Hear the isolated guitars from The Clash album ‘London Calling’
One of the defining albums of the punk era, London Calling changed everything for The Clash, raising them the depths of London’s underground scene and bringing their blend of politically-minded punk to the masses. In this isolated recording, you can hear all of Mick Jones’ lead guitar lines for the LP.
Released as a single on December 7th, 1977, ‘London Calling’ is both a product and a commentary on Cola War era anxiety. The titular phrase was how the BBC introduced its broadcasts during World War II, but it became something else entirely in Joe Strummer’s hands. The song was crystallised during a cab ride with his then-fiancee, Gaby Salter. “There was a lot of Cold War nonsense going on,” Strummer recalled, “and we knew that London was susceptible to flooding. She told me to write something about that.”
Mick Jones, who provided the song’s stuttering guitar line, elaborated during a conversation with The Wall Street Journal: “Joe Strummer was living in a building along the Thames and feared potential flooding,” he said. “He did two or three drafts of lyrics that I then widened until the song became this warning about the doom of everyday life.”
Looking to evoke the “urgency of a news report”, Jones began writing music to fit the rhythm of Strummer’s lyrics. With help from his bandmate Paul Simonon, Jones developed a dub-tinged lead guitar line that rises to a crescendo before falling back to a series of undulating off-beat stabs. All the while, Strummer whips the listener into an anxious frenzy, offering no solace as he seeks to draw them out of their apathy, “London calling and I don’t want to shout/ But while we were talking, I saw you nodding out.”
The London Calling album features some of the best tracks in The Clash’s discography, including ‘Spanish Bombs’, ‘Lost In The Supermarket’, ‘Guns of Brixton’ and ‘Train In Vain’. Jones used five guitars for the making of the album: a 1958 Gibson Les Paul, two Gibson Les Paul Customs, a 1952 Gibson ES and a trusty Fender Stratocaster. These were plugged into a 4×12 Marshall cabinet and Mesa Boogie Mark I amp (speaker disconnected) and then fed through a Roland Space Echo unit and an MXR Phase 100 before being recorded with Electro-Voice RE20 and Neumann U87 microphones.
You can check out Mick Jones’ lead guitar line for the whole London Calling album above. The full tracklisting is below.
London Calling full tracklist:
- ‘London Calling’
- ‘Brand New Cadillac’
- ‘Jimmy Jazz’
- ‘Hateful’
- ‘Rudie Can’t Fail’
- ‘Spanish Bombs’
- ‘The Right Profile’
- ‘Lost In The Supermarket’
- ‘Clampdown’
- ‘The Guns of Brixton’
- ‘Wrong ‘Em Boyo’
- ‘Death or Glory’
- ‘Koka Kola’
- ‘The Card Cheat’
- ‘Lover’s Rock’
- ‘Four Horsemen’
- ‘I’m Not Down’
- ‘Revolution Rock’
- ‘Train In Vain’
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Punk Newsletter
All the latest Punk content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.