I want my childhood back. Or at least the part of it that missed out on The Clash. There was a brief period in middle school when I was into COMBAT ROCK, but that was only because the radio served me copious amounts of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah.” The rest of the album wasn’t enough to sustain a life-long relationship, and that was that. I moved on to Def Leppard, The Cars and eventually The Beatles. When I made my way back to punk in the late ‘80s, the Clash never came up.
Would I have dug LONDON CALLING, had I listened to it back in the day? No freaking doubt. Joe Strummer’s vocals are a dead ringer for Mike Peters of The Alarm (vice versa, to be fair), and that would have been enough to suck me in, had I given the album a chance. Then the songs would have grabbed me, probably with more force than they did this past week. And that’s saying a lot, because I really fell for this album.
I couldn’t help but be impressed by the variety of styles represented here: ska and reggae, rockabilly, blues and (of course) punk. On top of that, the tunes were extremely catchy and fun. Now I’m wondering: how would my musical tastes have been different with this diversity in my teenage musical arsenal? It wasn’t until college that I started checking out ska (English Beat; Bim Skala Bim). Perhaps if I’d listened to London Calling I would have been open to something beyond pop and rock at an earlier age.
The album doesn’t seem dated. Okay, maybe it's a little dated. But hardly so compared to most of its contemporaries, anyway. Ann Landers says it’s never too late to send a ‘thank you’ note. And I say it’s never too late to get into The Clash.
Mike’s song picks: Lover’s Rock (dancy fun), “Train in Vain” (the only song other than “London Calling” that I’d heard before) and “Death or Glory” (with the head-scratching lyric, “he who f@#*s nuns will later join the church”)
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