By now, our expectations of the Clash might seem to have become inflated beyond any possibility of fulfillment. It's not simply that they're the greatest rock & roll band in the world–indeed, after years of watching too many superstars compromise, blow chances and sell out, being the greatest is just about synonymous
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with being the music's last hope. While the group itself resists such labels, they do tell you exactly how high the stakes are, and how urgent the need. The Clash got their start on the crest of what looked like a revolution, only to see the punk movement either smash up on its own violent momentum or be absorbed into the same corporate-rock machinery it had meant to destroy. Now, almost against their will, they're the only ones left.
Give 'Em Enough Rope, the band's last recording, railed against the notion that being rock & roll heroes meant martyrdom. Yet the album also presented itself so flamboyantly as a last stand that it created a near-insoluble problem: after you've already brought the apocalypse crashing down on your head, how can you possibly go on? On the Clash's new LP, London Calling, there's a composition called "Death or Glory" that seems to disavow the struggle completely. Over a harsh and stormy guitar riff, lead singer Joe Strummer offers a grim litany of failure. Then his cohort, Mick Jones, steps forward to drive what appears to be the final nail into the coffin. "Death or glory," he bitterly announces, "become just another story."
But "Death or Glory" – in many ways, the pivotal song on London Calling – reverses itself midway. After Jones' last, anguished cry drops off into silence, the music seems to scatter from the echo of his words. Strummer reenters, quiet and undramatic, talking almost to himself at first and not much caring if anyone else is listening. "We're gonna march a long way," he whispers. "Gonna fight – a long time." The guitars, distant as bugles on some faraway plain, begin to rally. The drums collect into a beat, and Strummer slowly picks up strength and authority as he sings:
We've gotta travel – over mountains
We've gotta travel – over seas
We're gonna fight – you, brother
We're gonna fight – till you lose
We're gonna raise –
TROUBLE!
The band races back to the firing line, and when the singers go surging into the final chorus of "Death or glory...just another story," you know what they're really saying: like hell it is!
Merry and tough, passionate and large-spirited, London Calling celebrates the romance of rock & roll rebellion in grand, epic terms. It doesn't merely reaffirm the Clash's own commitment to rock-as-revolution. Instead, the record ranges across the whole of rock & roll's past for its sound, and digs deeply into rock legend, history, politics and myth for its images and themes. Everything ha
In 1979, London Calling was sold with a sticker declaring that the Clash were the only band that matters, and they acted as if they believed their own hype. Broadcasting from the middle of the wild-eyed mess that was English punk rock, a milieu that often dismissed idealism as a liability, the band was criticized as being too serious, even too nice, while its peers, the Sex Pistols, were uniformly regarded as the real thing. Twenty-five years later, Sony has expanded this reissue of the group's third album with some raw demo recordings and a DVD of documentary films, even as the basic political nightmares the Clash ripped into on the album have expanded exponentially. Then as now, it would seem that idealism was underrated. London Calling is indeed a serious, ridiculously ambitious punk album that resonates within a largely American history of rebellion -- the lyrics invoke anti-heroes from tough-guy actor Robert Mitchum to gangsta legend Stagga Lee. It was originally underestimated as simply a bridge to reggae, classic rock & roll and pop radio.
True, "Lover's Rock" is a jubilant rush of electric guitar and piano that breathlessly evokes the tenderness of reggae without becoming reggae. And the shuddering, unforgettable "Train in Vain," which broke the band commercially in the States, is that rarest of hits: The hand claps and harmonica sound vaguely prefabricated, but Mick Jones' wounded vocal feels utterly genuine, and the tune stays with you like a black eye.
The "lost" Clash songs unearthed for this release were lost for a reason: "Heart and Mind" is an anthemic throwaway, and "Lonesome Me," had it been released, would have killed cow-punk before it was invented. But London Calling proper sounds crucial right now because of righteous blasts such as the title track, which wails like a hundred car alarms. "The Guns of Brixton" is a dread-sick skank, a reggae song that evinces punk's political violence. The most astonishing number is "Clampdown," which burns through the middle of the album with kneecap-cracking beats and a heroic three-note guitar solo. It may be the most defiant rock song ever committed to plastic. (An early version, "Working and Waiting," is also here.) Feeling resigned to another four years of the Bush administration? Listen to London Calling and flame on, brothers and sisters.
