The story of The Clash
When the punk regime first started, no one knew where everything would be going. Even though it may have seemed fashionable to put safety pins through one’s cheeks and sing about how much people were keeping you down, it wasn’t clear whether acts like Sex Pistols would last for five years or five weeks, depending on the day. For a genre known for playing in the moment, The Clash were determined to make songs that would resonate years after they were gone.
Formed after hearing bands like Ramones and Sex Pistols stake their claim as punk royalty, Joe Strummer had a different mindset when it came time to write lyrics. Not wanting to talk about the problems of being a teenager or outright anarchy, Strummer brought a Dylan-esque political edge to the band’s music.
Starting with songs like ‘White Riot’, the core ethos of the band was about making songs documenting the common problems that come with everyone growing up, feeling both disenfranchised by parents as well as the corrupt system of upper-class politics. While Strummer may have had a sharp tongue, Mick Jones was the one tying everything together.
Whereas Strummer was a reasonably decent singer and an all-star lyricist, Jones was brought up listening to an array of different music. Outside of straight punk rock, his work with the melodies and the interplay with Paul Simonon opened the band’s musical palette up on their first album, whether that meant lashing out in anger on ‘Janie Jones’ or interpolating reggae on their version of ‘Police and Thieves’.
While the band were still honing their craft on their sophomore release, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, Strummer was ready to make the kind of radical statements that all of his heroes had. Storming into the 1980s, London Calling would become one of the most celebrated albums in punk history, having the kind of songs anyone could.
Do you love punk? Try the title track or ‘Koka Kola’. Are you more into the sounds of singer-songwriters? Take ‘Lost in the Supermarket’. Only listen to top 40 radio? ‘Train In Vain’ is all you need. Even though the band could do many specialities on record, their ambitious side had yet to run out on Sandinista.
Being one of the few triple album events in rock history, the entire project featured every single thing that the band had ever thought of doing. While there was still punk rock bombast to be found on songs like ‘The Magnificent Seven’, it’s easy to see them going in separate directions as Strummer tried to hold onto their punk ethos amid their changing styles.
If Sandinista signalled that the band might fizzle out, Combat Rock was the sound of them being held together by faith. Compared to the seamless transitions of their past albums, each song on the record feels like it could be taken from an entirely different album, from flirting with different electronics on ‘Straight to Hell’ to making some of their biggest hits on ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ or ‘Rock the Casbah’.
By the time the band went out on tour, that pop-centred brand of rock and roll was not going to be tolerated anymore. After being considered one of the major power players in the band, Jones’ rock star behaviour earned him a one-way ticket out of the band, with manager Bernard Rhodes convincing Strummer to kick him to the curb.
After trying to build the band back from the ground up, The Clash would struggle on as a husk of themselves through the album Cut the Crap before eventually dissolving. Although Jones and Strummer did end up on better terms, a full reunion was not going to be in the cards after Strummer died from a heart attack in 2002.
That doesn’t mean that it was all for nothing, though. In just five mainline albums, The Clash tested the limits of what a punk band was capable of, constantly innovating their sound and never taking no for an answer when told that their dreams weren’t realistic. From their political edge to their stylistic switches, The Clash proved that punk wasn’t just some fading fashion for the masses. It was a state of mind, and as long as you keep moving forward, anything is possible.
