‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’: The brutal irony of The Clash’s only number one
No self-respecting punk band sets out in an effort to generate as many hit singles as possible, but during their heyday, it seemed as though The Clash were actively discouraging their incredible output from ever reaching the dizzying heights of commercial success, making it all the more ironic when they finally experienced a chart-topping single.
During the early days of The Clash, in the midst of London’s subversive punk explosion, the band, along with virtually all of their peers, was acting in absolute defiance of the mainstream pop charts. With that gloriously anti-authoritarian debut album in 1977, Joe Strummer and the gang shone a light on the depressing realities forced onto the youth of Britain during that time; it was a million miles away from the glitzy bubblegum pop being delivered by Pan’s People on Top of the Pops on a weekly basis.
In every aspect of their existence, The Clash rejected any ideas of commercialism, going so far as to plunge themselves into masses of debt to their record label, CBS, in an effort to keep their LPs and concert tickets as cheap as possible.
Even when the group began to gain some degree of mainstream traction, as their legendary output spread far and wide across the country, they managed to evade the upper echelon of the pop charts – the closest they came was 1979’s ‘London Calling’ which peaked at 11. That limited success resulted, in part, from their outright refusal to appear on any edition of Top of the Pops, culminating in a series of utterly bizarre Pan’s People interpretive dances to songs like ‘Bankrobber’.
Inevitably, though, that unwavering rejection of commercial interests, coupled with the intense pressure of being in a constantly touring, constantly recording rock band, eventually took its toll on The Clash. Although they admittedly lasted much longer than some of their punk peers, by the end of 1985 the band was dead and buried, having ruined an otherwise flawless discography with the disastrous final record Cut The Crap.
Such was the power of Strummer’s band, though, that The Clash’s music didn’t die with the band. For decades in the wake of their split, the material continued to be revered for its revolutionary, countercultural qualities. Perhaps as a result of that spirit, Mick Jones was approached in the early 1990s and asked to sign off on his song, ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ from The Clash’s Combat Rock, being used in an advertisement for Levi’s jeans.
While The Clash, during their heyday, may well have spat in the faces of the Levi’s executives asking permission to use the song in a commercial advertisement, Jones agreed for the song to be used on the basis that Levi’s had a longstanding role in the rock and roll realm. Then, in support of the ad, the single was reissued in February 1991, backed with Big Audio Dynamite II’s ‘Rush’.
After an extensive career of opposing commercialism in all its forms, then, The Clash earned their first and only number-one single with that 1991 reissue, which spent two weeks at the top spot before being knocked off by a comedy single recorded by Hale and Pace.
To add insult to injury, the sleeve of the reissued single bore the brand logo of Levi’s, marking a far cry from the original motives of the song, which was originally released as a double A-side backed with ‘Straight to Hell’, a profound exploration of colonialism, the Vietnam War, and rising levels of unemployment in the UK.
