"I am touched by the spirit of Elvis Presley -
He enters my body, gives away Cadillacs and leaves!"
- Bill Hicks
He enters my body, gives away Cadillacs and leaves!"
- Bill Hicks
Some body 1ce told him that
He wouldn't take O(+> through the ringer
Let him go down as a washed up singer
Ain't that a bitch?
Thinkin' all along that he wanted 2 B rich
Never respected The Root of all Evil
and he still don't 2 this day
Bury him face down,
let the motherf$£€ers kiss ass,
Okay...?
Prince
"Left a good job in the city
Workin' for the man ev'ry night and day
And I never lost one minute of sleepin'
Worryin' 'bout the way things might have been
Big wheel keep on turnin'
Proud Mary keep on burnin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river
Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis
Pumped a lot of pane down in New Orleans
But I never saw the good side of the city
'Til I hitched a ride on a river boat queen
Big wheel keep on turnin'
Proud Mary keep on burnin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river
If you come down to the river
Bet you gonna find some people who live
You don't have to worry 'cause you have [if you got] no money
People on the river are happy to give
Big wheel keep on turnin'
Proud Mary keep on burnin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river"
Ain't it kinda funny when ya see The Dawn..?
"Dead like Elvis,
check, check, 1 2, check
You know what he's sayin'?
Face Down
Face Down
Face Down
Somebody 1ce told him that
He wouldn't take O(+> through the ringer
Let him go down as a washed up singer
Ain't that a bitch?
Thinkin' all along that he wanted to be rich
Never respected the root of all evil
and he still don't to this day
Bury him face down, let the motherfuckers kiss ass,
Okay...?
Face down, face down
Told 'em he wanted to sing a song
About a black child goin' buck wild
And they just laughed in his face
Talk to your lawyer but you got no case
What you need to do is keep your place
Next time you pull a card, it better be a ace motherfucker
Or you can lay face down
(Face down)
1 2, face down, 1 2
Him and her meaning who I'm singin' about
And his psychoanalyst kinda saw the catalyst
As the devil with the blue jeans on
Ain't it kinda funny when you see the dawn?
Sign the name they gave ya but when them motherfuckers
Turn around ass up, you're what?
Face down, 1 2, face down
New power generation in the house, bury 'em all
Face down, yes, oh Lord, face down
Face down, face down
It's in his will, I read it, he shot to kill, he said it
For those who know the number and don't call
Fuck all y'all
He' not dead, he's retired.
Never believe anything a Jehovah's Witness says to any government official, it's considered collaboration with the Whore of Babylon - they are antinomians, they are all ordered and taught from birth to lie to outside secular authorities and deceive them - that's why they were the only Christian/Crypto-Christian sect sent to the Concentration Camps and not aloud to operate within Nazi Germany, because they are essentially a Bureacratic anti-Authoritarian Domestic Father Cult in a declared state of spiritual war against the secular nation-state, and ALL other Churches.
They go by Genesis, which gives the ordering of life and sole sources of authority in Creation as being :
God
[Angels]
Husbands
Mothers
Children
Animals
Plants.
And nothing else.
Even their central and local leadership is comprised of a board of (male) elders chosen from each community - they don't believe in the authority of even priests or pastors and don't attend churches, they do all of their Bible work and spiritual instruction within the household, it's up to fathers and mothers to raise children in the faith - this does create rather obvious problems, however, since JW families and communities by their very nature become de facto safe spaces for all forms of child abuse, due to the absolute defence of paternal authority, second only to that of God himself.
With that being the case, all JWs develop some kind of Daddy issues, for fairly obvious reasons, and the faith generally encourages husbands and fathers to fully embrace the role of the strict disciplinarian.
Of course, spanking one's children, whipping or beating them (or one's wife), or any form of physical punishment now IS classified as Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, assault, etc. etc., all of the above, irrespective of what the Bible, Torah and Koran ALL proscribe as the correct way to run one's household, organise a family and raise moral and respectful children.
You see the same thing of allegations of "child abuse" and "child brides" used to justify the physical liquidation of the Branch Davidians and many other so-called cults and Crypto-Christian sects (but never the Mormons these days, though)
Which is probably sufficient cause to understand why they might refuse always to cooperate with or talk to the Police. The Vatican takes precisely the same stance, this is our problem to deal with internally, using our own proceedures, laws and courts - which those on the outside are quick to denounce as covering up or simply doing nothing.
But you can equally make the case that any community has the right and responsibility to self-defence from threats and attacks by outside forces, irrespective of whether that community has an a national, ethnic or religious basis - the Church of Rome would claim the first and the third reasons, whilst the Jews might claim
all three, the JW or the LDS or even FLDS communities certainly have a claim to the third of those three reasons.
Never believe anything a Jehovah's Witness says to any government official, it's considered collaboration with the Whore of Babylon - they are antinomians, they are all ordered and taught from birth to lie to outside secular authorities and deceive them - that's why they were the only Christian/Crypto-Christian sect sent to the Concentration Camps and not aloud to operate within Nazi Germany, because they are essentially a Bureacratic anti-Authoritarian Domestic Father Cult in a declared state of spiritual war against the secular nation-state, and ALL other Churches.
They go by Genesis, which gives the ordering of life and sole sources of authority in Creation as being :
God
[Angels]
Husbands
Mothers
Children
Animals
Plants.
And nothing else.
Even their central and local leadership is comprised of a board of (male) elders chosen from each community - they don't believe in the authority of even priests or pastors and don't attend churches, they do all of their Bible work and spiritual instruction within the household, it's up to fathers and mothers to raise children in the faith - this does create rather obvious problems, however, since JW families and communities by their very nature become de facto safe spaces for all forms of child abuse, due to the absolute defence of paternal authority, second only to that of God himself.
With that being the case, all JWs develop some kind of Daddy issues, for fairly obvious reasons, and the faith generally encourages husbands and fathers to fully embrace the role of the strict disciplinarian.
Of course, spanking one's children, whipping or beating them (or one's wife), or any form of physical punishment now IS classified as Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, assault, etc. etc., all of the above, irrespective of what the Bible, Torah and Koran ALL proscribe as the correct way to run one's household, organise a family and raise moral and respectful children.
You see the same thing of allegations of "child abuse" and "child brides" used to justify the physical liquidation of the Branch Davidians and many other so-called cults and Crypto-Christian sects (but never the Mormons these days, though)
Which is probably sufficient cause to understand why they might refuse always to cooperate with or talk to the Police. The Vatican takes precisely the same stance, this is our problem to deal with internally, using our own proceedures, laws and courts - which those on the outside are quick to denounce as covering up or simply doing nothing.
But you can equally make the case that any community has the right and responsibility to self-defence from threats and attacks by outside forces, irrespective of whether that community has an a national, ethnic or religious basis - the Church of Rome would claim the first and the third reasons, whilst the Jews might claim
all three, the JW or the LDS or even FLDS communities certainly have a claim to the third of those three reasons.
"Only relative, close friends and some celebrities were permitted to enter Graceland, the Presley estate, to witness the funeral services.
So, these are the people that were told [at the time] that Elvis was not really dead - because the funeral is fake :
Ann Margeret, Burt Reynolds, John Wayne, Chet Atkins, Charlie Pride, Carol Kennedy all were reported to be in town."
Watch for George Klein's hilarious tribute to The King, with the most over-done, cliched Elvis anecdote ever - even Savile pulled out that one :
"I am touched by the spirit of Elvis Presley -
he enters my body, gives away Cadillacs and leaves!"
- Bill Hicks
"But the shock seemed to wear off and at times there was almost a Carnival atmosphere..."
"I think it's a bunch of balony, really, people are just... they're giggling and they don't really care - I mean, I'm having a good time too, but that isn't really what it's all about..."
"I think it's a bunch of balony, really, people are just... they're giggling and they don't really care - I mean, I'm having a good time too, but that isn't really what it's all about..."
The Famous Liar and Epic Hoaxer Andy Kaufman was Elvis Presley's own all-time personal favourite Elvis impersonator.
Once he puts the jumpsuit on, straps on his guitar and steps on-stage, he sounds exactly like Elvis Presley.
So, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,
singing down a microphone just off stage-right...
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!
...
"Dave Dave".
Like Michael Jackson, they both got set on fire in 1983, and they both hate their father.
In a very complicated, paradoxical and uniquely Jehovah's Witness kind of way.
..
"Jack Steven"
"That's exactly what he said the other day"
Today, there is no such thing as a Prince impersonator. That does not exist as a cultural phenomena.
Because he was the only credited songwriter on every single one of his compositions, which meant he has complete control of all publication and performance rights to any song he ever wrote or performed, and he has GREAT lawyers.
Elvis and Michael Jackson shared songwriting credits with producers and record label employees, so couldn't prevent other people from performing their compositions commercially, on a live stage or in the studio, or copying their entire stage act and pretending to be them.
Prince could.
And did.
And does.
This is about to change. You most likely see a licensing system go into place for approved tribute acts, the same way you have with bands like The Bootleg Beatles, The Counterfeit Stones and Australian Pink Floyd - this is how they will do it.
And some of those performers will actually be Prince.
The official Queen Tribute band are just AMAZING, by the way - I just wish we could say, or know that that is really Freddie, but sadly it isn't.
"You think Chaka wanted that?
Chaka didn't want that, Chaka mad!"
K.S. :"Chaka mad...?"
"Yea, Chaka REAL mad..!!"
Just how princely is Prince's Warner Bros. deal?
LA Times, Sept. 5 1992
Hold that champagne.
Prince and his advisers may be toasting their new multimillion-dollar contract with Warner Bros.Records, but some executives at the record label are not exactly ecstatic.
Not only were key officers at Warner Bros. surprised when Prince's publicists issued a press release Thursday announcing the pact, but they were "dismayed"--in the words of one Warner official--by the claim that it was the biggest deal in record industry history.
Without denying the Prince deal is one of the "four or five biggest" in the record industry, insiders claim the total figure is based largely on projected revenue--not guaranteed income.
"Can you believe what Madonna, who just finished negotiating a $60-million contract with Warners, is going to say when she hears about the Prince deal?" asked one industry observer.
While company executives declined to discuss the new pact, other industry insiders were quick to challenge the accuracy of the deal's reported $100-million figure.
To earn $100 million, each of Prince's next six albums will have to sell at least 5 million copies, a level that he has rarely matched despite his high international visibility. The music publishing and other joint ventures also depend on projected sales performance.
If Prince's sales fall short in any of these areas, the amount due him under the contract could be greatly reduced.
So how much cash did the 34-year-old Minneapolis recording artist, whose real name is Prince Roger Nelson, get for signing his name on the dotted line?
Approximately $30 million.
"This $100-million figure is so ridiculous," said one industry insider. "No company could afford to pay Prince that. Based on what he has sold recently, they'd go broke."
"His representatives are just playing the big numbers up for the media," said another prominent record company executive. "These huge numbers get leaked to the press to puff up artists' egos and to promote the people who negotiate the deals. It's free advertising so that his representatives can lure other artists into their camp."
Gary Stiffelman, an entertainment attorney at the Los Angeles firm Ziffren, Brittenham and Branca, declined to discuss details of the contract, but dismissed allegations of self-promotion. Stiffelman negotiated the contract for Prince along with Gilbert Davison, president of Paisley Park Enterprises, Prince's Minneapolis record company.
"We don't comment on the value of the deals we make," said Stiffelman, whose firm has also negotiated deals for the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and ZZ Top.
"We leave that speculation to the press and the music community."
Prince's contract is the latest in a string of mega-bucks superstar signings triggered by Janet Jackson's estimated $40-million, three-album deal with Virgin Records last year.
Just where does the deal place Prince in this high-visibility, high-ego sweepstakes?
Most industry observers contacted Friday put it in the top 5. Some believe that Janet Jackson's pact is still the most valuable because she becomes a "free agent" after three albums--thus enabling her to sign an even bigger contract if she remains a hot artist.
Others pointed to the Michael Jackson/Sony and Madonna/Warner Bros. arrangements, both of which were estimated at $60 million each. These contracts, however, bind the artists to the labels for between six and seven albums.
[NOTE : After this 1992 contract, Michael Jackson would release only a further TWO albums, both of which failed to sell due to Sony/Epic's deliberate failure to promote or market them sufficiently;
Beginning in 1992, and gathering speed over the course of 1993, Dark Forces moved to turn Michael's life, career and reputation completely to sh*t.
Madonna appears to have delivered on her full commitment of albums]
They also include lucrative film/TV/video/merchandisng provisions.
Sources close to the Prince/Warner Bros. talks said the entertainer is guaranteed up to an estimated $10-million advance per album--three times his previous fee and twice as much as Jackson or Madonna receives. The six-album deal reportedly also includes a blue-chip 25% royalty rate on every record he sells.
Under the agreement, Warner Bros., which is owned by Time Warner, will eventually pay about $20 million to restructure Prince's existing record label, Paisley Park Records, and establish an additional joint venture record label. Prince will also reportedly be paid an additional $20-million advance by Warner/Chappel music publishers to establish two other co-venture companies.
If Prince's next album--due Oct. 20--does not sell enough units to turn a profit for the company, sources say, his advance for successive albums will be reduced significantly to compensate for their losses.
In the pop world, a "guaranteed" cash advance is like a separate interest-free loan that the company deducts from the entertainer's share of the profits every time one of his or her albums sells.
The advance for each album is deducted from an artist's royalties on the album until he or she sells enough records to pay back the $10 million, which means about 5 million copies in Prince's case--given his estimated 25% royalty rate.
If the album doesn't sell the 5 million copies, Time Warner reportedly has the right to deduct the difference from royalties generated by all of his previous albums.
So far, Prince has a very uneven commercial track record. He has never repeated the success of his 10 million-selling 1984 smash, "Purple Rain." Indeed, U.S. sales from his last three albums total approximately only 5 million units. "Diamonds and Pearls," Prince's 1991 release, sold about 2.5 million.
Sources say Prince is likely to walk away with no more than a total $20-million advance to underwrite four new companies. However, according to several industry sources, Prince, like Madonna and Jackson, has about two years to test his strengths in the joint-venture recording and publishing companies.
If Warner fails to turn a profit on the new co-ventures with Prince by 1995, the speculation is that the firm reserves the right to retrieve its losses from money generated by Prince's personal record sales.
Among other acts which have signed "mega-deal" contracts in the last two years: Aerosmith, a reported $35-million, four-album deal with Columbia; Motley Crue, a reported $35-million, five-album deal with Elektra, and the Rolling Stones, a $42-million, three-album deal with Virgin. In addition, Lionel Richie and ZZ Top signed smaller pacts with PolyGram and RCA Records respectively.
"They said we'd be artistically free
when we signed that bit of paper
they meant 'Lets make a lotta mon-ee
an' worry about it later!'
Oh-have we done something wrong?
Oh-Complete Control--even over this song!"
The Clash were ambivalent about working for CBS. Their fears were borne out when the company, over the band's objection, released the song "Remote Control" as a single. Strummer and Jones vented their fury in their next song, "Complete Control:"
As their career proceeded, the Clash and CBS continued to clash. CBS refused to release the first Clash LP in America because it was "too crude." It was issued two years later, in a revised version that included several later British singles, after 100,000 imported copies of The Clash had sold. The label didn't promote the band aggressively, with one promotion executive frankly admitting upon the 1979 release of Give 'Em Enough Rope, "we're not likely to get a hit single this time around." (Gilmore, p. 22)"They said we'd be artistically free
when we signed that bit of paper
they meant 'Lets make a lotta mon-ee
an' worry about it later!'
Oh-have we done something wrong?
Oh-Complete Control--even over this song!"
In an effort to work around radio and make their music more accessible to their audience, the Clash cut the price of their records. London Calling, a 1980 double album, had a list price of $9.98, at a time when the average single album carried an $8.98 tag. In 1981, the triple LP Sandinista! listed for $14.98, a dollar below the typical double album price, and the Clash wanted it priced even lower. With retail markdowns, common in the early '80s, it would not be unusual to buy Sandinista! for $11.
The band also cut the prices of t-shirts and tickets. They made up the difference by sacrificing their royalties, earning almost nothing for Sandinista!. CBS objected strongly to both the oversized albums and the low prices, and Paul Simonon believed that CBS refused to promote Sandinista! to punish the band.
The band also cut the prices of t-shirts and tickets. They made up the difference by sacrificing their royalties, earning almost nothing for Sandinista!. CBS objected strongly to both the oversized albums and the low prices, and Paul Simonon believed that CBS refused to promote Sandinista! to punish the band.
"I did have a much larger offer from R.C.A., about £4 Million more.
David Geffen and I used to be partners and David has worked with Neil for a very long time.
He totally relates to Neil as an artist and has no preconceived notions about Neil.
He knows that he's capable of doing anything at any point, at any time... he will have the freedom to practice his art as he sees it, as opposed to when you make a deal where someone is paying you £1 - £2 million an album you feel obligated to give them commercial music that they can sell large numbers of.
Neil's not concerned with selling large numbers of his records, he's concerned with making records that he's pleased with. Unfortunately they are not always commercial from the record company's point of view.
David Geffen relates to that.
He knows Neil may do a country album and then he may do an electric album because there's no rhyme or reason with Neil. It's what he's moved by."
"Yea, this person representing Leadbelly's estate contacted me offering to sell me Leadbelly's guitar for $500,000.
I even asked David Geffen personally if he would buy it for me."
[But he wouldn't.]
[But he wouldn't.]
- Kurt Cobain
How Neil Young Became the First Artist to Get Sued for Not Being Himself
What? How can you get sued for not being yourself?
Writing for Rolling Stone, music journalist Don McLeese explains:
Neil Young is the only artist in the history of modern recording to be sued for refusing to be himself. The suit, filed by Geffen Records, Young’s label for much of the Eighties, charged that he was violating his contract by recording ‘unrepresentative’ albums. In other words, Neil Young wasn’t making Neil Young music.
The problem with Geffen’s suit was that there has never been any such thing as a ‘representative’ Neil Young album. Young has made a decades-long career out of keeping his fans guessing what he’ll do next.
Even before he signed with Geffen, his ever-changing style included raw and edgy, melodic and romantic, dark and melancholic, acoustic and electric, and introspective and retrospective, with a bit of punk thrown in for good measure, all backed by whatever band he’d assembled at the time. It’s just how he worked (and still does).
This post explores how Young has managed to maintain an ongoing state of creative flow throughout his career. Even when he was creating to order for a record company, and even during the litigation that ensued.
As we’ll see, he did so by mastering the art of self-renewal, which is something we can all learn to do.
Creativity, Constrained
Young has recorded on the Reprise label throughout his 30+ year solo career, except for a period during the 1980s, known as the Geffen years. Record executive David Geffen had founded a new label and brought Young aboard.
The collaboration was contentious almost from the start. Geffen rejected Young’s country-esqe album Old Ways, insisting on something more rock ‘n’ roll. So, for the first and only time in his career, Young found himself trying to create to order. He came up with with the album Everybody’s Rockin.
Young really liked it. He thought it was exactly what Geffen wanted. But Geffen thought it was still too country. So he sued (for around $3 million), claiming that both albums were “musically uncharacteristic of Young’s previous recordings.” Young countersued for breach of contract, claiming he’d been promised artistic free rein.
With the litigation ongoing, Young hit the road, touring with a group of Nashville musicians he put together and called the International Harvesters. It required a whole new approach, he recalls, because the audiences and venues were very different from what Young was used to. Imagine this: state fairs all over the country, with Neil Young playing electric guitar alongside first-rate fiddlers and pickers with names like Rufus, Spooner, and Pig. That’s how it was. “We were having the time of our lives,” Young recalls.
After 85 concerts, the suit settled, with Geffen apologizing to Young, and Young recording two more albums on Geffen’s label. By the time the Geffen years were over, Young’s album sales were at an all time low, and he’d lost commercial relevance.
Freedom, Regained
In 1988, Young returned to Reprise. A major comeback came with the album called (what else?) Freedom, whose hit ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ was his biggest in a decade. He recalls that the song’s main lyrics – “keep on rockin’ in the free world” – just came to him one day.
Young’s creative flow never stopped during the Geffen years, but a floodgate opened once they were over. He wrote a movie soundtrack, organized major fundraising concerts, released a slew of genre-spanning records, jammed with Phish, grunged with Sonic Youth, punked with Social Distortion, chilled with James Taylor, and did a reunion tour with CSNY featuring their reunion album, fittingly titled Looking Forward.
To this day, Young is still going strong. He recently sold out two solo performances at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, and he’s planning a reunion tour with Buffalo Springfield, the band he co-founded in 1966 (before joining CSNY).
What this Has to Do with You
For someone whose famous lyrics include, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away,” Young has managed to do neither. How? His Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bio is dead on:
Young has consistently demonstrated the unbridled passion of an artist who understands that self-renewalis the only way to avoid burning out. For this reason, he has remained one of the most significant artists of the rock and roll era. (emphasis mine)
Self-renewal. That’s it! It’s the key to life. Literally.
By coincidence, the seminal work on this topic – Self-Renewal – was written in 1963, the same year Young made his first record? John W. Gardner writes that to be self-renewing individuals, we must maintain ourselves like a garden, with some things about ourselves being born, other things flourishing, and others dying – with the system as a whole living on.
This is exactly how Young lives and works To see how we can as well, let’s look to what he does (and doesn’t do) to maintain an ongoing state of self-renewal and the creative flow it brings:
1. He Doesn’t Use the F Word
By the F word, I mean the other one: Failure. Delving pretty deeply into Young’s history, I saw nothing suggesting that he ever perceived anything he created as a failure.
It’s as if Young doesn’t know that word. His concerts are a microcosm of his career: there’s no set list. No one (not even the band or the lighting technicians ) knows what he’s going to do. Neither does he, apparently. One song flows into the next. Working that way seems to annihilate the prospect of failure. Because it removes expectations.
Looking back on decades of working this way, Young told the BBC:
I would have a big hit record, and then I would have what some people would say … was a miserable, terrible record, and I’m going, “what a great record that was” – I really liked that because it’s going against the grain, it’s got an individual thing, and it’s not trying to be anything other than what it’s doing.
Critics and fans often don’t ‘get’ Young’s records when they first come out. They take a while to grow on people. He’s an acquired taste and so is what he does. Gardner’s words fit well here:
You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.
Young connects with his audience in his own way. But he’s not trying to please or win approval. So the F word doesn’t even come up.
Takeaway: Ditch your metaphorical set list. Remember that your work cannot be, as Young says, anything other than what it’s doing. If what it’s doing reaches people, great. If it doesn’t, also great. Maybe it will someday.
2. He Knows Why He’s Doing It
All along, Young has been ‘doing it for himself.’ That’s how his fan base emerged and grew over time. Asked by the BBC whether he’s actually made an effort to build an audience, he replied:
I’m always interested in reaching out to anyone who wants to listen, but really, I’m doing it for myself, so [my fan base has] been a coincidence.
Young reaches out to those who want to by performing unrehearsed concerts and releasing unpolished albums. Why obsess over details, when it’s the power of sound he’s going for? He finds it through immersion in the process, not by trying to figure out what people want and endeavoring to deliver.
We might think we have to reach some semblance of success before we can work without an eye toward approval. But we would be wrong. For many creative people (see hereand here), it’s precisely what fuels success in the first place.
This approach can work beautifully for entrepreneurs as well. Want to know how? Read Derek Sivers‘ book Anything You Want. In the hour it will take you to finish it, you’ll see that doing something because you love the process can serve as a brilliant business model.
Takeaway: Know why you’re doing it. Make sure it’s because you love the feel of the process. Then all you need to do is follow the last words of Elizabeth Gilbert’s famous Ted talk: “Have the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.”
3. He Gets Himself
Young has a tremendous self-understanding. He’s knows what fits with who he is and what he’s doing. He pays attention to what works and what doesn’t – for him. And he proceeds accordingly. His own words make these things clear:
I live for playing live. That’s what I do. I hate studios … where you have to go down a hall and see other people playing and you feel like … you’re a soup – you’re cream of mushroom and they’re tomato.
As long as it’s good music and I’m playing with my friends, I don’t care what genre it is. All my music comes from all music — I’m not country, I’m not rock ‘n’ roll, I’m just me, and all these things are what I like.
[M]y records aren’t that polished. I’m not going for that. I’m going for the essence of the song. I’m not a record crafter, that’s not my job. It may be someday, but it isn’t right now.
I’ve learned one thing: you don’t want to close the door on anything. I closed the door on everything and every time I’d do something new, I’d say, “this is it, I’m not doing anything else anymore … just this matters.” And then I was wrong.
Takeaway: With Young’s words as a guide, ask yourself: What do you live for? What really is it that you do? What does (and doesn’t) feel right? What is it that you’re going for? Have you closed the door on anything? What have you been wrong about?
4. He Creates His Own Groove
Young is groove personified. Groove is a musical term defined as rhythmic drive that creates a song’s momentum. Rocker-turned-neuroscientist Dan Levitin tells us that when music has good groove, it creates a sonic world where external time seems to stand still – we want to stay there, and we don’t want the song to end.
Does that remind you of anything? Groove is is analogous to creative flow, the state of intense absorption and pleasure that for many of us is the main motivation for doing creative work.
Young’s career has amounted to one massive state of good groove. He didn’t let anyone snap him out of it. Not critics, not fans, not Geffen. When Young got sued, he was on his own, without a record company. So what did he do? He assembled International Harvesters and did what he loved. Groove intact, he toured and played in what amounted to a whole new world for him. It’s hard to think of a better example of self-renewal.
Takeaway: Tend your metaphorical garden. Find your groove. Take charge of it. It’s yours, so don’t let others snap you out of it. Think of it as refuge, a teacher, and a place where you build skill.
Photo by 6tee-zeven.
Over to You:
Have you ever had your creativity constrained, by a client, an employer, or someone else (or perhaps yourself)? If so, how did affect your work? How did you deal with it?
What’s your take on the F word when it comes to creativity?
Are you able to work without an eye toward approval? If so, what advice do you have for others?
About the author: Susan Alexander is the creator of app4Mind, a “mind app” that empowers you to change how you work, play, and live. Follow her on Twitter @app4Mind
Turning Rebellion Into Money: The Story of the Clash
John Deeth Home
by John Deeth
NOTE: I wrote this in grad school waaaay back in the spring of 1990. I spruced it up a bit, but the essential document reflects the long-lost academic stage of my life, written for a fondly remembered professor who knew not punk but welcomed the introduction. (I got an A.) Before Cobain, before the Internet, before MP3's... And yes, back then I really did think Midnight Oil and Living Colour were the next great hope...
They were called "the only band that matters." Their words were at once threatening and touching, cathartic and crusading. From 1977 to 1983, the British rock group the Clash was considered the best band in the world by many rock critics, and had a loyal and passionate cadre of fans. But their intensely political, often explicitly Marxist message only reached a fraction of its potential audience, thanks to the corporate structure of the broadcasting and record industries. This failure, and the creative conflict it caused, led to the early end of the Clash. By examining the marketing of music and the history of the Clash, we can gain insight into the effectiveness of political art and the barriers it encounters.
Studies of mass media usually focus on television or print media, and rarely examine radio or recorded music. The popular music market is highly concentrated among buyers between 12 and 25. Thus the audience for an album that sells ten million copies may seem small when compared to network television, but is at the point of saturation for the demographic groups that buy the most music.
"This here music mash up the nation
this here music cause a sensation!"
"Revolution Rock," 1980
In the 1960's, musicians such as Bob Dylan and the Beatles made powerful and often intentional contributions to the era's politics. Titles like "The Times They Are a-Changin'," "All You Need is Love" and "Give Peace a Chance" have become cliches. Like the protest singers of the 1960's, the Clash intended to change society through their music. "Rock and roll changed the way I looked at society," said Clash guitarist Mick Jones (Cocks, 1979). Clash ideology was summed up by Joe Strummer, who with Jones led the Clash, as "Death to the bosses! Equality in everything!"
As the political concerns of 1960's rock (such as the Vietnam war and the draft) died out in the early 1970's, rock grew complacent, emphasizing perfection over passion. Many rock stars became jet-setters with little in common with their fans. But as the `70's ended, a new alienation developed in the permanent underclass of the U.K. Britain faced racial tension, rampant drug addiction, "aimless gang violence, industrial collapse, social decay, and 12 percent unemployment." (Hall, 1982, p. 26). The British Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, would soon come to power. The music that grew out of this decay was loud, political and angry.
"Big Business it don't like you-
don't like the things you do
you got no money so you got no power
they think you're useless an' so you are Punk!"
"Remote Control," 1977
Punk rock took on the social and political conditions in late `70's Britain with a vengeance. In reaction against the millionaire "art-rock" crowd, and in an effort to express frustration and anger, the musical style was simple--bass, drums, and guitars turned up loud, ragged and rough singing. One of the goals was to escape the corporate marketing system. Bands formed by the score, and short-lived independent record labels and magazines promoted the music. The idea was that "anyone can do it." Politically, punk functioned as a "fringe genre," which communicated its message to a small but intense group of fans (Jaffee, 1987).
Punk's standard bearers were the notorious Sex Pistols. Their ideology was simple: "I want to destroy!" In their infamous song "God Save the Queen," they perverted the national anthem and slandered Her Majesty, in the midst of the royal Silver Jubilee, a major patriotic bash. The record was considered so offensive that most record stored refused to carry it, and the national records charts refused to list it, leaving a blank space in its place. (Nevertheless, it hit Number Two.)
The Clash were second only to the Pistols in the punk pantheon. As opposed to the "no future" vision of the Pistols, the Clash saw the world through a revolutionary lens and held out hope for a better future. "Certainly a long battle was ahead, but perhaps it could be won." (Henke, 1980, p. 38.)
The Clash was formed in the ghettoes of London in June 1976, when Strummer and Jones met in a London dole queue. Strummer was the son of a low-level diplomat. He dropped out of school and took a factory job, becoming obsessed with class inequality. Strummer was the more ideological songwriter, with a ragged, ravaged voice and a hostile attitude which conveyed "the defiance of a man trying to convince the authorities of his innocence as he's being led off to the electric chair." (Henke, p. 38.)
Mick Jones was the personable romantic of the Clash. Although his material, too, was political, Jones was more likely to personalize the issues and focus on details. He was also a better singer and technical musician than Strummer, who shouted "you're my guitar hero!" at Jones during Mick's solo on "Complete Control." The Clash also included bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon.
Punks emphasized purism, and despised those who "sold out." The Clash, like other punks, despised the mainstream, apolitical rock acts that Americans preferred. "The Aerosmiths, the Foghats, the Bostons," listed Jones in 1979 (Cocks), "they've kind of signed themselves out." Yet the Clash always insisted that they were first and foremost musicians. "It's music first and political thought next," said Strummer in 1982 (Hall, p. 26).
"The AM, the FM, the P.M. too,
churning out that boogaloo..."
"The Magnificent Seven," 1981
In order to understand the marketing of popular music in America, one must examine the symbiotic relationship between the recording industry and radio. In the U.S., unlike most other countries, broadcasting is privately owned and subject to little regulation. Television replaced radio as the dominant mass medium in the 1950's, at roughly the same time as rock and roll became popular. Radio responded by switching from "broad-casting" to "narrow-casting." Stations sought narrower, more homogeneous audiences, and adopted different formats revolving around varieties of prerecorded music. Today, the record industry facilitates this by providing free "product" (the industry term) to radio. In return, radio becomes a non-stop ad for prerecorded music.
Herman and Chomsky (1988) describe a propaganda model of mass media consisting of a series of "filters" which restrict content. These include the size, ownership, and profit motive of mass-media firms and the role of advertising as the main source of media income. Corporate media owners and advertisers have, for all practical purposes, a monopoly on the First Amendment. The 29 largest media systems account for the majority of newspaper output and the majority of both sales and audiences of magazines, books, movies, and broadcasting. Bagdikan (1987, p. xvi) calls these firms "a new Private Ministry of Information and Culture." The record industry is part of this oligopoly. Six multinational corporations account for 85 to 90 percent of the market.
In a privately owned, profit-oriented media system, broadcasting exists to create an audience for commercials. Thus media sources are financially subservient to advertisers. Radio programmers contend that their decisions are based on meticulous audience research, and that they are only playing what listeners want to hear. But "listeners" do not constitute the entire public. Advertisers are not concerned with the quantity of people who hear their message, but with the quality. They seek the "upscale" audience with maximum buying power, and broadcasters target this audience, which tends not to include young, poor, punk rock fans.
Advertisers wish to avoid bringing controversial attention to their products, and "avoid programs with serious complexities and disturbing controversies that interfere with the `buying mood.'" (Herman and Chomsky, p. 17.) Coca-Cola, a major radio advertiser, wouldn't like to tune in and hear one of their commercials next to "Koka Kola," a Clash satire about the othercoke, complete with puns on Coke slogans and references to the effects of cocaine:
Radio sales managers are also wary of controversy, and fear that political music would drive clients away. "With rare exception (advertiser's own principles) are culturally and politically conservative." (Herman and Chomsky, pp. 16-17.) This increases the trend toward moderation and conservatism. Jaffee (1987) contends that artists who begin to express political concerns in their music without changing their musical style still face reduced airplay. Artists in fringe genres such as punk may address limited audiences, but usually without much airplay. Only the very biggest superstars whose work cannot be ignored by radio, such as Bruce Springsteen, get airplay with explicitly political records."I get good advice from the advertising world
Treat me nice says the party girl
Koke adds life where there isn't any, so freeze, man, freeze!
It's the pause that refreshes in the corridors of power..."
Few artists are able to sell large numbers of records in America without airplay. A hit is bait for an album. The failure of the Clash to get airplay meant that much of their target audience was not exposed to the undiluted message on the LPs. Perhaps in frustration, the Clash named one album after the BBC's program guide London Calling, and in late 1981 they recorded a single in which they "set up their own station:"
Unable to sustain their hate, the Sex Pistols self-destructed in early 1978. Punk was co-opted and polished into "New Wave" by the record companies. Sandy Pearlman, the producer of the second Clash album Give 'Em Enough Rope, observed that "(Record companies have) sublimated all the revolutionary tendencies this art is based on." (Gilmore, 1979, p. 22.) Fryer (1986) noted that in Britain, television appearances and magazines, not radio, are the major means of disseminating information about rock music. Programmers refused to preach revolution, so in order to get on TV, musicians needed to stress form over content, novelty over politics. "New Wave" emphasized clothing and hair styles, and "punk became defined in such terms as to catch disaffected but politicized youth, who would in turn buy the (music) papers to be informed of the latest interpretation of the new phenomenon." (Fryer, p. 5.) "We're the only ones still true to the aims of punk," Jones said in 1979 (Gilmore, p. 22). "Those other bands should be destroyed.""This Is Radio Clash on pirate satellite,"
orbiting your living room,
cashing in the Bill of Rights."
"The new groups are not concerned
with what there is to be learned.
They got Burton suits-HA!
You think it's funny
turning rebellion into money?"
"White Man In Hammersmith Palais," 1978
In 1977, the Clash signed a $200,000 contract (a fortune by punk standards) with one of the largest corporations in the world-CBS. It might seem odd for CBS to feed hands that would bite, but the label rationalized that the potential for profit was there (Jaffee, p. 26). The deal also meant Clash "product" would be widely distributed throughout the world..
The Clash were ambivalent about working for CBS. Their fears were borne out when the company, over the band's objection, released the song "Remote Control" as a single. Strummer and Jones vented their fury in their next song, "Complete Control:"
As their career proceeded, the Clash and CBS continued to clash. CBS refused to release the first Clash LP in America because it was "too crude." It was issued two years later, in a revised version that included several later British singles, after 100,000 imported copies of The Clash had sold. The label didn't promote the band aggressively, with one promotion executive frankly admitting upon the 1979 release of Give 'Em Enough Rope, "we're not likely to get a hit single this time around." (Gilmore, p. 22)"They said we'd be artistically free
when we signed that bit of paper
they meant 'Lets make a lotta mon-ee
an' worry about it later!'
Oh-have we done something wrong?
Oh-Complete Control--even over this song!"
In an effort to work around radio and make their music more accessible to their audience, the Clash cut the price of their records. London Calling, a 1980 double album, had a list price of $9.98, at a time when the average single album carried an $8.98 tag. In 1981, the triple LP Sandinista! listed for $14.98, a dollar below the typical double album price, and the Clash wanted it priced even lower. With retail markdowns, common in the early '80s, it would not be unusual to buy Sandinista! for $11.
The band also cut the prices of t-shirts and tickets. They made up the difference by sacrificing their royalties, earning almost nothing for Sandinista!. CBS objected strongly to both the oversized albums and the low prices, and Paul Simonon believed that CBS refused to promote Sandinista! to punish the band.
"All the power is in the hands
of the people rich enough to buy it
while we walk the streets
too chicken to even try it"
"White Riot," 1977
The Clash's first single set the tone for their career, in that it was misunderstood. "White Riot" was inspired by riots in London's black ghettos, and Strummer and Jones were envious: "I want a riot of me own!" The Clash were often accused of supporting violence, but insisted that they simply described violence without advocating it. "Our music's violent--we're not. When we wrote about 'White Riot,' we imagined what was gonna hit on us," said Strummer in 1978 (Rolling Stone, 1987, p. 74). "I imagined having a knife pointed at me, right? But people took it to mean that WE had them and we were pointing them at other people." Because of the word "white," the band's short hair, and their pseudo-military garb, some observers thought the Clash were a racist, skinhead, neo-Nazi band!
Racial tensions were high in late '70's Britain. The once homogeneous society was struggling with the post-World War II influx of immigrants from decolonized Commonwealth nations, and in the late '70's the first generation of British-born blacks was coming of age. The Clash expressed a special solidarity with blacks. They began to work the reggae music of Jamaica into their sound, and racial themes continued in songs such as "White Man in Hammersmith Palais," which describes Mick Jones' visit to a reggae concert, where his white face failed to fit in. The lyric takes on the false divisiveness of racism:
"White youth, black youthIn America, the Clash began to attract a mixed following of "punks, longhairs, gays and straights." (Henke, p. 39.) Their reputation, fueled by intense live performances that were at once angry and joyous, grew to "near-messianic proportions" (Gilmore, 1979, p. 22).
betta find another solution.
Why not phone up Robin Hood
and ask him for some wealth distribution?"
Other early Clash songs took on the imperialists across the Atlantic ("I'm So Bored With the U.S.A."), and boredom and alienation ("London's Burning," "What's My Name"). In "Garageland," the band was armed with a "bullshit detector." And, in "Career Opportunities," the Clash took on the work ethic. "(At my school) it was the high hope that you would become a civil servant," Jones said, recalling that his school's song bore the Orwellian title "Servants of the State to Be." "That was the best you could do." (Cocks, 1979.) He once held a civil service job which involved opening suspicious packages:
As their popularity grew, people began to accuse the Clash of "selling out." The British musical press, which resembles American supermarket tabloids in being notoriously fickle, lashed out at the band's "reckless" politics. One British writer said, "One is never sure which side the band is supposed to be taking. The Clash use incidents as fodder for songs without caring." (Kent, cited by Gilmore, 1979.) Their working-class credentials were also questioned. Strummer's background as a diplomat's son was criticized, and Jones and Simonon were called "upwardly mobile art students" and attacked as militant fakes."I hate the civil service rules
and I won't open letter bombs for you!
Career opportunities are the ones that never knock
Every job they offer you is to keep you on the dock
Career opportunities are the ones that never knock."
In short, the Clash's efforts to walk a tightrope between commercial success and their political platform were damned both for opportunism and dogmatism. As their audience broadened, the original core constituency began to desert the Clash. The new fans the Clash won in America were less committed to politics than to loud guitars.
"Every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock and roll
grabs the mike to tell us he'll die before he's sold
but I believe in this and it's been tested by research
he who fucks nuns will later join the church."
"Death or Glory," 1980
Jones thought that if the Clash could become mainstream superstars, their message would reach more people:
"We realized that if we were a little more subtle, if we branched out a little, we might reach more people. We saw that we had just been reaching the same people over and over. And the music--just bang, bang, bang--was getting to be like a nagging wife. This way, if more kids hear the records, then maybe they'll start humming the songs. And if they start humming the songs, maybe they'll read the lyrics and get something from them." (Henke, p. 41)The Clash's musical style became more sophisticated and diverse. Among punk purists this move was considered a sell-out to American tastes. "When I heard that I just laughed," recalled Strummer (Rolling Stone, 1989, p. 54). "I certainly don't think it's fair when people charged we've mellowed out," Jones said in 1980 (Henke, p. 41). "I don't call `The Guns of Brixton,' `Clampdown,' `London Calling' relaxed."
On their 1980 album London Calling the Clash transcended punk form without abandoning its essentially political content, and began to reach a somewhat wider audience. In late 1989, a panel of Rolling Stone magazine rock critics picked London Calling as the greatest album of the decade, describing the record as "an emergency broadcast from rock's Last Angry Band, serving notice that Armageddon was nigh, Western society was rotten to the core, and rock and roll needed a good boot in the rear."
The album's cover appropriated rock's biggest icon, parodying the cover of the first Elvis Presley album in typeface and color scheme. But where Elvis was playing his guitar and shouting to the heavens, Paul Simonon (identifiable only by his instrument) is bent over, hoisting his bass high in the air, poised to smash it to bits in a pose that appropriates the 1960's heroes Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix. (Townshend, perhaps the only classic rocker except Neil Young who truly got punk, arranged for the Clash to tour as an opening act on the 1982 Who tour.)
The title cut, recorded mere months after Three Mile Island, "sounds like it has looked the future in the face without flinching and understood that humanity is finished" (Marsh, 1989, p. 120):
"The Ice age is coming, the sun is zooming inThe 1950's rockabilly hit "Brand New Cadillac" was supercharged and introduced in concert as: "a song about something nobody here can afford." "Working For The Clampdown" takes on corporate society and fascism, linking the two. Strummer includes specific directions to the Clash's audience:
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!"
Summing up their case, over Morse code guitar straight out of Motown ("You Keep Me Hangin' On" by the Supremes to be exact), Jones adds:"Kick over the wall, cause governments to fall
how can you refuse it?
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
d'ya know that you can use it?"
Paul Simonon's "The Guns of Brixton" became a rallying cry during 1980-81 riots in the heavily black London ghetto for which the song is named. The music has a slow, ominous reggae beat. The lyrics are equally threatening:"The voices in your head are calling
stop wasting your time--there's nothing coming
only a fool would think someone could save you.
The men at the factory are old and cunning
you don't owe nothing--boy get running!
It's the best years of your life they want to steal."
"When they kick at your front door, how you gonna come?
With your hands on your head or on the trigger of your gun?
You can crush us, you can bruise us, but you'll have to answer to
oh--the guns of Brixton."
London Calling ends with a surprise. The last song listed on the label, "Revolution Rock." ends, but the album is not over. Quietly, as if an engineer faded the master tape early, forgetting that there was one song left, the railroad rhythm of another song fades back in. Mick Jones' yearning voice is singing. . . a love song?
"Train in Vain (Stand By Me)" became the first American hit single for the Clash, pulling London Calling into the top thirty. The success fueled Mick Jones' ambitions for stardom, but "Train In Vain" did not represent the band's politics, to Joe Strummer's great frustration."So alone I keep the wolves at bay
and there's only one thing I can say-
You didn't stand by me, no not at all..."
In late 1980, Black Market Clash hit the record stores. The "Nu-Disk" was part of a short-lived CBS marketing experiment. The idea was to issue "mini-albums," ten inch records featuring about four songs by new artists at a budget price--$4.98. Typically, the Clash knocked a buck off that rate and made the most of the opportunity. Billboard noted: "With nine songs and about 17 minutes of music to a side, this disk contains as much music as most LPs. Considering that the music is performed by what many consider to be the best rock band in the world, here is a true bargain." One side was old B sides and songs left off the revised American Clash album; the other was two newer singles--"Bankrobber" and "Armagideon Time"--coupled with their dub remixes. But this was only a brief holding move. The real followup to London Callingwould arrive in the new year.
"For the very first time ever when they had a revolution in Nicaragua,
there was no interference from Amerika. . . Sandinista!"
"Washington Bullets," 1981
"The Clash called their 1981 album Sandinista! long before anyone knew what it meant. One wonders whether the record company, today would allow such a strong endorsement for the left." (Jaffee, 1987, p. 28.) Politically, Sandinista! anticipated the struggles of the 1980's landscape. The album cover is in the red and black colors of the then-new Nicaraguan regime. The title, complete with exclamation point, seemed optimistic in early 1981 and bitterly ironic a decade later, after ten years of political battles, scandals, crimes and civil war centered around Nicaragua. A throwaway line in "Charlie Don't Surf" ("satellites will make space burn") anticipated Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative by two and a half years. Just to ensure that no one missed the point, a huge lyric sheet came with the album, complete with maps.
Like its cinematic counterpart in the winter of 1981, Warren Beatty's Bolshevik epic Reds, Sandinista! flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Both were long to a fault, Sandinista!running two and a half hours. Both ran against the political grain of the early Reagan era. Both were major works by major artists and met with serious critical discussion upon release, and both were commercial failures.
Most attacks focused on the sheer bulk of the triple album. In the days before the boxed collection, three record sets were rare and usually confined to excessive live albums by acts like Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer--the very antithesis of punk. Triple studio albums were even more unusual, with George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" virtually the only precedent.
Sides five and six of Sandinista! are mainly dub instrumentals, sound effects ("Mensforth Hill," billed as the "title theme from forthcoming serial," is the Clash's attempt at updating the Beatles' noise collage "Revolution 9") and guest vocals by other artists. CBS had no hope that radio stations would be able, let alone willing, to plow through 36 songs, so they issued a promotional album, Sandinista Now!, with the twelve "best" cuts.
The content was also attacked. Time dismissed Sandinista! as "agitprop sermonizing. . . an attempt to puff up a flat pose with a lot of political hot air." (Miller, 1981, p. 77.) The rock music world, however, hailed Sandinista! as a masterpiece, and it won several 1981 "best of the year" critics polls. Dave Marsh (1989, p. 78) noted "Sandinista! (was) a record whose topic was as many years ahead of its time as its sound." The album is a stylistic and topical potpourri that anticipates the "world music" trend of the late `80s and early `90s. Reggae, jazz, mock gospel, rockabilly, and Clash-style rock all turn up on Sandinista! The album included two rap songs at a time when rap was new even among its core black audience. John Piccarella, in a review headlined "The Clash Drop The Big One" and giving the album the highest possible rating of five stars, argues that in effect, the band said "to hell with Clash style, there's a world out there." (Piccarella, 1981, p. 58.)
The album kicks off with the first and better of the raps, "The Magnificent Seven," which travels through a twisted day at work in New York City. The rappers of the 1990's could lift lines from it and barely be noticed: Change "gypsies" to "niggaz" in "What do we have for entertainment/ cops kicking gypsies on the pavement" and it becomes Public Enemy or N.W.A., dissing Daryl Gates and the LAPD.
Perversely, the first American single was "Hitsville U.K.," a jumble of record company jargon barely recognizable as the Clash. The vocal was a duet between Jones and his girlfriend Ellen Foley, who first gained fame as the female voice on Meat Loaf's "Paradise By The Dashoard Lights." Foley's own album, Spirit Of St. Louis, was released at the same time as Sandinista!, complete with a production credit to "my boyfriend." The Clash served as backup band and wrote half the songs. The best was another Foley-Jones duet, "Torchlight." As for the rest, given titles like "The Death Of The Psychoananlyst of Salvador Dali," one suspects they were outtakes from the triple album. Foley later went on to greater fame on TV, on "Night Court" and as a VH-1 announcer.
The blues oldie "Junco Pardner," done as very heavy reggae, follows. "Ivan Meets G.I. Joe" is interspersed with sound effects from the then-popular video game "Space Invader," and reduces the nuclear arms race to a disco dance contest. It collides into "The Leader," a short rockabilly number about the Profumo sex scandal of 1960's Britain.
Side one ends with "Something About England," the best drama of the Clash era. They compress half a century of war and declining empire into one scene with two characters. Mick Jones narrates, recalling National Front style jingoism and setting the scene. Police cars zoom by; more knives in W11. An old man has seen what happened. Mick asks:
The ravaged voice of Joe Strummer, sounding a hundred and fifty years old, replies:"I thought the old man could help me
if he could explain the gloom."
Jones acknowledges: "the old man scoffed as he spoke to me," and Strummer insists, "I'll tell you a thing or two.""You really think it's all new?
You really think about it too."
And so he does, telling his life story, as old people who have suffered with no one to talk to for too long are apt to do. But this man is bitter, and the story of his life is the story of 20th Century Britain.
The heart of the album is side four, which begins with "Police On My Back," a 1968 hit for the reggae band the Equals (led by Eddy Grant, who had a big but brief comeback in 1983 with "Electric Avenue"). But the Clash skip the reggae-rock treatment they gave "Police And Thieves" and instead deliver the song full-tilt punk style, a sequel to "I Fought The Law." It worked well enough that this was the one Sandinista! song that American album rock stations programmed.
"The Equaliser" takes on class structures and advocates a general strike: "Till humanize is equalize--put down the tools." The song fades and a platoon of Marines marches across the speakers--"Hut, two three, four!"--as "The Call Up" begins. The first single in England, the message is absolutely unmistakable: resist the draft. The young male protaganist clearly understands that "he who will die is he who will kill," and lists the reasons he has to live: the woman he's going to love but hasn't met yet, the wheat fields of the Ukraine he's never seen (is he defending or bombing those fields? It's not clear whether Ivan or GI Joe is speaking.) "The Call Up" was the first single in the U.K., but one year after draft registration resumed in America, CBS didn't even try to release it to American radio. Dance clubs played it extensively as the remixed "The Cool Out."
Despite the punning title, "Washington Bullets" has nothing to do with the basketball team of the same name. (Strummer insisted he had never heard of the ball club.) The mock-calypso song runs through a dishonor roll of Yanqui imperialism: Nicaragua, Chile, the Bay of Pigs. The effect is either enhanced or subverted by the mariachi music, and a corny hockey arena organ sound at the fade. In the last verse, after discrediting G.I. Joe, the Clash calls Ivan on his sins: "If you can find an Afghan rebel that the Moscow Bullets missed/ ask him what he thinks of voting Communist."
As side four fades, without notice on the label, a small, out of tune little girl's voice reprises "The Guns of Brixton." The last vocal on the album, buried deep on side six, is a harpsichord driven remake of "Career Opportunities" sung by two small boys. The presence of children is no mere novelty. It seems that for these children, career opportunities may never knock, and that, unless the world changes, they will face life staring down the barrel of the guns of Brixton.
"This is a public service announcement--with guitar!"
"Know Your Rights," 1982
In 1982 the Clash set out to become big-time--as opposed to fringe--stars. They renegotiated their contract with CBS, earning themselves a higher position in the company's promotion plans, but ending the budget price policy. (A direct price comparison is impossible since CBS quit using the suggested list price in mid-1981. But wholesale and retail rates on Combat Rockcorresponded to those of $8.98 albums on other labels.) Rolling Stone noted Strummer's doubts about success, and asked "Can these rash, contentious young men maintain their edge without toppling over it?" (Hall, p. 25.)
Combat Rock was released in mid-1982, and hit the top ten by Christmas. Its success was fueled by "Rock the Casbah," which was a top ten hit in early 1983 after massive exposure in dance clubs and on MTV. The video featured the Clash jamming in front of a Texas oil rig. Mick Jones wears a veil until the end of the clip. Ironically, the video does not feature the songwriter, Topper Headon. His heroin problem has become too much for the rest of the band, and he was fired and replaced by Terry Chimes, who had briefly been in the band in 1977 (on The Clash, he is billed as "Tory Crimes").
"Casbah" vaugely satirizes Iran's ban on western music ("By order of the Prophet/we ban that boogie sound"). While American radio would normally avoid politics at all costs, poking fun at Iran only a year after the release of the embassy hostages was non-controversial and societally sanctioned. The degree to which the song was seen as apolitical was underscored in 1990, in the months before the Persian Gulf War, when the U.S. military radio station in Saudi Arabia signed on for the first time playing "Rock The Casbah." (Presumably, "The Call Up" and "I'm So Bored With The U.S.A." were not on their playlist.)
Once again, the strongest political songs did not get airplay. Strummer advises us: "Know Your Rights!" and reads "all three of `em: Number three! You have the right to free speech, as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it!" The touching, sing-song "Straight to Hell" indicts America for its refusal to accept responsibility for its Amerasian children, the human fallout from the Vietnam war. But the other single from Combat Rock was Mick Jones' love-going-bad rocker "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?"
After Combat Rock, Strummer became even more frustrated at the Clash's failure to get its message across. In 1984, he "fired" Jones, citing "political and musical differences." Strummer and Simonon recruited three new members, and in 1985 released an album that lived up to its title-- Cut The Crap. The "new Clash" soon disbanded.
Mick Jones formed a new band, Big Audio Dynamite, which released five albums of rap-influenced dance music. In 1991, Jones re-organized his post-Clash band, calling it Big Audio Dynamite II, and had an American hit with "Rush," which prominently samples the Who's "Baba O' Reilly." The follow-up was the title track from the B.A.D. II album The Globe. Thatsong tooks its groove from a sample of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go."
Joe Strummer wrote several movie scores and in 1989 released his first and to date only solo album, "Earthquake Weather." He later toured as fill-in front man for the Pogues, an Irish act that played traditional and rock instruments with punk-like energy. Paul Simonon briefly led the band Havana 3 A.M. and soon return to his preferred art form, painting.
As an active band from 1977 to 1983, the Clash had more British chart records (17) without ever reaching the top ten than any other act in chart history. Then, in 1990, the Clash had their first British number one hit. "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" topped the British charts, ironically after being used in a commercial.
"In these days, the beat is militant,
must be a Clash--there's no alternative"
"Kingston Advice," 1981
The contradiction of attacking capitalist society by using its own tools requires a great deal of intellectual and political compromise. Within an ideology that emphasizes purism, this is a nearly impossible task, one that proved to be beyond the Clash.
An inherent weakness with political music is that it preaches to the converted. Political musicians tend to draw fans who are already sympathetic to their stance (Jaffee, p. 28). The early punk audience in the U.S. was further left politically than the mainstream rock audience (Dixon et al., 1979). Only by the graces of radio programmers can musicians reach the unconverted (Jaffee).
Another problem, especially in America, was that the audience simply wasn't listening to the words. The Clash themselves had their doubts anout their own efficacy, and obviously some fans didn't get it. At one series of New York club dates in 1981, the rappers who opened the show for the Clash were booed and blasted with racial insults. Had the audience forgotten the Clash's own experiments with rap earlier that same year--or had they missed the point from "White Riot" on? One reviewer (Lord, 1980, p. 58) noted:
Perhaps the American audience lacked the political background the early British punks brought to the Clash experience. Although the 1970's British left, in the form of the Labour party, was weak and ineffectual, at least the youth of the U.K. had some cultural familiarity with socialism, unlike young Americans in the early `80's."They attract fans who perceive no more than the hot sound and the angry stance, which gets them rocking, oblivious to the words, escaping in part the things that the words concern. Even for those attracted by the lyrics, rebellious, political rock can act as a soporific as easily as it can a catalyst. The listener passively reaffirms beliefs--but takes no responsible action."
Did the Clash fail? "Being the greatest rock & roll band of our time is something like being the greatest baseball player, with the same limited political impact on the real world. (But) we can still use that stubborn Sixties morality." (Piccarella, 1981, p. 58.) The Clash had little chance of achieving their ambitious goals. But they tried, and in that effort there was triumph.
The Clash's vision was broad enough that over a decade later, unlike most political rock, their work is still relevant. In a review of the 1988 Story of the Clash compilation, Rolling Stone said "we need this band even more now than we did then," and discussed with great regret the demise of the band and the work it left unfinished. The Clash's legacy lives on in the work of musicians like U2, Billy Bragg, Midnight Oil, Living Colour and Public Enemy, all of whom combine passion, anger, lyricism and political commitment. Yet the power of the original, as observed by Carson (1979, p. 84), is unmatched:
"Listening to them, one not only believed in the world at war they sang about, but also wanted to enlist, on their side, on the spot. That night, the Clash were victorious, and, if only for a short while, so were we."
CLASH DISCOGRAPHY
All American LP releases on Epic Records.The Clash, 1977.
Give `Em Enough Rope, 1978.
London Calling, 1980.
Black Market Clash, 1980.
Sandinista!, 1981.
"This Is Radio Clash," single, 1981.
Combat Rock, 1982.
Cut The Crap, 1985.
The Story Of The Clash, Volume One, 1988. (anthology)
1977 Revisited, 1990. (collection of rare recordings)
Clash On Broadway, 1991. (three compact disc boxed set)
Super Black Market Clash, 1993. (collection of rare recordings)
From Here To Eternity, 1999. (Live album)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bagdakian, Ben. The Media Monopoly. Boston: Beacon Press, 1980."The Best 100 Albums of the Last Twenty Years." Rolling Stone, Aug. 27, 1987, pp. 45-174.
Carson, Tom. "The Clash Conquer America." Rolling Stone, Apr. 5, 1979, p. 84.
__________. "The Clash: Coming to Terms With Greatness." Rolling Stone, Apr. 3, 1980, pp. 60-62.
Cocks, Jay. "The Best Gang In Town." Time, Mar. 5, 1979, p. 68.
Compaine, Benjamin, ed. Who Owns The Media? Concentration of Ownership in the Mass Communications Industry. White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry, 1979.
Dixon, Richard, et al. "The Cultural Diffusion of Punk Rock in the United States." Popular Music and Society, Vol. VI, No. 3 (1979), pp. 210-218.
Fricke, David. "The Clash Bash Back." Rolling Stone, Jun. 24, 1982, p. 39.
Fryer, Paul. "Punk and the New Wave of British Rock: Working Class Heroes and Art School Attitudes." Popular Music and Society, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1986), pp. 1-15.
Gilmore, Mikal. "The Clash: Anger On The Left." Rolling Stone, Mar. 8, 1979, p. 8.
Gray, Marcus. Last Gang In Town: The Story and Myth of the Clash. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.
Hall, Peter. "The Year of the Clash." Rolling Stone, Aug. 19, 1982, pp. 25-28.
Henke, James. "There'll Be Dancing In The Streets: The Clash." Rolling Stone, Apr. 3, 1980, pp. 38-41.
Herman, Edward, and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
Jaffee, Larry. "The Politics of Rock." Popular Music and Society, Winter 1987, pp. 19-30.
Lord, C.B. "The Clash: Hollywood Palladium." downbeat, Jan. 1980, pp. 57-58.
Marsh, Dave. The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New York: Plume, 1989.
Miller, Jim. "Riding The New Wave." Newsweek, Feb. 23, 1981, p. 77.
"The 100 Best Albums of the Eighties." Rolling Stone, Nov. 16, 1989, pp. 53-149.
Piccarella, John. "Red-Hot Rock and Roll, A Joyful Noise and Politics That Live: The Clash Drop the Big One." Rolling Stone, Mar. 5, 1981, pp. 57-58.
Shapiro, Bill. The CD Rock and Roll Library: 30 Years of Rock and Roll on Compact Disc. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1988, pp. 79, 124.
Tillman, Robert H. "Punk Rock and the Construction of `Pseudo-Political' Movements." Popular Music and Society, Vol. VII, No. 3 (1980), pp. 165-175.
Clash songs are copyright 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982 by Nineden Music, Ltd., except for songs on the London Calling album, which are copyright 1979 by Dorisimo Music, Ltd. Most songwriting credits through the London Calling album are Strummer-Jones; songs from Sandinista! and Combat Rock are credited to The Clash. All lyrics cited in this paper are as printed on lyric sheets included in Clash albums. Any spelling, style, punctuation or grammatical deviations from the King's English are from these sources.
