Bob Dylan on his favourite punk band: “They were different”
Bob Dylan never tended to follow trends regarding the pop charts. He was always an artist in every sense of the word, and there was no chance that he would come out with a disco ballad in the 1970s or try his hand at playing synthesisers in the 1980s. Dylan was more about what music had to say rather than fashion, and when the punk wave came in, he thought The Clash was where music’s future was heading.
Then again, punk rock had existed for years before 1977 rolled around. While bands may have been trying their hand at tearing down the prog rock regime of rock and roll, bands like the Velvet Underground and The Stooges were already bringing rock back to its roots when The Flower Generation was underway.
Punk was never about a style of music, though. It was about aesthetics and lifestyle, and Dylan may have been the most proto-punk artist of all time. Since the entire rock community was turning towards loud guitars and songs about sock hops, Dylan was shaking people up and making them listen to the world’s real problems. Even when he switched to electric guitars, he beat the biggest rock bands at their own game on ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.
By the time the punk rock genre rose to prominence, The Clash seemed to be the only band with something to say. Sex Pistols may have talked themselves up as being the advocates for anarchy and despair, but The Clash were looking for some sort of salvation through music, as if going to one of their gigs meant that the world would shine a little bit brighter.
When talking about the song ‘London Calling’, Dylan considered The Clash a cut above the rest of the punk out at the time, recalling in The Philosophy of Modern Song, “Punk rock is the music of frustration, and anger, but the Clash are different. Theirs is the music of desperation. They were a desperate group. They have to get it all in. And they have so little time. [‘London Calling’] is probably the Clash at their best and most relevant, their most desperate. The Clash were always the group they imagined themselves to be.”
Considering most of the punk bands were starting to either lose their edge or flame out by the end of the 1970s, London Calling was the moment The Clash began their upward ascent. Not every song may have fit into the traditional punk rock box, but their flirtations with genres like reggae, punk and old-time rock and roll were a testament to how they saw their craft.
Punk rock isn’t limited to just one music genre, and any music style can be used to bring about the sounds of rebellion. That ambition may have worked across their albums, but it did end up having diminishing returns once the band went mainstream on albums like Combat Rock, leading to them slowly limping to their demise after firing Mick Jones.
Then again, Dylan even had a love for the band’s Cut the Crap era, thinking that the band were still pushing the envelope where they could. From everyone else’s perspective, The Clash went out with a whimper instead of a bang, but Dylan was proud to see bands still taking risks and failing than doing the same song that everyone has heard a million times.
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