The 1979 punk anthem that Buddy Holly’s guitarist invented
For a speccy teenager from Lubbock, Texas, Buddy Holly’s impact on the history of rock and roll is impossible to overstate. Not only did Holly and The Crickets typify the American rock sound of the 1950s, spawning an entire generation of guitarists and songwriters in his wake, but his impact could even be felt in the abrasive DIY sounds of punk rock.
Calling for the destruction of all mainstream rock; burning down the Library of Alexandria and starting completely afresh, the punk scene that exploded in the 1970s held little loyalty to the founding fathers of rock and roll. Even still, few could truly bring themselves to denounce Buddy Holly. After all, rock music itself simply wouldn’t be the same without his pioneering contributions.
Not only did The Crickets’ frontman record some of the most iconic singles of the 1950s, all of which were self-penned, but he also made the music world seem far more accessible to people, like him, who were young and relatively ordinary.
Without Buddy Holly, you could say goodbye to the likes of The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, and, following along that lineage, punk rock. It is only fitting, therefore, that one of The Clash’s defining anthems was actually rooted in the realm of Buddy Holly and The Crickets.
With a broader spectrum of sounds in their arsenal than some of the other three-chord-wonders at The Roxy Club, The Clash openly admitted their debt to rockabilly on tracks like ‘Brand New Cadillac’, so it is only natural that they worship the altar of Buddy Holly. Still, when ‘I Fought The Law’ first appeared on their 1979 Cost of Living EP, punk audiences could be forgiven for assuming it was a Joe Strummer original.
Given that the band preached political resistance, white riots, and a rejection of the status quo, the song’s spirit seemed to fit naturally into the world The Clash had created for themselves. What the young punks spinning that single might not have known, however, was that the song was actually written way back in 1959, by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets.
Recalling the song’s origins to Classic Rock, Curtis rolled back the years to a windy afternoon in Texas. “It was some time during the summer of 1959, and I would have been about twenty-one at the time,” he shared. “It was a real windy day, which happens a lot in west Texas. The sand was blowing outside. I picked up my guitar, and I can’t imagine where the idea came from, but I just started writing this song, ‘I Fought The Law’.”
“It only took about twenty minutes,” he went on. “You can tell that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with those lyrics. But it’s my most important copyright.” Had timing been on Curtis’ side, the song might have been a bigger hit back in his day. As fate would have it, though, Buddy Holly died in a tragic air accident in February of 1959, and it inevitably threw The Crickets into turmoil.
In the end, The Crickets’ recording didn’t surface until late 1960, failing to chart and remaining a rock obscurity until the Bobby Fuller Four rescued it for a top-ten hit in 1964 and, over a decade later, it was adopted into the songbook of The Clash, who gave it a much more confrontational atmosphere. Countless other covers followed, including multiple punk-centric takes inspired by The Clash. Inevitably, though, all roads lead back to Buddy Holly and Sonny Curits.
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