18 Jul 2022

How Do I Understand the Flies?

Joe Strummer, lead singer of the Clash, looking pensive and posing a question 
that has intrigued punks, philosophers and entomologists alike
 
I. 
 
Someone writes to say that my Insectopunk post was misleading insofar as I "neglected to mention the true character and importance of punk as a socio-political movement, primarily concerned with fighting for freedom and defending truth - not simply with writing inane songs about bugs". 
 
They close their criticism by suggesting that I should "stop listening to arty pop-punk bands and try the real thing, i.e., the only band that matters - the Clash".       
 
 
II.
 
Such idealism is always amusing and often, as in this case, betrays a mix of ignorance and naivety. 
 
Firstly, let us remind ourselves that this (hyperbolic and hubristic) tag line - the only band that matters - was one coined by American musician Gary Lucas [1] whilst employed as a copywriter in the creative services department at CBS Records. Although widely adopted by fans and journalists, one suspects it was something the band always felt secretly embarrassed by; a boast impossible to live up to and impossible to live down.
 
Secondly, it appears my overearnest correspondent has forgotten (or is unaware of the fact) that the Clash also wrote and performed a song about insects; the never officially released How Do I Understand the Flies? [2]
 
In this short ditty, Joe doesn't bemoan the state of the nation, but simply expresses his bemusement (and irritation) with the flies buzzing round his head in his basement bedroom, thereby preventing him from sleeping: 
 
In the summer ... the flies buzzing round my head / Every night, I don't understand the flies buzzing round my head.
 
It's not the greatest song in the world and by the end of 1976 it had been dropped from the band's live set and subsequently forgotten about. 
 
As a cultural entomologist, however, I'm really happy to know this song exists and I like to imagine that Strummer was having an existentialist moment inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre who was also troubled by flies - and insects generally [3] - as this passage from Les Mots nicely illustrates: 
 
"I go to the window, I spot a fly under the curtain, I corner it in a muslin trap and move a murderous forefinger toward it. [...] Since I'm refused a man's destiny, I'll be the destiny of a fly. I don't rush matters, I'm letting it have time enough to become aware of the giant bending over it. I move my finger forward, the fly bursts, I'm foiled! Good God, I shouldn't have killed it! It was the only being in all creation that feared me; I no longer mean anything to anyone. I, the insecticide, take the victim's place and become an insect myself. I'm a fly, I've always been one. This time I've touched bottom." [4]
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Lucas discusses this in a short 2013 interview available on YouTube: click here.  

[2] This song - also known as 'For the Flies', or simply 'Flies', was written in the summer of 1976 and first performed at the Screen on the Green on 29 August 1976. Click here to listen to a bootleg recording made at the Roundhouse on 5 September 1976. 

[3] Indeed, for Sartre, all nature was de trop - an undifferetiated and threatening substratum of non-human and inhuman existence for which he feels not only contempt but a visceral disgust, as readers of La Nausée will recall. 
      For an interesting essay on this, see Shannon Mussett, 'Nature as Threat and Escape in the Philosophies of Sartre and Beauvoir', in The Sartrean Mind, ed. Matthew C. Eshleman and Constance L. Mui, (Routledge, 2020), pp. 515-527. Click here to read this essay online.
 
[4] Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words, trans. Bernard Frechtman, (George Braziller, New York, 1964), p. 247.   
 
 
This post is for KV who kindly reminded me of this little known song by the Clash and for Sophie Stas, the patron saint of flies.   


1 comment:

  1. Always heard this one referred to as "For The Flies" whenever Paul, Joe or Mick mentioned it to me.

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