Day After Day #293: Know Your Rights

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Know Your Rights (1982)

It's Election Day here in the good ol' US of A, wrapping up (sort of) one of the most contentious presidential campaigns since well, the last one. I'm not going to get political, but I am going to let the Clash do it. 

The year is 1982 and things are rocky with the Clash. Coming off 1980's triple album Sandinista! in early 1981, singer-guitarist Joe Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon felt the Clash was getting boring and decided to bring back original manager Bernie Rhodes. Guitarist Mick Jones disagreed with the move and was drifting apart from his bandmates, while drummer Topper Headon was full on into a heroin and cocaine addiction.

Working on their fifth album, the Clash recorded 18 songs, enough for a double album, but they were debating whether that would be too much after just releasing a triple album and double before that in London Calling. Jones wanted a double album with longer mixes, while the rest of the band preferred a single album with shorter songs. Strummer and Jones worked with producer Glyn Johns to edit the album, called Combat Rock, down from 77 minutes to 46, dropping six songs.

The opening track and lead single of the album was "Know Your Rights" and it featured Strummer as a civil servant announcing three rights for poor people. The song kicks off with "This is a public service announcement...with guitar!"

"Know your rights/All three of 'em/Number one/You have the right not to be killed/Murder is a crime/Unless it was done/By a policeman/Or an aristocrat/Oh, know your rights."

Musically, the track is reminiscent of the band's earlier, more strident sound.

"And number two/You have the right to food money/Providing of course you/Don't mind a little/Investigation, humiliation/And if you cross your fingers/Rehabilitation."

The song didn't chart in the U.S., but it hit #43 on the U.K. Singles Chart.

"Number three/You have the right to free speech/As long as you're not/Dumb enough to actually try it/Know your rights/These are your rights/Oh, know your rights/These are your rights/All three of 'em, ha."

While "Know Your Rights" didn't click as a single, its followup more than made up for it. The music for "Rock the Casbah" was written by Headon, based on a piano he'd been working on. Strummer reworked the lyrics and the song, accompanied by a Don Letts-directed video, became a huge hit for the Clash, getting to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. By the time the band made the video, songwriter Headon had been replaced by Terry Chimes because his heroin addiction had gotten out of control.

Strummer ends the song in character, admonishing the poor for wanting more rights. "And it has been suggested/In some quarters that this is not enough/Well, get off the streets/Get off the streets!"

A lot of critics and punk fans wrote Combat Rock off as too commercial, especially when "Should I Stay or Should I Go" became a hit as well. The album went to #2 in the U.K. and #7 in the U.S. and eventually went multiplatinum. Combat Rock also featured "Straight to Hell," a haunting song inspired by Apocalypse Now about the children fathered by American soldiers to Vietnamese mothers and then abandoned after the Vietnam War ended. It served as the main sample in M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes." 

The Clash ended up opening for the Who's on the latter's "Schlitz Rocks America" "farewell tour," which was an interesting choice for such an antiestablishment band. After headlining the New Wave day of the US Festival in front of 150,000 people in May 1983, the Clash never played with Jones again. Strummer and Simonon dismissed him that September and replaced him with two new guitarists. After releasing the decidedly substandard Cut the Crap in 1985, the band broke up. Jones formed Big Audio Dynamite and released several albums.

"Know Your Rights" remains an iconic statement from the Clash.

Day After Day #277: The Bottom Line

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

The Bottom Line (1985)

After the Clash fired lead guitarist and co-lead singer Mick Jones in 1983, things really got weird. The band's appearance at the 1983 US Festival was Jones' last show with the Clash. Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon fired Jones that fall, replacing him with Nick Sheppard and Vince White. That Clash lineup released the album Cut the Crap in November 1985 and other than the single "This is England," it was an abysmal failure. 

Meanwhile, after he left the Clash, Jones played briefly with General Public before forming the band Top Risk Action Company (T.R.A.C.) with former Clash drummer Topper Headon; after Jones fire Headon for being hooked on heroin and Lennard either left or was fired, the band split up. Jones and bassist Leo Williams from T.R.A.C. teamed with film director Don Letts, drummer Greg Roberts and keyboardist Dan Donovan to form Big Audio Dynamite in 1984. 

The band released This Is Big Audio Dynamite in November 1985, introducing a post-punk sound that incorporated tons of movie samples (mostly from spaghetti Westerns) and sound effects, beatbox rhythms and Jones' unmistakable lead vocals. The single was 4:35, but the 12-inch version of the song, which clocks in at 8:45, is considered the definitive version.

"The horses are on the track/There's a new dance that's going around/When the hits start flying you gotta get down/All the young people dance round the square/That old time groove is really nowhere/When you reach the bottom line/The only thing to do is climb/Pick yourself up off the floor/Don't know what you're waiting for."

B.A.D. was definitely focused on the dance floor, far from the Clash's weighty role as spokespunks for a generation. But Jones would sneak some political commentary in between the beats and samples.

"A dance to the tune of economic decline/Is when you do the bottom line/Nagging questions always remain/Why did it happen and who was to blame?/When you reach the bottom line/The only thing to do is climb/Pick yourself up off the floor/Don't know what you're waiting for."

The song is catchy and anthemic, although it didn't really hit with the public. It only reached #97 on the U.K. Singles Chart (as opposed to "This is England," which hit #24), although it hit #33 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in the U.S. But it got plenty of play on WBCN in Boston, where I first heard it; similarly, the album's other singles "E=MC2" and "Medicine Show" also got some play. Strummer and Simonon actually appeared in the "Medicine Show" video as police officers.

Strummer, who had disbanded the Clash by this point, helped Jones out on 1986's No. 10, Upping Street, co-producing the album and co-writing five songs. B.A.D. had a good rest of the '80s, releasing two more well-received albums, including 1989's Megatop Phoenix. But in 1990, Jones debuted a new version of the band called B.A.D. II in which he was the only remaining member from the original lineup. After releasing a U.K.-only album Kool Aid in 1990, B.A.D. II released The Globe in 1991 and scoring the hit "Rush," which hit #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. In the U.K., the song was released as a double A-side single with the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go," which went to #1; the accolade was given to the Clash. The title track from the album was also a rock radio hit in the U.S. 

The band opened for U2 on the Zoo TV tour and then headlined an MTV 120 Minutes tour with Public Image Ltd., Live and Blind Melon. The rest of the '90s was a struggle for Jones and the band, however. In 1994, going as Big Audio, the band released Higher Power, which didn't do much; 1995's F-Punk did even less and the band's last album, Entering a New Ride, wasn't even released by the group's label, Radioactive Records. B.A.D. started releasing songs from the album online, but by 2001, the band split up.

Jones teamed with Tony James (Generation X, Sigue Sigue Sputnik) to form Carbon/Silicon in 2002. The group has been pretty prolific, releasing a ton of music (much of it for free online) but remaining fairly low profile. In 2011, the original lineup of B.A.D. reunited for a short tour; I saw them at Avalon in Boston and they were great.  But that's the last we've heard from the group. Jones has also worked as a producer and has collaborated with Gorillaz, the Wallflowers, the Flaming Lips and the Avalanches.

Day After Day #62: London Calling

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

London Calling (1979) 

As I've noted earlier, I enjoy punk rock but I'm about as unpunk as it gets. The Clash was the first punk act I really got into, albeit through some of their least punk-sounding songs in "Train in Vain" and "Lost in the Supermarket." You could argue they were already post-punk by this point, anyway. 

Led by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, the band was already established as one of flag-bearers of UK punk by the time they went into the studio to record their third album, London Calling. They really stretched out on the album, experimenting with a variety of styles including reggae, ska, pop, rockabilly and heavy rock. What didn't change was their penchant for social commentary, whether it was about consumerism on "Supermarket," paranoia ("The Guns of Brixton") or oppressive capitalism ("Clampdown"). Quite simply, London Calling is one of the greatest rock albums. Period.

The first single from the album was the title track, which reflects Strummer's concerns about the world around him, including nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island, police brutality and even the band's situation, which in 1979 found the Clash in debt and without a manager. It opens with a slashing guitar riff as Strummer barks out the lyrics.

"London calling to the faraway towns/Now war is declared, and battle come down/London calling to the underworld/Come outta the cupboard, ya boys and girls/London calling, now don't look to us/Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust/London calling, see we ain't got no swing/Except for the ring of that truncheon thing."

Things aren't looking up for, well, anyone.

"The ice age is coming, the sun's zoomin' in/Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin/A nuclear error, but I have no fear/'Cause London is drowning and I live by the river."

"London Calling" went to #11 on the UK Singles chart, but it didn't chart in the U.S., where "Train in Vain" was a hit instead, going to #23 on the Hot 100. The album of the same name hit #9 on the UK album chart and #27 on the Billboard 200 in the U.S. The Clash were set up for major success, so of course they followed it up with a sprawling triple album, Sandinista! The band decided to stick it to their label CBS, which resisted releasing London Calling as a double album and then released Bruce Springsteen's The River as a double a year later. Despite mixed reviews, it went to #24 in the U.S.

Fast forward a few years later and the Clash were everywhere. "Rock the Casbah" was a top 10 hit, as was the Combat Rock album. The band opened for the Who on the latter's "farewell tour," which surprised me because the tour was called "Schlitz Rocks America,' which seemed pretty far from punk. Not long after, Jones left the band and was replaced by two guitarists; the new lineup released the unfortunate Cut the Crap in 1985. It was widely panned and Strummer broke up the band weeks after it came out. 

In the years that followed, Jones formed Big Audio Dynamite and Strummer began a solo career, but they resisted reuniting the Clash despite receiving constant big-money offers. Strummer died in December 2002 from a congenital heart defect, a few months before the Clash was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I saw B.A.D. play at the House of Blues in 2011, which was fun. Wish I'd gone to see one of Strummer's tours before he departed this mortal coil. The Clash remains one of my favorite bands. Fortunately, they left a decent amount of music behind...even Sandinista.