the music of this incredible songwriting team.

I do not plan on holding up unreleased/bootleg songs for rating; that does not mean that they cannot be discussed or referenced in their appropriate era by those who know about them; it only means that I won't make a separate entry for them. It is a fairly big and surprisingly sprawling catalogue.

Ditto for side projects, where members may have contributed instrumental parts or backing vocals: they will not be held up separately. So, for example, I will not be separately holding up for discussion the songs like Elvis Costello & The Attractions' "Big Tears", on which Mick Jones played guitar. Only songs by The Clash and songs which bear both Joe and Mick's songwriting credit. (Though as. I say, I may expand on that later and include their entire post-Clash career, outside of their partnership.

For clarity's sake, the albums I plan to go through are as follows:

• The Clash (UK version)
• Give'Em Enough Rope
• London Calling
• Sandinista!
• The Spirit of Saint Louis (Ellen Foley)
• Combat Rock

At present I am not planning to go through Cut The Crap, though I may change my mind later -- but only if I decide to cover the entire post-partnership repertoire of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones.

Any live albums will be included in one day only discussions.

Bonus tracks, non-album singles, B-sides, officially released outtakes and other rarities will be discussed after the album they are associated with -- see any of my other song-by-song threads for a template. Non-album remixes and dub takes, etc, will be held up on the day of their primary song (I.e., "The Magnificent Dance" will be held up on the same day as "The Magnificent Seven".) Album tracks from Sandinista! that are essentially remixes (for example "One More Dub") will be held up alone though, because some of those tread the ine of being completely different compositions.

 

Great stuff! I’m strapping in.

 

Hi,

Looking forward to this - was briefly scared you were going to do the songs in random order - so no rest for those into xtc *and* the clash..

Two notes:
1) Please do the clash originals not written by Strummer/Jones - "Guns of Brixton", "Lose this skin" - there's not many and they deserve recognition. Songs like "Rock the Casbah" was mostly Headon, with Stummer lyric and nothing much from Mick beyond chorus vocals. Otherwise it's gonna get fiddly...

2) Please do "Cut the Crap" as well, it's the gangs "Wasp Star" in all sorts of ways.

 

One of the most wonderful Clash records is the 3x10" "Super Black Market Clash" set, it's basically six EPs, one per side.

Obviously it's not gonna be discussed here, rightly, and nowadays it's super expensive, but.

 

I'm in on this Lance.
(I await the Suzanne Vega song by song too......my album by album thread on her got locked a few years back!!!)

 

I'm kind of deciding what to do after Sinéad's thread ends. (After Christmas.) Maybe I'll do Suzanne Vega. Sometime I waver and want to do Camera Obscura, for the three or so people who like their music.

 

The songs will be discussed here, though, by the respective albums. I have both Super Black Market Clash and the even rarer Black Market Clash on CD. I particularly like the latter, I think it holds together well as an album.

I also have Clash On Broadway and a digital copy of Sound System.

 

I know the post was long but in the OP, I stated what I am planning to do: ALL Clash songs -- including the ones that they are not credited on, just to be clear.

 

Great move Lance! Bring it on.

 

I'll think about it -- I actually don't hate it.

I guess I don't see it as a Clash album, but rather some weird collaboration between Joe Strummer and Bernie Rhodes.

I am leading on following both of their post-Clash career, and if I do I'll go through it. I just need to explore those albums more than I have to decide if I will enjoy it or not. At the moment I'm quite aware of Crap and the first four BAD albums, but I've never gone further.

 

Suggestion: Cut The Crap could be put up for discussion but only as an album and not track by track.

 

At the very least I will do that.

 

Make that four.

 

I don't usually join in with these song by song threads but I really do think that the strummer/jones songwriting partnership is overlooked for being exactly that - a classic pairing of talents that complemented and competed with each other to achieve superb results.

to the OP - if you've not gone further that the BAD albums to Strummers resurgent 90's solo career, there are one or two S/J credits on the Strummer 001 set that might interest you - especially 'London is Burning' which for me was very obviously slated (by strummer at least) for the Clash reunion for the rock'n'roll hall of fame.

 

Thank you! For sure those will be included whether I go further than the Clash or not. I knew there were some that I read about in Redemption Song (fantastic biography, by the way, one of the better I've read.) and was hoping to turn them up later.

 

To quote Buddy Holly “Oh boy”
I’m in……

 

Hm. According to discogs, "London Is Burning" is credited to Strummer/Slattery/Shields. "U.S. North"however is a Strummer Jones song.

 

CTC has no Mick involvement,
plus it's absolute rubbish.

 

I’m definitely in for this one!

 

Lurking.

I like a lot of Clash stuff and have a few of their albums. I’ll follow along and see how it goes.

 

Same here.

 

Cool! Thanks for doing this! Unlike the XTC thread, I'll be in as a lurker/contributor for the whole thread. You're doing God's work Lance!!

 

I'll try to follow along. I love The Clash and especially think Sandinista! is a masterpiece.

 

Awesome... fav band of all time... will definitely contribute... saw them 5 times (guess that makes me old!)... in fact, local pub just had a Joe Strummer 70th bday celebration, with proceeds going to the Joe Strummer Foundation - multiple bands played for hours with Clash/Mescaleros hits and deep cuts performed to perfection... some young guy even sang Magnificent Seven without missing a word or beat!

Phantom Power hosts a tribute to The Clash's Joe Strummer featuring a litany of Lancaster musicians on Sunday

 

Count in me; up to Sandinista! at least. I'm probably one of the few that won't align with @palisantrancho's thoughts there; including the use of the m-word.