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. 

 

 

Love Kills (Or Sometimes Just Lies Limp): Sid and Nancy 40 Years On

Sid & Nancy (dir. Alex Cox, 1986) 

An official theatrical film poster

 

 

I. 

 

Sid and Nancy - also known by the working title Love Kills [1] - was released 40 years ago. 

 

It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 14 May 1986 and was first shown in London at the Limelight Club on 20 July, before going on general release in UK cinemas the following month.

 

It's a biopic directed by Alex Cox, who co-wrote the script with Abbe Wool, starring Gary Oldman as the Sex Pistol Sid Vicious and American actress Chloe Webb as his punk paramour Nancy Spungen [2]. 

 

 

II. 

 

Oldman is a talented and versatile actor - not one of my favourites, though I don't dislike seeing him on screen - but his initial decision to turn down the role of Vicious (not once, but twice) was one I wish he'd stuck by. 

 

For one thing, he was already 27 when filming took place in 1985, which makes him too old to play a character who died aged 21. Also, by his own admission, he had zero interest in Vicious and punk subculture, wasn't a fan of the Sex Pistols, and found the entire story surrounding Sid and Nancy banal. 

 

Ultimately, Oldman only accepted the role at the urging of his agent and after learning that he was being offered a £35,000 fee to star in the movie [3]. 

 

However, to be fair, he did throw himself into the part with all his characteristic intensity once he agreed terms. Amusingly, he lost so much weight in such a short period in order to play Vicious that he was briefly hospitalised with malnutrition [4]. And at least Oldman came from a relatively working-class background, unlike posho actor Louis Partridge who played Vicious in Danny Boyle's ludicrous six-part mini-series Pistol in 2022 [5].  

 

Oldman - who went on to become an Academy Award-winning Hollywood actor - now rarely mentions Sid and Nancy and casually dismisses his own performance in the film.  

 

 

III. 

If Oldman, at 27, was just a tad past it to play Sid, Chloe Webb, pushing 30 when she took on the role of Nancy - who died aged 20 - was way over the hill (certainly by punk standards). 

 

So again, whilst she does a reasonable job, I think it would have been better - or at least more daring - to have cast 20-year-old Courtney Love in the role - one for which she submitted a video audition and was genuinely passionate about. 

 

Cox was deeply impressed by Love's youthful enthusiasm - and her acting ability - but eventually caved in to pressure from the film's financial backers and investors who insisted on a more experienced actress in the role. 

 

He did, however, create and write the minor supporting character of Gretchen for Love (a fictional New York junkie friend of the punk couple) so she could still be part of the project and this marked her debut feature film appearance (several years before she formed the band Hole and met Kurt Cobain).      

 

 

IV. 

 

Although Sid and Nancy failed to recoup its production budget at the box office, the film was received positively by most critics [6] and has since developed a cult following. Strangely, however, it is rarely shown on British TV and I don't think I've seen it other than at the cinema back in August 1986 - when I was less than impressed, as this diary entry makes clear:

 

Sophie and I woke up late. After lunch, we set off on a nice sunny day to King's Road. Boring! Nothing (and no one) caught my eye. From Chelsea to Kensington Market and Hyper Hyper. Still found nothing to excite. Everything seems to have stagnated. But perhaps that's a good thing - a precursor to a change of some kind. Or maybe not.   

      Got to Leicester Square at five-ish. Had something to eat in Pizzaland and then went to the cinema. It had been my intention not to see Sid & Nancy, but felt a strange obligation to do so - and Sophie had bought the tickets. The two main parts were well-acted, so kudos to Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb. Other cast members were less convincing - particularly David Hayman as Malcolm and Andrew Schofield as Rotten. 

      Ultimately, I came away asking myself what was the point of such a film other than to echo the 'Just Say No' anti-drugs campaign? The only thing worse than the ridiculous ending of the film was Joe Strummer's soundtrack. [7]

 

As I say, I don't think I've since re-watched the film - though I'd very much be interested to do so, one day, just to find out if it's as bad as I remember it. 

  

 

Notes

 

[1] Director Alex Cox used the title Love Kills throughout the writing and development process. Why this title was dropped (or relegated to the status of a subtitle) in favour of the more prosaic Sid and Nancy, I don't know, but one suspects there was probably external pressure to do so coming from the film's producers (particularly after a letter was received from a party claiming to own the title 'Love Kills' and threatening legal action).

      Clearly, it must have been a decision made late on, because by then Joe Strummer (formerly of The Clash) had already written the film's title track and 'Love Kills' was released as a single from the film's soundtrack in July 1986. Fans of Strummer will doubtless disagree, but it's a shit track and, personally, I much prefer the song written by Dee Dee Ramone also called 'Love Kills' and also dealing with the tragic story of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. This track can be found on the Ramones album Animal Boy (Sire Records, 1986). 

 

[2] For my own take on these star-crossed lovers, see the post titled 'I'll Put a Knife Right in You' (30 Dec 2020). For a rather more personal take on the story of Sid Vicious see 'Sweet Sixteen' (8 Feb 2022). And for a longer post in memory of Ms Spungen, see 'The Last of the Groupies' (26 April 2022).   

  

[3] I know there will be readers thinking that £35,000 doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it was considered a significant sum to pay a young and relatively unknown theatre actor at the time. Oldman has since revealed in interviews that he was only earning around £80 a week working with the Royal Court Theatre at the time - and that was in a good week (sometimes his income would fall to half that). Thus, for Oldman, £35,000 was a small fortune - one that allowed the purchase of a modest flat in London. 

      Readers need to also remember that Sid and Nancy was an independent British film - not a big-budget Hollywood movie. Total production costs were only around £2.7 million.   

 

[4] For those who might want to know the secret of such dramatic weight loss, apparently the knack is to live on a diet of nothing but steamed fish and lots of melon. 

 

[5] Don't get me started on Pistol ... See the post 'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Castration' (30 Mar 2021). 

[6] Roger Ebert, for example, gave Sid and Nancy full marks in his review (25 Oct 1986). He concludes that Alex Cox has all the makings of a great director: "He and his actors pull off the neat trick of creating a movie full of noise and fury, and telling a meticulous story right in the middle of it." The review can be found on rogerebert.com  

      Thirty years later, Peter Bradshaw writing in The Guardian (4 Aug 2016) was equally enthusiastic, insisting that Sid and Nancy is a "welcome corrective to bland punk nostalgia" and calling it "Alex Cox's Beckettian masterpiece about those two prisoners of futility" and undiagnosed dysfunction.  

 

[7] This is an edited and slightly revised entry in The Von Hell Diaries (Sat 23 August, 1986). 

 

 

Bonus 1: the original trailer to Sid and Nancy (1986) - enhanced version by HD Retro Trailers.  

 

Bonus 2: the trailer for the 30th anniversary Blu-ray edition of Sid and Nancy (Studiocanal, 2016). 

 

 

God Save Jean Genet

Sex Pistols ft. Jean Genet (SA/2026)

Photo credits: Sex Pistols by Bob Gruen (1976) 

and Jean Genet by Brassaï (1948)   

 

Beauty is the projection of ugliness and to achieve harmony in bad taste 

is the height of style ...

 

 

I.

 

Jean Genet (1910–1986) was a seminal French writer and political activist whose life was defined by his transition from a marginalized outcast to a celebrated avant-garde icon. 

 

Born to a prostitute mother and placed into foster care, he spent his youth banged up in reformatories and prisons for crimes including theft and vagrancy [1], before joining the Foreign Legion at eighteen, from which he was dishonourably discharged on grounds of indecency (that is to say, well, I think we can all imagine what he was caught doing). 

 

After this, Genet stole and slept his way round Europe as a tea leaf and rent boy, before ending up in and out of prison in Paris; experiences that served as the primary inspiration for his lyrical debut novel, Notre-Dame des Fleurs (1943) [2].

 

Genet's later work - which includes novels such as Journal du voleur (1949) [3] and plays such as Les Bonnes (1947) [4] - is renowned for its stylised (but uncompromising) exploration of power and the beauty of evil, as well as the subversion of social hierarchies and the transgression of traditional morality (often giving iconic status to outlaws and outcasts, punks and queers).   

 

 

II.

 

Genet was championed by both Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre [5] and, in his later years, following the events of May '68, he became increasingly active politically, advocating for all kinds of oppressed groups and radical causes and participating in various demonstrations. 

 

In 1970, Genet spent three months in the United States at the invite of the Black Panthers, before then spending six months visiting Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan [6]. He also became pally with Foucault during this time and, in his experimental text Glas (1974), Jacques Derrida contrasted Genet's ideas on crime, homosexuality and all the reste with Hegel's philosophy, in order to deconstruct traditional concepts of the law, family, and the ideal of Wholeness (or the Absolute) [7].   

 

Like Joe Strummer, Genet expressed solidarity with the Red Army Faction (or Baader-Meinhof Gang); a militant far-left group designated as a terrorist organisation by the West German government, publishing an article titled Violence et brutalité in Le Monde (2 Sept. 1977) [8]. 

 

Whilst Strummer was, of course, simply posing in a T-shirt - the Clash specialised in radical chic - Genet was driven by a deep-seated hatred for Western imperialism and French bourgeois society in particular; in 1985, the year before his death, he informed a shocked interviewer from the BBC that he loathed France so much that he had even supported the Nazis when they invaded Paris. 

  

 

III. 

  

Whilst Genet never collaborated with the Sex Pistols - nor ever refer to them in his writings or interviews - it's tempting to imagine that he would have found McLaren and Westwood's tiny shop at 430 King's Road a conceptual space very much to his liking, promoting as it did anarchy, sexual deviance, and the kind of transgressive behaviour that he seemed so excited by.

 

And if we define the denizens of 430 King's Road as Peter York once famously defined them - "the extreme ideological wing of the peculiars" [9] - or, alternatively, recall the description of them from the trailer to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) - "a kamikaze gang of cat burglers and child prostitutes" [10] - then it's possible that Genet would have identified with the Sex Pistols and acknowledged how his legacy found youthful expression via punk [11]. 

 

But, again, just to be clear - there is no evidence of a direct relationship between Jean Genet and the Sex Pistols and I don't remember Malcolm ever mentioning his name, whereas he would often refer to other poets and playwrights he admired, such as Oscar Wilde and Joe Orton. The speculative connection suggested here is largely based on the fact that both McLaren and Genet understood style as a form of refusal and aligned themselves with the counterculture. 

 

On the other hand, however, it's worth noting that while Genet may have appreciated the SEX and Seditionaries aesthetic, by the mid-1970s he had become increasingly cynical about art and theatrical rebellion and so it's possible that he would have dismissed punk as just another fashion and commercial commodification, rather than something genuinely subversive or dangerous - who knows? 

  

 

Notes 

 

[1] Genet's mother raised him for the first seven months of his life before placing him for adoption (one likes to believe she did so with good intentions and was putting the child's interests first). According to his biographer, his foster family was loving and attentive. Neverthless, his childhood involved numerous attempts to run away and incidents of petty criminality (even whilst the obviously bright boy got good grades at school). Eventually, aged fifteen, Genet was sent to a brutal penal colony, where he spent three unhappy years. 

 

[2] The first English edition, trans. Bernard Frechtman, was published as Our Lady of the Flowers in 1949. 

 

[3] The first English edition, trans. Bernard Frectman, was published as The Thief's Journal (1964).

 

[4] This work was again first translated into English by Bernard Frechtman and was published as The Maids by Grove Press in the United States (1954), and by Faber in the UK (1957). A famous film adaptation, dir. Christopher Miles and starring Glenda Jackson and Susannah York, was released in cinemas in 1975.

 

[5] When Genet arrived in Paris, he sought out and introduced himself to Jean Cocteau and the latter, impressed by his writing, used his contacts to help get Genet's first novel published. 

      Later, in 1949, when Genet was threatened with a life sentence after notching up ten convictions, Cocteau and other prominent intellectuals, including Jean-Paul Sartre, successfully petitioned the French President to have the sentence set aside. In gratitude - and perhaps realising there was more money to be made from art than crime - Genet stayed on the straight and narrow after this (or, at any rate, he avoided being caught doing anything that might return him to a prison cell).

      By this date, Genet had completed five novels, three plays, and numerous poems, many controversial for their explicit and often deliberately provocative portrayal of homosexuality and criminality. In 1952, Sartre wrote a long analysis of Genet's existential development (from vagrant to writer), entitled Saint Genet. Profoundly affected by Sartre's analysis, Genet did not write for the next five years, during which time he became emotionally attached to Abdallah Bentaga, a tightrope walker. Following Bentaga's suicide in 1964, Genet entered a period of depression and attempted to end his own life.

 

[6] A memoir detailing his encounters with Palestinian fighters and Black Panthers was published posthumously; see Un captif amoureux (Gallimard, 1986). Translated into English by Barbara Bray and with an introduction by Edmund White, it was published by Picador as The Prisoner of Love (1989).      

 

[7] The English translation of Derrida's book, by John P. Leavey, Jr. and Richard Rand, was published by the University of Nebraska Press, in 1986. A more recent translation, by Geoffrey Bennington and David Wills, was published with the title Clang by the University of Minnesota Press in 2021. 

 

[8] This Le Monde piece can be found in Jean Genet, The Declared Enemy: Texts and Interviews, ed. Albert Dichy, trans. Jeff Fort (Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 171-177. 

      According to the blurb for this book, Genet affirms a heroic politics of protest and revolt with "an uncompromising outrage". In other words, it's that depressing mix of militant asceticism and pathological narcissism that I genuinely despise. In fact, the only thing I hate Genet for more is his reported sexual abuse of the eleven-year-old daughter of his friend and fellow writer Monique Lange. Viewers interested in knowing more about this should see the unconventional docu-drama Little Girl Blue (2023), written and directed by Mona Achache, and starring Marion Cottilard: click here to watch the trailer.

 

[9] This wonderful description of McLaren and company was coined by Peter York in an article entitled 'Them' which appeared in Harpers & Queen (October 1976). It was quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329. 

 

[10] Click here to watch the trailer to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980); the film that incriminates its audience. The narrator is the famous BBC newsreader John Snagge.

 

[11] Of all the Sex Pistols, I think it would have been guitarist Steve Jones whom the Frenchman would have found the most appealing. For as Glen Matlock once rightly observed, it was Jones who was the true spirit of the band and "like a character out of Jean Genet book [...] a real livewire scoundrel, unabashedly so".   

      Matlock was speaking in an interview with Matt Catchpole; see 'Trigger Happy - Sex Pistol Glen Matlock on Life as a Solo Performer and New Album Good To Go' (26 June, 2018): click here. Matlock later repeats this observation in an interview with Dave Steinfeld; see  'Glen Matlock - Truth or Consequences: Talking with the original Sex Pistol about politics and punk rock', on the website Rock and Roll Globe (18 May 2023): click here. 

 

 

For a sister post to this one on Joe Orton, click here. 

  

Musical bonus: Sex Pistols, 'L'Anarchie Pour Le UK', from the album The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records, 1979), uploaded to YouTube by Universal Music Group: click here. The vocalist is Loius Brennon and he is backed by his merry band of street musicians on accordian and fiddle.  

 

Everybody's on Top of the Pops

 

Legs & Co. dancing to 'Silly Thing' by the Sex Pistols and 'Bankrobber' by The Clash 

Top of the Pops (BBC Television, 12 April 1979 and 21 August 1980)

 

I. 

 

'Top of the Pops', by the Rezillos, is one of the great punk singles by one of the great punk bands [1]. And, in August 1978, it led to one of the great punk performances on the BBC show of that name: click here.  

But even though the band make it clear in the lyrics to their song that they are critiquing the music industry and the significant role played within it by the broadcast media - 

 

Doesn't matter what is shown 

Just as long as everyone knows 

What is selling, what to buy 

The stock market for your hi-fi [2]

 

- TOTP producer Robin Nash, simply smiled and said that not only was it always nice to be mentioned, but that being attacked in this manner demonstrated just how relevant the programme remained even to the punk generation. 

 

Ultimately, it appears that the cynicism of those who control the media and the music business trumps the ironic protest of a new wave band. 

 

 

II. 

 

As if to hammer home this point to those who still believed in the integrity and revolutionary character of their punk idols, we were treated to the spectacle of Legs & Co. dancing to the Sex Pistols on Top of the Pops just eight months later: If you like their pop music, you'll love their pop corn - click here [3].

 

Perhaps even more surprisingy, the following year Legs and Co. gyrated behind bars to the strains of 'Bankrobber', by The Clash, in a routine squeezed in between songs from Shakin' Stevens [4] and Billy Joel [5]. 

 

Worse, the somewhat sentimental punky reggae composition written by Strummer and Jones, which reached number 12 in the UK charts, was sneered at by Cliff Richard, who mockingly declared that it could have been a Eurovision winner: click here [6]. 

 

 

On the front of a television screen ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm being generous, of course, but it's hard not to love the Rezillos; an assemblage of art and fashion students from Bonnie Scotland, fronted by Fay Fife, who took a much more fun approach to songwriting than the Clash and described themselves as a new wave beat group rather than a punk rock band. More glam than garage - and seemingly more interested in sci-fi and B-movies than rhythm and blues - the Rezillos are sometimes compared to both the Cramps and the B-52s. 

 

[2] Lyrics from 'Top of the Pops', written by John Callis (or, as he was known whilst a member of the Rezillos, Luke Warm). This track, released in July 1978 as a single from the album Can't Stand the Rezillos (Sire Records, 1978), reached number 17 in the UK chart, whilst the LP did slightly better by getting to number 16 and is now considered something of a classic of the punk-pop genre. 

 

[3] To be fair, 'Silly Thing' is a great pop-punk track by Cook and Jones and the always excellent Legs and Co. - a six-girl dance troupe formed in 1976 - give a spirited and amusing performance, choreographed by Flick Colby. 

      The line quoted is from the cinema ad sequence in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple,1980) which correctly predicts the manner in which the Sex Pistols would be co-opted by consumer capitalism and become just another brand name to be stamped on a range of products.

 

[4] Welsh singer-songwriter Shakin' Stevens released his cover of 'Marie, Marie' as the third single from his album of the same title (Epic Records, 1980). Despite being released in July, the single did not enter the UK Singles Chart until the second week of August, staying in the chart for ten weeks and peaking at number 19 (his first top twenty hit). 

 

[5] The Billy Joel song, 'It's Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me', was released from his hit album Glass Houses (Columbia Records, 1980). It made number 1 in the US, but only reached 14 in the UK. The song conveys Joel's criticisms of the music industry and press for jumping on the new wave bandwagon, when it was merely a rehash, in his view, of older musical forms and inferior to his own brand of slightly more sophisticated, ambitious, and highly polished soft rock.   

 

[6] For those who would prefer to watch the official video for 'Bankrobber' (dir. Don Letts), click here.       

      To be fair to The Clash, they never did appear in person on Top of the Pops, unlike almost every other punk band at the time (and the reformed Sex Pistols in 1996). However, they did allow the use of videos for 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' and 'Rock the Casbah' on TOTP when these singles were re-released in 1991 (six years after they disbanded).     

Serge Gainsbourg: l'improbable artiste reggae

Serge Gainsbourg and his Jamaican cohorts 

(including Sly & Robbie)

 

 

I. 

 

Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash were not the only white recording artists to leave the safety of their European homes in the late 1970s [1] and travel to Kingston Jamaica in the hope of finding inspiration. 

 

Always happy to hop on the latest bandwagon and experiment with musical genres, the French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg also flew to the Caribbean island, in September 1978, with the intention of recording a reggae album with super-talented local musicians and producers Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare [2].    

 

Surprisingly perhaps, it was the 50-year-old Frenchman - whom many regarded by this date as past his prime - and not the younger, cooler duo of English punks then at the top of their game, who seemed to have a better time of it in Jamaica and fit in more easily with the scene; particularly when it was discovered that he was the man responsible for the notorious love song 'Je t'aime ... Moi non plus'. 

 

And it was Gainsbourg, not the Clash, who arguably made the more challenging album ...

II.

 

Released in March 1979, four months after the Clash released their second studio album, Give 'Em Enough Rope - a fairly standard rock record with minimal Jamaican influence, apart from on the opening track - Gainsbourg's Aux armes et caetera is a unique but genuine reggae album; i.e., one recorded in Kingston and featuring some of Jamaica's best reggae musicians, as well as vocal support from members of Bob Marley's backing group, the I Threes [3].

 

The album, which has since been remixed, dubbed, and expanded with previously unused material, is now considered an absolute classic (and I'm not sure that's something that can be said of Give 'Em Enough Rope) and has gone on to sell over a million copies. 

The title track, released as a single, is probably the most notorious; a reggae adaptation of 'La Marseillaise' that is guaranteed to offend the more conservative and reactionary sections of French society. Indeed, it provoked an equivalent amount of media-driven outrage as 'God Save the Queen' by the Sex Pistols had produced in the UK in the summer of '77 [4].  

 

Gainsbourg, however, was so happy with the album and so taken with reggae as a genre, that he recorded another album in 1981, Mauvaises nouvelles des étoiles, employing the same Jamaican musicians and backing vocalists (even though Bob Marley was less than pleased to discover that Gainsbourg had persuaded his wife Rita to sing erotic lyrics). 

 

This album too was eventually given a dub-style remix a decade after Ganisbourg's death (in 2003) and continues to find new fans, although it isn't a patch on Aux armes et cætera and pales in comparison.  

 

 

III.

 

Whether performing Aux armes et caetera live on tour was Gainsbourg's idea or his record company's isn't known, but it was Gainsbourg who insisted that they fly his Jamaican support band - the Revolutionaries [5] - over from Jamaica (sadly, the I Threes were not invited along for the ride).  

 

The short tour in culminated in a number of Paris gigs - the first of which was attended by various French artists and intellectuals (including Roland Barthes) - although it was the show in Strasbourg (4 Jan 1980) that is often best remembered, after a group of angry ex-paratroopers threatened to violently disrupt the event. 

 

Deciding to courageously confront - whilst at the same time disarm the protestors - Gainsbourg walked on stage alone and sang the national anthem, in its traditional form, amusingly obliging the soldiers to stand, salute, and sing along [6].

 

 

Photo of Serge Gainsbourg holding the French flag 

by Jean-Jacques Bernier (1985)

 

Notes

 

[1] See the recent post 'Where Every White Face ...' (11 Jan 2025): click here. 

 

[2] For the full story of this working trip to Jamaica, made at the suggestion of Gainsbourg's producer and musical director, Philippe Lerichomme, see the article by Sylvie Simmons entitled 'Serge Gainsbourg: the Reggae Years' on the Red Bull Music Academy website (26 Oct 2015): click here. 

       Ms. Simmons is the author of the first English biography of Serge Gainsbourg - Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes (Helter Skelter, 2001).

 

 [3] Aux Armes et caetera (Universal, 1979) was the first time a white artist had recorded a full reggae-influenced album in Jamaica. The I Threes consisted of Marcia Griffiths, Rita Marley, and Judy Mowatt.

 

[4] Gainsbourg received (all-too-predictable) death threats upon release of his reggae cover of the French national anthem. But, bravely, he neither backed down nor apologised. In fact, after purchasing the signed manuscript of 'La Marseillaise' at an auction, in 1981 (for a sum of 135,000 francs), Gainsbourg argued that his take was closer to the original than any other recorded version (not least of all in revolutionary spirit). 

      For full details of the reaction in France to Aux armes et caetera, see Sylvie Simmons 'Serge Gainsbourg: the Reggae Years', as linked to above. And to listen to the track, please click here, or here where it comes with an accompanying video.

 

[5] The Revolutionaries were a Jamaican reggae band, formed in 1975. Moving away from roots reggae, they created the new (more aggressive) rockers style. Over the years, numerous musicians played in the band, including Sly & Robbie (on drums and bass respectively). The Revolutionaries played on various dub albums and recorded as a backing band for many artists, including Serge Gainsbourg.

 

[6] Again, for further details, see Sylvie Simmons, 'Serge Gainsbourg: the Reggae Years', as previously linked to. To watch a French TV report from the time with footage from Strasbourg, click here.

Where Every White Face ... Remembering That Time When the Clash Went on Their Very Own Dreadlock Holiday

 

They got the sun and they got the palm trees ... 

I'd stay and be a tourist, but I can't take the gun play

 

I. 

 

As we all know, the Clash liked to pose as working-class heroes and rebel rockers, even though lead singer, Joe Strummer, was the son of a British diplomat (Ronald Ralph Mellor, MBE) and attended public school where his fees were paid for by the UK government, thanks to his father's job.

 

In other words, Strummer was a privately-educated middle class boy who went through his folk-loving and pub-rocking phases, before encountering the Sex Pistols in April 1976 and deciding to cut his hair, put on a pair of bondage trousers, and reinvent himself as a punk outlaw. 

 

Equally irksome, is the fact that the Clash also liked to wear musical black face from time to time and experiment with reggae, producing a kind of dub-inflected rock that is more Notting Hill than Kingston Jamaica; a pale imitation of the real thing, although, to be honest, I don't care too much about issues surrounding authenticity and cultural apropriation.

 

Amusingly, however, Strummer was given something of a rude (boy) awakening when he and fellow Clash City Rocker Mick Jones went on a songwriting trip to Jamaica, at the end of 1977, and it turned into their very own dreadlock holiday ...  

 

 

II.   

 

My knowledge of the long-haired English rock band 10cc is very limited [1]. 

 

However, I do remember being invited to load up with rubber bullets by them in 1973 [2] and I also remember their recounting the tale of someone having a series of unfortunate experiences whilst on a Caribbean vacation later in that decade [3].   

 

Whilst the song's narrative is essentially a lyrical fiction, it was, apparently, based on real events experienced by one of the founding members of 10cc, Eric Stewart, during a visit to Barbados, and by the band's bassist and singer Graham Gouldman, when he went to Jamaica. 

 

The former, for example, recalled seeing a white tourist trying to look cool and generally acting like a dick, go up to a group of Afro-Caribbeans who rebuked him in no uncertain terms and told him that he needed to show some respect (a concept that is central to the code of informal rules that govern behavior and interpersonal interactions amongst certain groups).    

 

In the song, having been mugged for a silver chain - given to him by his mother - said tourist retreats to the relative safety of his hotel to drown his sorrows with a piña colada by the pool, only to be approached by a good-looking young woman offering to supply him with some weed. 

Thus the track and accompanying video - whilst reinforcing several stereotypes - does at least touch upon the politics of race, tourism, and cultural appropriation (even if it's in a manner that might make many people uncomfortable today).

 

 

III. 

 

Returning to the Clash ... 

 

The opening track to their second studio album, Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978), is entitled 'Safe European Home' and it provides us with an honest admission by Messrs. Strummer and Jones that it's one thing being a white man in Hammersmith Palais for an all-night reggae gig [4], and another thing entirely cruising round Kingston after dark; a place where, according to the song, "every white face is an invitation to robbery" [5].  

 

Both men were, just like the tourist on a dreadlock holiday, out of their depth and out of their comfort zone, and so mightly relieved to get back to their hotel [6] alive - and even happier when they were finally able to return home to Blighty.   

 

Why they decided to go to Jamaica in the first place - leaving bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon behind (much to the former's anger and irritation, as he was the genuine reggae devotee in the band) - I don't know. Probably it was one of Bernie's bright ideas; hoping they'd find inspiration in a land riven with political violence and criminal gang activity.    

Which perhaps they did: though it came also with a certain disillusionment. For ultimately there's nothing more glamorous, more radical, or more authentic about life under the Carribean sun - and certainly not when you're living in slums or shanty towns with poor quality housing and almost zero social infrastructure. 

 

One wonders why Joe never asked himself why it was that large-scale migration from Jamaica to the UK (as well as to the US and Canada) occurred in the 1950s, '60s and '70s; and why most of these people (and their descendants) really didn't want to return.   

 

Notes

 

[1] Readers might be amused to discover that I once had a job interview with Godley and Creme, in the mid-1980s, long after they had left 10cc and established themselves as successful pop video directors. The interview was held at the Cadogan hotel. I remember they offered me a spliff, to which I responded by asking in my best Rotten voice: Do I look like a hippie to you? Needless to say, I wasn't offered the job.  

[2] 'Rubber Bullets' was a number one single released from the band's eponymous debut album in 1973. Whilst not particularly relevant to this post, readers who want to give it a listen and see the band perform it on Top of the Pops can do so by clicking here.

 

[3] The white reggae track, 'Dreadlock Holiday', by 10cc, was the lead single from the band's 1978 album, Bloody Tourists (Mercury Records, 1978). It became the group's third number one in the UK and was a huge hit internationaly (with the exception of the US, where many radio stations refused to play reggae of any kind). To watch the video for the song on YouTube, dir. Storm Thorgerson, click here. The image used with this post is a screenshot taken from the opening of this video, whilst the lines underneath are taken from the lyrics to 'Safe European Home' by the Clash (see note 5 below). 

 

[4] This reggae night was on June 5th, 1977, at the Hammersmith Palais, a famous dance hall and entertainment venue on the Shepherd's Bush Road, London. It was headlined by Dillinger, Leroy Smart and Delroy Wilson. Strummer was accompanied by the dreadlocked figure of Don Letts (I won't say for protection, but so as to add to his own credibility as a reggae aficionado). 

      Ironically, Strummer was disappointed by what he saw - not rootsy enough for his tastes - although the evening did give rise to the song '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' (1978), which has become a fan favourite: click here to play. 

 

[5] 'Safe European Home', written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, is the first track on the second studio album by the Clash, Give 'Em Enough Rope (CBS, 1978): click here. This line, about every white face being an invitation to robbery, may be intended humorously, but it echoes the white anxiety captured on the 10cc track 'Dreadlock Holiday'.  

 

[6] Joe and Mick stayed at the Pegasus hotel, in the heart of the business and financial district, rather than the hipper Sheraton hotel, which is where Rotten stayed when he went to Jamaica a few months later (in March, 1978), accompanied by Don Letts and Richard Branson, who picked up the bill and ensured Lydon would remain under long-term contract with Virgin. Interestingly, Rotten seemed to fit in with the local scene much better than Strummer and Jones. 

 

 

For a related post to this one on Serge Gainsbourg as an unlikely reggae star, please click here. 

 

On Punks, Hippies, and the Boy in the Blue Lamé Suit

 Joe, Johnny, and Jello in their pre-punk days

 

One of the defining characteristics of punks back in the day, was that they hated the complacency, passivity, and untrustworthiness of middle-class hippies and they differentiated themselves from peace-loving flower children by their hairstyles and clothes: no long hair or beards and no flared jeans or tie-dyed T-shirts with groovy psychedelic prints. 

Having a close-cropped barnet was just as much a sign of radical militancy for the punks as it had been for the rank-and-file Roundheads and very few of them had flowing long locks covering their ears. So it's always a little disconcerting to come across old photos of figures central to the punk revolution - including Rotten, Strummer, and Biafra - and see them looking like ... well, hippies!

 

No wonder Jamie Reid later advised us to never trust a punk either (that punks were, in fact, often just hippies in disguise).

 

 

II. 

 

One is also reminded, upon seeing these pictures, that, essentially, we have Malcolm to thank for concocting an anti-hippie aesthetic and philosophy - not Johnny, Joe, or Jello. It was McLaren's provocative and fetishistic take on fashion, his anarchic politics inspired by Situationism, and a penchant for 1950s rock 'n' roll - all brilliantly expressed in the slogan Sex, Style and Subversion - out of which the look of what became known as punk developed. 

 

Vivienne Westwood would later recall just how odd looking 20-year-old Malcolm was when she met him in the mid-1960s; with his very, very pale skin and his very, very short hair he looked so unlike his contemporaries. If he was, in many regards, a typical product of his era and cultural environment, McLaren was never a hippie and only ever had scorn for them. 

 

Thus it was that, in 1971, Malcolm bought a pair of blue-suede creepers, which, as Paul Gorman notes, had by this date long gone out of fashion; street style was now defined by "feather-cut hair, the ubiquitous flared loon pants, stack-heeled boots, platform shoes and velvet suits" [1]. 

 

For McLaren, the shoes: 

 

"'Made a statement about what everyone else was wearing and thinking. It was a symbolic act to put them on. Those blue shoes had a history that I cared about, a magical association that seemed authentic. They represented an age of revolt - of desperate romantic revolt [...]" [2]             

Later, he combined the shoes with a 1950s style blue lamé suit (made by Vivienne) and a matching ice-blue satin shirt: "'I decided it would be really cool to be like Elvis, to be a Teddy Boy in a kind of defiant anti-world and anti-fashion gesture [...]'" [3]

  

And that - boys and girls - is the spirit of punk; more heroic than hippie (and it comes quiffed or spiky-topped, rather than lanky long-haired or feather-cut). 

 

Malcolm the proto-punk (1972)

 

 

Notes

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 119. 

[2] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid.

[3] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid., p. 131.

 

 

For a sister post to this one entitled 'Never Mind the Spiky Tops' (28 Nov 2023), click here.