The Clash’s Singles Ranked, 21-32

Welcome to Season 3 of According to Doyle. If you are just joining us, feel free to read the About This Project page for information about what else I’ve ranked (and am going to rank) here as well as statements about hubris and my cat. All songs here are ranked based on the guiding principle of “do I like each song more than the last song?” No science was harmed (or employed) in the creation of these lists. I welcome editing feedback because Doyle brain too fast for Doyle fingers.

I need to be clear about this right from the start. I absolutely love The Clash. London Calling is one of my favorite albums of all time. Several of their songs have kept me alive, others have woken me up politically and still others just make me happy every time I hear them. Yet, I know in my heart I am going to dunk on them left and right. This is because it is simultaneously true that The Clash were the only band that matters and also that the phrase “the only band that matters” was a marketing gimmick; that they were four/five extremely talented musicians but also they were on some level a manufactured punk rock boy band; and that their music has both aged well and poorly. In short, The Clash are a world of contradictions.

In addition, for nearly every single, there’s three songs that could have (often should have) been singles instead/in addition to. In fact, I am outraged.

One of the over-arching questions I’m going to try to explore throughout this three entry series is “what is punk?” or, perhaps, “what was punk to the members of The Clash?” When I read fan reviews of The Clash to this day, I see comments about Mick Jones selling out, or Joe Strummer forgetting what punk was (but then rediscovering it). I’m going to issue a possibly controversial opinion right now by suggesting that punk has no fixed meaning (Wikipedia offers several). There are people who consider it a sound, others an aesthetics, others an approach to the act of artistic creation, etc. Like Eminem, punk is whatever you say is is.

Joe Strummer laid out the band’s “manifesto” as follows: “We’re anti-Fascist, we’re anti-violence, we’re anti-racist and we’re pro-creative” but their songs don’t always reflect this. They recorded tracks in a wide variety of styles – not just rock, but reggae, ska, jazz, funk, gospel, etc. They championed The Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash at their famous 1980 concerts in New York City. They were image conscious and chose what they wore carefully under the supervision of their manager (it is hard to avoid using the cliche “Svengali-like” when discussing him) Bernie Rhodes. The Clash changed my life so I hold them to a higher standard. Let’s do this.

32. Fingerpoppin

US Only Promo from Cut The Crap (1985), released as a single in 1985

This is not the worst song I’ve ranked – that would be the Bowie/Jaggar “Dancing in the Streets” cover (#147). It is, however, my current top contender for the coveted “worst original song I’ve yet ranked” award (I think this statue will be the basis for the According to Doyle Worst Song Award someday). Here’s what happened. Shortly after the success of Combat Rock, Joe Strummer and Paul Simonen had had enough of Mick Jones (the guy who wrote all the music) and decided to toss him (the guy who wrote all the music) out of the band (for which he wrote all the music) ostensibly because he had a “rock star” attitude. I’ve watched several documentaries on The Clash where they interview the people who were around them at the time and their description of this decision is usually comically horrific. It’s one of the great “WTF” moments in all of modern popular music.

Strummer and Simonen’s theory was that anyone could write a punk song. Anyone, in this case, turned out to be The Clash’s (Svengali-like) manager, Bernie Rhodes. Rhodes, it should be noted, was against firing Jones but he also suffered from a kind of Engineer’s Disease that led him to think he could do anything. They hired three new band members (Drummer Topper Headon – who wrote all the music for “Rock The Casbah” – had been sacked for his drug use) and went on a promising busking tour around the U.K. When they went into the studio to record Cut The Crap, however, Rhodes ultimately didn’t let most members of the band play on the tracks. Even Strummer’s guitar is way back in the mix. Mick Jones was off creating innovative music with Big Audio Dynamite and songs like “Fingerpoppin'” were The Clash’s official released answer to that. I mean, it hurts to listen to – the music and even Strummer’s lyrics are simply god-awful.

Look, I can be a contrarian guy. There are pieces of horrible pop culture art out there that I love – Ang Lee’s Hulk, for example. I know on these lists I’ve sometimes ranked songs that people loathe positively and ranked some beloved songs negatively. I am very open to giving an album like Cut The Crap another listen and saying “well, this is better than people remember.” Yes, there are a couple passable songs on it – of the non-singles, “North and South” (written and sung by then-Clash guitarist Nick Sheppard) is a stand-out – and Strummer’s lyrics are often quite good, but the production is just so, so bad. It’s a fascinating contrast with Big Audio Dynamite’s debut album, which has some amazing music but lyrics that range from rather good to yikes. One wishes that somehow these two elements could have been combined in 1985 by, for example, not kicking Mick Jones out of the band.

Here’s what I think is going on in this song – and I stress I have no proof, just a gut feeling. Mick Jones tended to write lyrics that were more pop-song (“Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Train In Vain” for example) and also was leaning heavy into dance music. I think “Fingerpoppin” was an attempt at poking fun at Jones – for example, I imagine he was the one in the band who would rather snap his fingers to a dance beat than talk about worker’s rights (“don’t talk shop – fingerpop”). The thing is , as Vonnegut says, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” According to my theory, here The Clash are pretending to be a crappy band – and guess what?

It is the worst song on the album (though it was a little more interesting when they were performing it live in 1984) and somebody at their record label heard it and said “it sounds perfect to use as a single to promote this album in the United States.” Record executives have never lost money by treating Americans like they’re morons, so I guess this decision had some evil merit.

31. Are You Red..Y

Australia only single from Cut The Crap (1985), released as a single in 1985

It is unusual for me to rank more than one single from the same album at the absolute bottom of these lists, but Cut The Crap has earned this. Just… the drum machine… the dooby dooby dooby keyboards that weren’t cool ever… was that a guitar? Should I care? The lyrics (which the transcriber at Genius had a difficult time deciphering as evidence by the frequent question marks) make the point that war is coming and that is probably a bad thing. Meanwhile, over at Big Audio Dynamite, ex-Clash songwriter Mick Jones is creating this groove and comparing British imperialism to a medicine show. I just can’t. The song was better in 1984 when they were performing it live before Rhodes got his producer’s hands on it, but just marginally.

In one very important sense, Cut the Crap is punk AF. If punk means that anyone can be a musician, then why the heck can’t (Svengali-like) Bernie Rhodes write songs and arrange an album too? Maybe a concept like “quality” is bourgeois and exclusionary. Maybe after releasing a a couple of albums with chart hits, making a deliberately terrible album that bombed is exactly what The Clash needed to reclaim authenticity.

Thank goodness I never need to listen to either of these songs again. #bourgeois

30. White Riot

First single from The Clash (1977), released as a single in 1977

The Notting Hill Carnival riot in 1976 were anti-police riots in response to over-the-top police harassment of young black celebrants at an annual West Indies festival in West London. Strummer and Simonen participated on the side of the oppressed crowd. “White Riot” was written by Strummer’s as a lament regarding the fact that white Londoners weren’t rioting as well and not, as many think, encouraging white violence against blacks.:

“The only thing we’re saying about the blacks is that they’ve got their problems and they’re prepared to deal with them,” [Joe Strummer] explained to the NME in response to accusations that his band’s explosive first single, ‘White Riot’, was encouraging a race war. “But white men, they just ain’t prepared to deal with them — everything’s too cosy. They’ve got stereos, drugs, hi-fis, cars. The poor blacks and the poor whites are in the same boat.”

Richard Buskin, Sound on Sound, October 2013

Ugh. OK, so, he’s not wrong about white people (in the U.K. as well as the U.S.A.) being generally too comfortable to riot (unless they’re being paid to riot or their sports team wins a big game). The issue of course is that the black attendees at the Notting Hill Carnival had to be prepared because – despite the economic similarities between black and white poor – they were being oppressed violently. Why do so many socialists seem to always forget about race (and gender and religion and orientation etc etc)? Let’s all take a few minutes to read a beginner’s guide to intersectionality.

1977 Joe Strummer matured into somebody with much more nuanced views. However, neither his journey to woke-ness now his intent when he wrote this song prevented it from being co-opted by various Nazi punks over the years. Indeed, Mick Jones and Strummer got into a fistfight once when Jones refused to play it because some of their fans thought it was about a race riot. I can’t listen to this song anymore without recognizing that some people hear it as an anthem of white nationalism. I considered dropping it to the bottom of the whole list, but man those two songs from Cut the Crap are awful.

29. Listen

Lead track from Capital Radio E.P. (1977)

The Capital Radio E.P. includes “Listen” as the A-side coupled with an interview, and an interview followed by the song “Capital Radio” as the B-side. There is nothing essentially wrong with the instrumental “Listen” except that it is forgettable.

28. Groovy Times

First single from The Cost of Living EP (1979), released as a single in 1979

Despite the fact that the lyrics allegedly take an oblique swipe at my beloved Elvis Costello ( “I can remember his first appearance now look what’s happened to him, so they put him in a dog suit like from 1964”), I generally enjoy “Groovy Times.” The song was only released as a single in Australia due to whatever odd record label calculus determined these things in 1979. I don’t think I heard this song before this century and at first I really liked it – it has a sort of classic Clash punk pop sound and felt a bit like a lost gem to me. Over time, though, I’ve found something sort of cloying about the why they sing “Groo-OOOvy times.”

So what is punk? Well, the lyrics are intended to contrast forced division of economic classes – the verse allude to this point and the “groovy times” choruses are meant to reflect what people are being told by the powers that be. Hey, poor people! You’re going to be walled up away from the rich when you watch sport! And kind of everywhere! Don’t worry though because this is how we make America great again bring groovy times back again!

27. This Is England

First single from Cut The Crap (1985), released as a single in 1985

Cut The Crap isn’t a complete waste of time. Joe Strummer considered “This is England” to be “the last great Clash song.” If you cup your ears and imagine that he’s singing these lyrics to the music Mick Jones wrote for, say, “Bad,” it becomes a remarkable song (and it’s not so bad live in 1984) – a litany of everything awful about living poor and oppressed in Thatcher’s England from the racism to the Falkland’s War to he collapse of the motorcycle industry. Lord, those electric drums and keyboards though. I know a lot of 80’s music hasn’t aged well, but this sounded bad at the time. Bernie Rhodes’ mentor/rival was impresario Maclolm McLaren (who, among other things, managed the Sex Pistols) and around this time, McLaren was releasing fairly successful dance music under his own name (how much he contributed musically to the albums is a subject for debate). I wonder if part of what compelled Rhodes to try and create the music for this album was rivalry with McLaren?

Regarding the song’s relative “punk-ness,” the political bent of the lyrics surely puts this in at least one punk column. Alas, the song was a top 40 hit, so if indeed the goal of Cut The Crap was to eschew all commercial success – as I theorized above – this song ensured that it failed in that regard too. Let’s honor the late Stummer’s wishes and leave off further discussion of Cut The Crap. In fact, we can do as the surviving members of The Clash currently do and just pretend it never happened.

26. Hitsville U.K.

Single from Sandinista! (1980), released as a single in 1981

On London Calling, The Clash expanded their musical palette in the service of a remarkable set of songs. Double albums can sound bloated but London Calling leaves you wanting more. They decided to follow it up with a triple album – Sandinista! Staying true to a certain portion of the punk ethos (the part that says it’s important for your fans to be able to afford your records), they bargained with their label to release the album at a lower price. In exchange, they gave up royalties on the first 200,000 copies and took a 50% cut in royalties after that. Sandinista! is a remarkable, challenging, sprawling, wonderful, awful record. Side 6 in particular – mostly dub versions of songs on the other 5 sides – is both largely unlistenable and way, way ahead of it’s time (in that rock bands weren’t yet routinely issuing remixes of their tunes).

The Clash hurly-burly (can I use that as a verb? I’m using that as a verb) themselves from style to style – gospel, reggae, waltz, and a bunch of others. “Hitsville U.K.” is their stab at Motown rhythm and blues. For extra credit on your report, compare and contrast with contemporaneous attempts at Motown by Elvis Costello (#112), The Jam, and Dexy’s Midnight Runners (#21 – albeit via Northern Soul). The featured singer here is the great rock singer Ellen Foley (Mick Jones sings with her, but hers is the dominant voice). In one of those amazing connections that happens in popular music, Foley also was the featured female vocalist on Meatloaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights.” She also acted on the U.S. sitcom Night Court, so if you ever need to Six-Degrees-Of-Kevin-Bacon from Harry Anderson to Joe Strummer, you now know the fastest route.

The lyrics celebrate the rising independent music label scene in the U.K. I invite you to use your deep knowledge of British record labels to parse the lyrics for name drops. The song might not have a punk sound and the album might have been released on a major label and the singer might have been an established rock star, but the lyrics celebrate independent music, so that my friends is punk.

25. Remote Control

Second single from The Clash (1977), released as a single in 1977

“Remote Control” is a catchy Clash tune that is particularly notable for two related things. First, The Clash did not want it to be a single – CBS records released it without consulting them. The Clash would have preferred to release the (superior) “Janie Jones.” Second, in response to CBS, The Clash recorded and released the (also superior) “Complete Control” as a single. Now, “Remote Control” is a punk rock song critical of the music industry (particularly the band’s experience on the 1976 Anarchy Tour) while “Complete Control” is a punk rock song critical of the music industry. Compare and contrast with other punk rock songs from the same era that are critical of the music industry by Elvis Costello (#12), Dexy’s Midnight Runners (#8), and Graham Parker. Anyhow, singing about how the music business stinks is a pretty punk thing to do, though the fact that both “Remote Control” and the song about “Remote Control” were released on a major label surely raises some questions.

Oh! Take note that the cover of The Clash’s debut album only features Strummer, Simonen and Jones. Original Clash drummer Terry Chimes is featured on the original UK track list for the record (following the tradition of the time, the American version of the album had different tracks and included some with Topper Headon) but he left before the album cover was made I guess.

24. Bankrobber

Non-album single released in 1980

“Bankrobber” was recorded during the Sandinista! sessions and produced by all-time-great Jamaican producer Mickey Dread. It’s one of The Clash’s most successful forays into dub-punk-reggae. I got really into Operation Ivy and Rancid in the 90’s and part of what attracted me to them was that they sounded a lot like they often sounded like they were taking the Clash’s experiments in this area and building on them. Anyhow, “Bankrobber” is a song that encourages people to avoid the prison of working in a soul crushing factory job. In fact, the lyrics could have been taken directly from a Bertolt Brecht musical. I mean, they weren’t, but they could have been. I’ll just say this here, but every time you listen to The Clash, you’re pouring socialist ideas into your brain. Ergo, listen to more of The Clash.

23. Overpowered By Funk

Brazil only single from Combat Rock (1982), released as a single in 1982

If Sandanista! was a hot mess of an album, Combat Rock was more of a lukewarm lukewarm jumble. Ah, but it could have been something equally terrifying. Mick Jones’ vision was another double album called Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg. So let’s talk about this for a moment. Jones was the guy who wrote all the music for The Clash and was the only one with studio know-how. His mix of the album (which I’ve heard via bootlegs) is a sprawling, challenging beast of a record that features samples, studio chatter, extended grooves and a number of songs that don’t appear on Combat Rock. It is defiant, noncommercial and (to paraphrase the Pop Matters link above) a distillation of everything The Clash had explored on their previous records. The rest of the band, (Svengali-like manager) Bernie Rhodes and CBS hated it and brought in producer Glyn Johns to take their 70+ minute double album and edit it down to a single album. Soon, Mick Jones would be kicked out for being too much of a rock star. Joe Strummer would mock “Should I Stay or Should I Go” as something top 40 and then immediately play it. In all the documentaries about The Clash, Jones’ collaborators (both from The Clash era and after) admit that he can be a challenging person to work with, but he had a groundbreaking musical vision and an ear for a great song. Strummer allegedly spent the rest of his life regretting booting him (and Topper Headon, sacked for drug use).

When I was a kid, Combat Rock was my first Clash album. I purchased it on cassette in 1982, probably via the Columbia Record House “12 albums for 1 penny” (and then 8 albums for double price) scam. At the time, I knew the two big American hits (“Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah”) so when I encountered songs like “Ghetto Defendant” and “Death is a Star,” I had no idea what I was supposed to make of them. I decided to ignore side 2 of the cassette, which meant when I wanted to listen to side 1, I had to wait for it to rewind. This in term meant I ultimately set the album aside entirely. Who has time to wait five minutes for a cassette to rewind? I could be listening to my ABC Lexicon of Love vinyl LP – I liked all the songs on both sides of that record. The Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg mix of the album would have likely baffled me even more (and the versions of the two singles on that mix might not have been hits) but it makes sense musically to me. Combat Rock in retrospect feels like one of those movies you love that gets edited to fit in a two hour late night network tv movie block with 18 minutes of commercials each hour.

OK, “Overpowered by Funk” is, in fact, a funk song (Paul Simonen has learned to play his bass really rather well by this time) with lyrics by Strummer as well as by graffiti artist (and, on this song, rapper) Futura 2000. The band sounds tight on this record – Jones’ skittering guitar, Simonen’s confident bass line and Topper Headon’s virtuoso drumming are all used to their best effect. The song seems to have something to do with New York, subway trains and power imbalances.

22. Gates of The West

Promo single from The Cost of Living EP (1979), released as a single in 1979

Mick Jones could write a hell of a pop song. The store goes that he wrote “Gates of The West” in celebration of the band’s first trip to the U.S.A. The titular gate is New York City. You know, I grew up in Fairfield County in Connecticut in the 70’s and 80’s which means I got all of my information about NYC from AM Radio (WNBC) and from local New York news (the three major networks at the time had Connecticut and New England stations, but we received the New York broadcasts better on our antenna) . Thus, what I know about New York City growing up was, first, that people got pushed under subway cars all the time (film at 11); second, that Son of Sam roamed the streets; and third that New Yorkers were angry that they had to pick up their dog’s poop (I guess the laws about this went into effect in the 70’s? There were news stories about it). For me, the thought of visiting the city was anxiety inducing and it was only later in life that I came to appreciate NYC as a great cultural center. Apparently, people who didn’t grow up basking in the terrifying glow of NBC news with Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons, New York City was a romantic place where you traveled in the hopes of making it. I mean, if you can make it there….

The chorus on “Gates of The West” is one of the catchiest things Jones ever wrote – the melodic hook and the backing vocals make me want to rent a convertible and drive around downtown late at night blasting the song. As it happens, I’d feel compelled to turn it down during the verses because they’re not quite as catchy.

21. Career Opportunities (Live)

Video released in 1984

The original “Career Opportunities” is two minutes of punk glory – crunching guitars, a bass line that might consist of one note (it doesn’t) and lyrics that describe the lack of decent jobs for youth in London in the 70’s. It was released on their debut album but wasn’t a single because *shrug emoji*. The band rerecorded it with child vocalists for Sandanista! because, I suppose, when you’re making a triple album you need something for side 6. I’m not really sure of the history of this, but between firing Jones in 1983 and releasing Cut The Crap in 1985, The Clash released live videos from their fabled Shea Stadium performance (opening for The Who) of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Career Opportunities.” Its a great live performance (featuring original drummer Terry Chimes – Headon was fired before the performance). Perhaps it was released to keep The Clash in people’s minds in anticipation of the new album? “Oh yeah, I love early hard rock Clash – I can’t wait for Cut The Crap…. wait… oh no… what is this… why do you want me to fingerpop?”

Coming Soon: Their biggest U.S. hits!

The Clash’s Singles Ranked – 21-32 – 11-20 – 1-10