The Clash: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

 

 'Clash City Rockers' - single release (1978)   

 

'This Is Radio Clash' - single release (1981) 

 

'We Are The Clash' - album track on Cut the Crap (1985) [1]

  

I. 

 

One of the things that The Clash had a penchant for doing throughout their recording career was affirming their own identity, producing three tracks that directly reference the band's name: 'Clash City Rockers' (1978), 'This Is Radio Clash' (1981) and 'We Are The Clash' (1985). 

 

Of course, this kind of thing is not unprecedented: many bands across different genres write self-referential songs to celebrate their identity, legacy, or status. The practice is popular among metalheads, for example, but both punk rockers and hip-hoppers also like to establish credibility amongst a tightknit community of fans by self-proclaiming their greatness and authenticity [2].  

 

In other words, it's not just vanity - incorporating one's own name into one's body of work serves actual strategic and artistic purposes. By writing songs like the trio mentioned above, The Clash are actively participating in their own myth-making. 

 

Or, if you prefer, they are brand-building - letting fans know they are not just another punk group, but, in fact, the Only Band That Matters. The Clash were obsessed with posing as a gang of outlaws and declaring that it was them (and their fans) against the world - particularly the big corporations who controlled the record industry. 

 

It was all bullshit of course - The Clash signed a multi-album record deal with CBS in January 1977 - but let's discuss the three tracks in turn ...

 

 

II. 

 

And I wanna move the town to the Clash City Rockers 

Ya need a little jump of electrical shockers 

Better leave town if you only want to knock us 

Nothing stands the pressure of the Clash City Rockers [3]

  

'Clash City Rockers' was released as a single in February 1978, four days after my fifteenth birthday. 

 

I liked it then and I like it now: it's a good song, and represents the band at their punk peak - showcasing exactly what it was that made them such an exciting group, even if it was already moving away from the sound of their eponymous debut album released the year before. 

 

One of the things I liked about it was the fact that it attacked those who simply complain about their useless employment but lack the courage to jack it in, and it took a pop at David Bowie (for being old and stuck in a rut) and Gary Glitter (for being unfit) [4].     

 

 

III. 

Interrupting all programmes

This is Radio Clash on pirate satellite [5]

 

'This Is Radio Clash' was released as a single in November 1981. It received mixed reviews and although my friend Kirk Field liked it, I did not. 

 

In fact, I thought it was a bad attempt at a rap-funk combination designed for the US market; six months later they'd release the album Combat Rock, which was greeted far more enthusiastically by the American critics than the British critics.     

 

Ultimately, if I wanted to listen to a song about piracy then I'd go play Bow Wow Wow's fantastic debut single from the year before: I didn't need to tune into Radio Clash [6]. 

 

 

IV.

 

We ain't gonna be treated like trash 

We got one thing: we are The Clash! [7]

 

Having described 'Clash City Rockers' as a good song and 'This Is Radio Clash' as a bad song, I suppose I'm obliged to characterise 'We Are The Clash' as il brutto (the ugly).

 

Only, the more I listen to this song, the more I like it and start, like Ron and Russell Mael, to see the beauty in it. There's something touchingly bonkers about this final cry of defiance from Strummer and the lyrics also generously invite everyone to sing along - not just punk rockers, but hip hoppers, pill poppers, and show stoppers. 

 

And I like that: just as anyone can be a Sex Pistol during The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle period, so too anyone can be part of the Last Gang in Town ...     

 

Could it be that if this track were only given a decent remix, it might yet be recognised as the stand out number on the much-despised and much-derided album Cut the Crap (1985)? [8] 

 

   

Notes

 

[1] Unfortunately, the band themselves didn't release this track as a single. But a cover version by Sparks was released as a digital single in 2022: see the post 'Strike a Match! It's Sparks vs The Clash: Ron and Russell Show Joe and Bernie How to Cut the Crap' (9 Oct 2026). 

 

[2] It should be pointed out also that The Clash were heavily influenced by Jamaican music and that it was standard practice for reggae artists and dub DJs to self-promote by calling out their own names. 

 

[3] Lyrics from the song 'Clash City Rockers' written by Mick Jones and Joe Strummer, released as a single by The Clash in February 1978 (CBS Records). The b-side featured a song from Strummer's pub rock days - 'Jail Guitar Doors' - that was heavily reworked by Mick Jones who not only provided new lyrics and music but performed the lead vocals on the track. 

 

[4] Bowie had turned 30 in 1977. However, it was hardly the case that he was creatively at a standstill and did not need The Clash to show him the way forward. As for Gary Glitter, I suspect Strummer is suggesting he was fat and out of shape - that this was not a comment on his moral unfitness as his sex crimes against children were not revealed until twenty years later (1997). 

 

[5] Lyrics from the song 'This Is Radio Clash' written by The Clash (Mick Jones / Joe Strummer / Paul Simonon / Topper Headon), released as a single in November 1981 (CBS Records). The b-side was an alternative version and remix of the track simply called 'Radio Clash'. 

 

[6] It might be noted that the last single I'd bought by The Clash was 'London Calling' in December 1979 (and I wasn't a great fan of that either). The Bow Wow Wow single I refer to is of course  'C30 C60 C90 Go' (EMI, 1980). The contrast between The Clash's pirate radio station fantasy and Bow Wow Wow's provocative celebration of home-taping culture - which actually terrified the record industry at the time - is stark.

 

[7] Lyrics from the song 'We Are The Clash', written by Joe Strummer and Bernie Rhodes. Never released as a single by the band, this track featured on the sixth and final studio album, Cut the Crap (CBS Records, 1985). 

 

[8] Actually, the song - along with the rest of Cut the Crap - was given a decent remix/reboot by German punk musician Gerald Manns, who, in 2021, isolated Strummer's vocals from the original audio recording, re-recorded the music, and eliminated unnecessary overdubs and drum machines. 

      The result can be found on a limited-edition (unofficial) vinyl album titled Cut the Crap Rebooted (2021), by Mohawk Revenge with The Clash Mark II. The project received a positive response from fans and figures in the punk community - including Clash guitarist Nick Sheppard, who said the album came remarkably close to how he and the band had originally envisioned it sounding.

      Fortunately, the album is freely available on YouTube - and so, here's 'We Are The Clash' in its rebooted form (still not as amusing as the version by Sparks, but good fun nevertheless).   

 

 

Strike a Match! It's Sparks vs The Clash (Ron and Russell Show Joe and Bernie How to Cut the Crap)

Fig. 1 Cover of The Clash album Cut the Crap (1985) [1]

Fig. 2 Image from the official video (2022) to 'We Are The Clash' by Sparks (2005) [2]

 

We ain't gonna be treated like trash / We got one thing: we are The Clash!

 

 

I. 

 

Although I loved their eponymous debut album - apart from 'Police and Thieves' - and have all the singles from 'White Riot' through to 'London Calling', I was never a great Clash fan: like Sebastian Horsley, I was a Sex Pistol at heart and more Soho punk dandy than Notting Hill punk phoney [2].

 

Having said that - and despite everything - it's hard not having some affection for Joe and the boys and, for some reason, I've been reading about their final days and listening to their final studio album. Released in November 1985, Cut the Crap features some truly bizarre numbers written by Strummer and Bernie Rhodes.   

 

And it's one of these tracks - 'We Are The Clash' - which I've been humming all week, that I'd like to discuss here ...

 

 

II. 

 

There are many fans of The Clash - mostly dumb Americans who don't know better - who still faithfully parrot the tagline created as a marketing slogan by the band's record label proclaiming them as The Only Band That Matters [4]. 

 

But even some of these fans tend to keep quiet and look away when the album Cut the Crap is mentioned, or desperately try to return the conversation to London Calling (1979). They want to remember The Clash as a quasi-mythical band and punk as defined by The Clash as something noble, cohesive, and heroic. But the truth is far messier and, actually, far more interesting ... 

 

For the story of The Clash doesn't end with Mick Jones's departure in September 1983 (as much as many fans and critics wish it had). The band continued playing and recording with a new lineup; one still with Strummer up front and Paul Simonon on bass, but now including Pete Howard on drums [5], Nick Sheppard on lead guitar, and Vince White on rhythm guitar. 

 

This five-piece lineup, sometimes called Clash Mk II [6], toured extensively throughout 1984 and were credited as working on Cut the Crap - although this was very much a Strummer-Rhodes production and relied heavily on the contribution of outside musicians and the latest studio technology [7]. 

 

 

III.

 

Under pressure from manager Bernie Rhodes, the man who knows more and knows better than anyone else about popular culture - as The Specials testified back in 1979 - Joe Strummer made the fateful (and extraordinarily stupid) move of sacking band co-founder and his songwriting partner Mick Jones in 1983 and attempting to return The Clash to their more aggressive punk roots [8].

Unfortunately, the album that resulted - Cut the Crap - failed to convince and Strummer dissolved the band almost immediately afterwards. He continued to describe 'This Is England' as the last great Clash song, but he disowned the rest of the album and songs from it have been almost entirely erased from official box sets and the band's musical history.   

And yet, arguably, Cut the Crap serves a similar role as The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979); it exposes all parties involved as creatively exhausted and surviving only on ego and past glory as they head towards a spectacular public implosion. And perhaps this failure teaches us more than the commercially successful Combat Rock (1982) that preceded it.  

 

And, funnily enough, whilst I might not agree with Bernie that Cut the Crap is a genre-defying masterpiece that paved the way for the synth pop and electro hip hop that followed, I do genuinely prefer 'We Are The Clash' to 'Rock the Casbah' - and it seems that Ron and Russell Mael might possibly agree ... 

 

 

IV.

 

Released originally in 2006, Hello Young Lovers was the twentieth studio album by genius American pop duo Sparks [9]. It was then remastered and reissued in 2022 on vinyl, CD, and as a digital release as part of the five album 21st Century Sparks collection. 

 

The CD and digital formats contain two bonus tracks: one of which (released as a digital single) is an amusing cover of 'We Are The Clash' that was recorded for an Uncut magazine compilation CD in 2003, titled White Riot Volume 2: A Tribute to The Clash. 

 

What are we to make of this? 

 

Is it just a piss take - or is it a genuine attempt to pay tribute to the punk band by taking one of their lesser-known songs from an almost universally maligned album and invest it with their own kind of magic, transforming a guitar-driven punk track into a theatrical piece of art pop with string arrangements and a piano? 

 

To be honest, I'm not sure. 

 

And the music critics seem uncertain also whether it's perverse, fearless, or perverse and fearless. Readers can open the link in note two below and decide for themselves. Personally, I think it's rather lovely and, strangely, it reminds me of another song by The Clash, 'Hitsville U.K.' [10]. 

 

Po-faced punks and militant Clash City Rockers who hate on Ron and Russell or question why they bothered excavating this track from the forbidden zone - who fail to delight in the ability of the Mael brothers to cut the crap and turn a fairly shitty song into genuine pop gold - can go fuck themselves.     

 

Notes 

 

[1] Cut the Crap was the sixth and final studio album released by The Clash (CBS Records, 1985). 'We Are The Clash' was the third track on side one - and, arguably, one of the catchier songs written by Joe Strummer and Bernie Rhodes (although it was the drab and depressing 'This Is England' that was released as the only single from the album). 

 

[2] 'We Are The Clash' is a rarely heard tribute to the punk band by Sparks from 2005 released as a bonus track on CD + digital on the new edition of Hello Young Lovers (BMG, 2006). Click on the link to watch the official visualizer on YouTube created and designed by Dean Eastment (2022). 

 

[3] See the post 'Why I'm a Sex Pistol Rather Than a Clash City Rocker' (2 August 2018).

 

[4] This ridiculous tagline is a good example of the kind of commercial hype and corporate hubris that the Sex Pistols had encouraged us to disregard with the title of their album: Never Mind the Bollocks ... 

 

[5] Main Clash drummer Topper Headon had been sacked from the band due to his increasingly problematic heroin and cocaine addiction in May 1982 (i.e., shortly before the release of Combat Rock). 

 

[6] Strummer himself would speak of the new line-up as 'The Clash, Round Two'. Mick Jones was less than pleased and thought about taking legal action to prevent the group recording under the name of The Clash - he even playfully toyed with the idea of touring with Topper Headon as 'The Real Clash'. It's hard not to see the lyrics for 'We Are The Clash' as - in part at least - a defiant response to Jones.

 

[7] Paul Simonon has since claimed he didn't play a note on the final recording and that the bass parts were actually by Norman Watt-Roy - a member of Ian Dury's Blockheads and a highly regarded session musician. 

      I think Cut the Crap can fairly be described as Bernie's album (just as The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979) should really be attributed to McLaren rather than the band known as the Sex Pistols). Rhodes not only co-wrote most of the songs with Strummer, he produced the album; taking charge of the arrangements, track sequencing, and final mix. He even chose the album's title. The fact that Rhodes, credited on the sleeve under the pseudonym Jose Unidos, had no previous experience with either songwriting or record production wasn't going to deter him from giving both these things a go (in true punk spirit) - though one might have expected a bit more resistance from Strummer (and Simonon).    

 

[8] With its simple three-chord structure, 'Dirty Punk' is the song on Cut the Crap that best represents Strummer and Rhodes's attempt at returning the band to some kind of zero point. It's not absolutely awful, but it is a bit lame and unconvincing - is being a punk rocker really all about getting a "big, big, big, big, big car" and annoying your neighbours with loud music? How disappointing.  

 

[9] Sparks is an American pop and art-rock duo consisting of brothers Ron (on keyboards) and Russell Mael (vocals). They are noted for their avant-garde approach to songwriting, a theatrical stage presence, and for staying ahead of the game for over fifty years. Their glam masterpiece - 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us' (1974) - remains high up in my top 40 favourite pop singles. 

 

[10] The Clash, 'Hitsville U.K.', single release (CBS, 1981) from the album Sandinista! (CBS, 1980), featuring Mick Jones and Helen Foley on vocals. 

 

 

Yahrzeit: In Memory of Malcolm McLaren

Malcolm McLaren comes of age 

(1959)

 

May the great name McLaren be magnified throughout the punk world, 

which was created according to his will.

 

 

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Malcolm Mclaren's death [1].

 

I don't know if the Greeks had a word for such an anniversary [2], but the Jews certainly do: Yahrzeit [3]. 

 

And it is worth remembering, I think, that Malcolm - like many of the key figures involved in the punk rock revolution [4] - was himself Jewish and even posed for a photo on the day of his bar mitzvah, looking very dapper in a double-breasted dinner suit, dicky bow, and tallit, whilst somewhat nervously holding a prayer book [5].

 

Whether McLaren's Jewishness played a significant role in his life and career is something that can be debated another time; as can the question of whether or not antisemitism is to blame for a lot of the hostility still directed his way and the fact that his astonishing contribution to popular culture - not just to music, but to art and fashion - is either grossly underrated or deliberately downplayed. 

 

Here, in this short post, I simply wish to commemorate his genius and acknowledge the huge influence (for beter or for worse) he has had on my own life.  

 

Notes

 

[1] Conicidentally, we might also note that Vivienne Westwood would have been celebrating her 84th birthday today, had she not died in December 2022.   

 

[2] Whilst there isn't an actual term in Greek - ancient or modern - for death anniversary, the practice of commemorating a loved one is known as Μνημόσυνο (Mnemosyno); a term derived from the name of the goddess of memory and mother of the nine Muses, Μνημοσύνη (Mnemosyne).

 

[3] Yahrzeit is a modern borrowing from the Yiddish word יאָרצײַט. It is an annual occasion traditionally commemorated by reciting the Kaddish (a 13th century prayer composed in Aramaic) and by lighting a long-burning candle.  

 

[4] This is particularly true of the New York scene as shaped by (amongst others) Richard Hell, Joey Ramone, Sylvain Sylvain, Chris Stein, and the founder of CBGB Hilly Kristal (all Jewish). In the UK, punk in the 1970s as most of us know it, was essentially invented by McLaren and his friend (and fellow Jew) Bernie Rhodes.    

 

[5] McLaren was born to a Scottish father (Peter McLaren) and a Jewish mother (Emily Isaacs), but was effectively raised by his maternal grandmother, Rose Corré Isaacs, a diamond dealer's daughter, in Stoke Newington's Sephardic community.

 

 

This post is for all those who remember Malcolm with fondness and continue to fight his corner.