The song Joe Strummer wanted to be remembered for: “Music really can talk”
How will each of us be remembered once our time on this pale blue dot is finally up? For Joe Strummer, who left behind a lasting cultural legacy, capturing the essence of his songwriting genius is no easy task, but one which he set to rights shortly before he passed.
Strummer was, after all, a true individual. From the very moment that The Clash first emerged from the sneering, safety-pinned age of punk rock rebellion, they sought to set themselves apart from the rest of London’s emerging scene. Although they were no strangers to the inherent punk manifesto of ‘Here’s three chords, now form a band’ – with Paul Simonon never having played a bass guitar before joining the ranks of the group – they nevertheless managed to foster perhaps the most diverse discography in punk history.
With early tracks like their cover of ‘Police and Thieves’ expertly demonstrating their outspoken adoration for Jamaican ska and rocksteady rhythms, Strummer and the gang offered something entirely different from the rest of their spikey haired contemporaries. As they progressed, that repertoire only expanded, incorporating everything from the early hip-hop they encountered on their travels to New York to the experimental jazz sounds woven throughout Sandinista!.
That 1980 album, in fact, acts as a perfect encapsulation of Strummer’s musical outlook. It might not have been the most commercially successful Clash record – in fact, the triple album drove the band into even deeper debt with their record label – but its vast experimentation and spontaneity cannot be beaten. It is no surprise, then, that Strummer’s ideal epitaph is incased within Sandinista’s tracklisting.
In a quote published in Guitar World shortly before the songwriter’s tragic passing in 2002, Strummer reflected on that cult record, linking it to his often underrated solo effort Global a Go-Go. “Me and the band just turned up every day, and it was like the music was telling us what to play,” he shared.
“Music, lyrics, solos – it was all of one piece, done in the moment.”
Seemingly, that musical spontaneity brought Strummer back to 1980. “When I think back, the only similar experience happened when the Clash hit New York after touring, and we went right into the Sandinista! sessions.”
“It was very similar in that we had nothing prepared, and a lot of the album just took off by itself,” Strummer continued. ‘If Music Could Talk’ is, according to the songwriter, a prime example of that unique way of working, even if it isn’t often considered a stand-out from the album.
“On ‘If Music Could Talk’ I recorded two vocals: one on the left side of the stereo mix, and the other on the right side. And the two vocals were done one right after the other,” he explained.
With its distinct blend of spontaneity and musical innovation, ‘If Music Could Talk’ is the one song that Strummer said he wanted to be remembered for, and it is a pretty solid choice. As he explained, “I just love hearing those vocals, even though it doesn’t fuckin’ work that well, because I can hear myself extemporizing, straight off the bat, on my feet, in the moment. And as I was reminded on my last album, music really can talk – to us and through us.”
Strummer’s music always spoke directly to the audience, which is perhaps why tracks like ‘If Music Could Talk’ still resonate so strongly with his legions of devotees, multiple decades after the songwriter sadly left this mortal coil.
