The Clash - London Calling: The Album Review

If the world ended tomorrow and this were the last rock-and-roll album ever made, what should it be?

This was the question The Clash had on the brain as they headed into Vanilla Studios for their 3rd album.

Joe Strummer: lead vocals, guitar, piano

Mick Jones: guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals, harmonica, piano

Paul Simonon: bass, lead vocals on "The Guns of Brixton"

Topper Headon: drums, percussion

The Irish Horns: brass section, Mickey Gallagher: organ

Produced by Guy Stevens, engineered by Bill Price

Author’s Note: This post corresponds to the London Calling episode of the Double Album December miniseries, originally posted 12/1/2023. Save for audio/editing jokes that cannot be included in a text format, this is a faithful adaptation of the review chapter. To watch the full episode, scroll to the bottom of this post or visit my YouTube channel here.

Album number 1 (self-titled) is easy because you’ve had your whole life to write these songs. Album number 2 (Give Em Enough Rope) is all the stuff that didn’t make the cut for number 1, plus some new stuff.

Album number 3 is always the hardest. You’re getting over the hump of having to write a full album of all-new material, with less time to do it. The Clash rolled up to rehearse album number 3 with...like, no new material. Considering everything happening on the global stage in the last year of the 1970s, you’d think there’d be a wealth of inspiration. And having With 2 principle songwriters on board, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, is great...until they’re both experiencing writer’s block at the same time! Lovely!

Amidst what I can only imagine as an “oh shit” moment, the guys completely overhaul rehearsals. I don’t think The Clash intentionally restructured their creative process, it just kinda...happened. It started with a mutual agreement not to allow friends or girlfriends in the studio. Then, instead of jumping right into writing again, they practice some covers. Anything they feel like, regardless of genre. This got the creative juices flowing and thinking about stuff that wasn’t necessarily “punk.”

Oh, how terribly constraining punk can be. But that’s the thing with The Clash: they were only really a “punk” group for 2 of 5 albums. (We do not speak of Cut The Crap.) And yet, we herald them as a pillar of punk. They freed themselves of those confines pretty early in their career. Through these rehearsals in the spring of 1979, they’re about to break the rest of the way out. A couple songs stuck around from these covers weeks: Vince Taylor and the Playboys’ “Brand New Cadillac” was their warmup song, Danny Ray’s “Revolution Rock” wormed its way in. We also have “Wrong Em Boyo:” the first verse is from the tune Stagger Lee while the rest is a cover of The Rulers. The guys spent the majority of their days together, months in relative isolation. I think this got them fully comfortable with each other; which was necessary to handle their creative crisis situation:

“We felt that we were struggling, about to slip down a slope or something, grasping with our fingernails. And there was no one there to help us.” – Joe Strummer

(I’ve seen Rolling Stone quote this many a time, including in their “500 Greatest Songs Of All Time” lists, but I can’t find where they themselves got it)

Joe started writing again to process the utter shitshow that was the British government, and the looming infamous Iron Lady. To put it into perspective: Margaret Thatcher was so universally hated that “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” charted the week she died!! Feeling like the world was teetering dangerously close to armageddon, Joe wrote a song with the working title of “Ice Age.” After hearing about a hotel in Costa Brava being bombed by Basque terrorists pretty soon after an IRA bombing in Britain, he wrote “Spanish Bombs.”

With the help of madcap producer Guy Stevens, Paul Simonon stepping up to the plate to contribute his very first song, “The Guns Of Brixton,” and clever retitling thanks to the BBC’s World Service call sign, The Clash answered the armageddon album question. It may not have been the last rock-and-roll album ever, but it was the last rock-and-roll statement of the 1970s. With just 17 days left of the decade, The Clash released their double-album epic London Calling.

Seeing as this is a double-album review, it’ll be structured a little differently than I would a single LP. Instead of a track-by-track breakdown, I’ll be taking a broader approach; stating what I like, what I dislike, and highlighting specific tracks as examples.

Going in: The Clash’s hits were on heavy heavy rotation in high school...and that was literally it! I had heard nothing else from this album!

What I dig about punk is their reverence for the OG rock-and-rollers. You got it with the Detroit guys in the 60s; the accidental birth of punk. The MC5 were super into Chuck Berry and James Brown. And then you have the Clash. They brought Bo Diddley out with them on tour...and were fans of the MC5. These guys got ahold of Back In The USA as teens; the 5’s rock-and-roll revivalist record. Godfathers of punk blah blah blah I have a video on those guys as long as Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

To begin with: The Clash in general are a band you’ll need to put in some time with to truly appreciate. They were a different band on every album. For me, London Calling was different. I knew this was something special as soon as I heard those anxious, percussive chords just begging for a manic radio announcer. This is not regular. This is not normal. This challenges what punk can be, and therefore it is punk.

And it was way poppier than I thought it’d be! Looking at the cover, shot by Pennie Smith, I was expecting acrashing banging venting of rage at a broken system. A rough, jagged onslaught of sound.

I come from a different period of the punk family tree, where stuff was loud and sloppy as hell. That can be great...for about 35 minutes. I saw London Calling was a double album, had got a preconcieved notion of what this might be in my head, and got worried. I was very pleasantly surprised by how varied London Calling is. I got punk. I got surf on “Brand New Cadillac.” I got galloping pop-rock with “I’m Not Down.” I got reggae. “The Card Cheat” does an almost Ronettes thing with the drums and tambourine? And I got ska. I got fucking ska!! Like 400% more ska than I expected, more on that later! Every song pulls from a different style in the Clash’s bag of tricks; a kind of prowess I honestly didn’t expect from a “punk” band. Not only that, the guys nail it (almost) every single time.

Stupid fun, frighteningly relevant. That’s the plane London Calling exists on.

Stupid fun:

Mick Jones has an uncanny ability to write poppy hooks. “Hateful,” “Rudie Can’t Fail,” and ultimate earworm “Spanish Bombs” bore into your head expeditiously. Their cover of “Brand New Cadillac” is just as cool as it is danceable; it simply requires a hot rod and sky-high pompadour. Over top of this slick, hot groove is Joe Strummer; peppering this tune lamenting the classic no-good woman of rock-and-roll lore with bratty “blaaaaah”s and ferocious roars. Mick gets a searing solo – he doesn’t get enough credit for his contributions to the Clash as a musical unit. This thing is so tight, it’s almost...rockabilly? The band unleasheson the last chorus. Topper beats the shit out of his poor kit as Joe hurdles out the line (with so much spit in his mouth you can practically hear it,) “JESUS CHRIST, WHERE’D YOU GET THAT CADILLAAAC?”

When I think “pop” Clash, I think “Lost In The Supermarket.” It’s the other light-fare tune on the album and I am SHOCKED it wasn’t given the single treatment! Considering how the alt-pop scape ate up those new wave sounds in the late ’70s (hello Blondie!) I feel “Lost In The Supermarket” would’ve fared quite well. This is the Clash tune that’s been in my listening rotation the longest. I love it even more in the context of its album for its understated anxiety. And it’s oddly...touching? “Supermarket” is meant to be a biography of Mick Jones: “I wasn’t born so much as I fell out, nobody seemed to notice me. We had a hedge back home in the suburbs, over which I could never see...” Joe’s tale of the everyman, with young Mick in the protagonist’s role, acts as an allegory of how terribly lonely living in a capitalist society is. Especially if you’re the one who “can’t see over the hedges,” the one that gets overlooked. It’s a society which purposely isolates us to keep power. There’s lovely chemistry between the guys, great dialogue, and a playful and addicting call-and-response to soften the blow. Speaking from experience: hearing “Supermarket” over the intercom in the early hours of the AM at a 24-hour super-Walmart is transcendent.

Where London Calling might lack in technical prowess (punk rockers are typically not virtuosos. Kinda goes against the whole punk ethos...) it’s chock full of personality. There’s great chemistry between co-leads Joe and Mick. On those duets, you can picture the boys huddled around the same mic, barking out the lyrics. “Rudie Can’t Fail” kicks off with an impassioned, “Sing Michael, sing!” You can’t help but smile at that. Maybe even smile wistfully, considering how their relationship would sour following this album. Damn you rock star egos. But that somber feeling doesn’t last long. “Koka Kola” kicks off in a positively goofy manner: “Elevator gooooin up!” followed by Paul pulling something positively sqiggly on the bass. In the punk tradition of being irreverent brats, The Clash don’t ever take themselves too seriously. Sure, they turn you to face to the mirror. But they’re gonna pull a face in it while they’re there. The primary example of this stunt is “The Right Profile,” which details the life of disgraced actor Montgomery Clift. It’s a dissection of pop culture stardom The Clash themselves would rise to after this album’s release. It’s vicious, cutting, hungry for an entertaining breakdown...

And then there’s Joe. I can’t possibly spell out the noise he makes, but we did have a good laugh about it on the Losing My Opinion podcast! Apparently this is Joe acting out Montgomery’s death. One can imagine Joe practicing this legendary pull in the mirror; choking on his own spit just so as he greases his hair. I feel bad for laughing, but I think that’s what the guys want us to feel!

In a similar (slightly less spitty) vein lies “Death Or Glory.” It mocks the deification of rock stars and the idea of selling out; the worst thing you could ever do as a punk. It feels triumphant over trite, though: “Death or glory” is followed with “just another story!” There’s no posturing themselves as the ones that will never ever sell out ever because they’re waaay better than that. No painting themselves as rock-and-roll messiahs either.That’s the punk ethos. The guys continue that energy on “Four Horsemen,” they straight-up make fun of themselves!

As for “Lovers Rock”...I love that, on an album about society being torn apart and London’s drowning in the river and all, The Clash found it in their hearts to include a song reminding dudes not to be awful in bed.

I’d be remiss not to shout out the “Wrong Em Boyo” switch-up. This song feels like the guys started playing, noticed the brass section knocking on the door ready to party, said fuck it, heated up the pizza rolls and let them in.

And oh my god the ska. Let’s talk about the ska. When “Rudie Can’t Fail” came on during my very first listen-through, I assumed it was a one-off novelty moment. I had fun with it, moved on. Then it happened again. And again. And I realized, “Oh my god, this is gonna be a thru-line of the whole album!” The Clash were so delightfully unserious for this! It’s kind of genius, really, that appreciation of Afro-Caribbean culture. “Rudie Can’t Fail” connects rude boys’ rejection of the status quo to the working-class factory town kids of England’s. It’s a twist on the cultural consciousness that only The Clash could pull off.

“WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOOOOOOW?”

If there’s any cut off London Calling that walks that tightrope between stupid fun and frighteningly relevant, it’s “Clampdown.” This cut illustrates the cycle of institutional racism; how it demoralizes, disempowers, and pulls more into its clutches. “So you got someone to boss around, it makes you feel big now! You drift until you brutalize, make your first kill now!” It’s a subtle and deceptively civilized system, only seeming horrific when we really think about it. Trump used it. Thatcher used it. I think we know who else started that way.

Anger and resentment can be powerful. But it’s a double-edged sword. Use it to dismantle the system, not fuel its fire. Frighteningly relevant. Side 1 really sets the stage by picturing the world careeningtowards collapse.

Frighteningly relevant:

You could write a whole essay dissecting the title track alone. It was Rolling Stone’s 15th greatest song of all time in 2004, one of Tom Morello's 10 favorite songs, one of Danny Elfman’s greatest songs of the century. This is the sonic expression of fearing the slope, or in this case the flood. The opening chords sound off like a panic alarm or an emergency banner across the screen. Breaking news! Given this was the penultimate statement of the ’70s, of course there’s gonna be time capsule lyrics. Ragging on phony Beatlemania, shouting out the 3 Mile Island disaster (“nuclear error.”) An obligatory mention of the blitzes; The Clash were babies born in the aftermath of WWII. But nuclear warfare, crops failing, oil crises, the opioid crisis killing more people a year than Vietnam did, the pandemic killing even more. The fatigue from living through a new historical event every goddamn week...so little has changed in the 45 years since this song was written. Frighteningly relevant indeed.

The lyrics rattle off disaster after disaster, real and imagined. For just a moment, we can catch our breath: “London is drowning and I…”

“...I live by the rivuhh!” So much for a breath. Tom Morello said about this song: “Joe Strummer sings this apocalyptic anthem as if the walls are coming down around him.” (“The 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time,” Rolling Stone Magazine, 12/9/2004) And he’s right! Poor Joe’s worked himself up so much he sounds like he’s about to have a panic attack! The narrator of “London Calling” is a vulnerable member of society. If this society collapses, he’ll be the first to go. In theory, if you’re high up enough on the societal pecking order, you’ll get to watch the chaos from above. But remember: you’re just one bad week away from being at flood level. This is the desperation of the most vulnerable – or justified paranoia of someone who knows how vulnerable we all are. When this imaginary newscast ends with a slimy, “And after all this, won’t you give me a smile?” my skin crawls. No I will not smile for you, and I am not your sweetheart! It makes me want to grab a Fender bass and smash up theTV.

Side 2 of London Calling is one of the strongest sides of a double album I’ve ever covered. It’s right up there with side 3 of Electric Ladyland and side 4 of Layla. With their own double-album statement, The Clash presents an all-time great run: “Spanish Bombs,” “The Right Profile,” “Lost In The Supermarket,” “Clampdown,” and “The Guns Of Brixton”

We drop the needle on “Spanish Bombs,” the perfect marriage of pop sensibility and cultural consciousness. Half of our narrator’s of his brain is enjoying his vacation, trying to pick up some foreign chick with his botched Spanish: “Yo te quiero infinito, yo te quiero, oh mi corazóoooon” The other half lives in terror, dealing with intrusive thoughts of the resort getting torn apart a la Guernica. It’s even name-dropped in this song, along with Costa Brava.

Pictured: Pablo Picasso, Guernica (oil on canvas, 1937)

Tom Carson for Rolling Stone called Death Or Glory the “pivotal” track of London Calling. I beg to differ. It might not be a traditional “climax” as it’s not bombastic or big, but the apex of London Calling is “The Guns Of Brixton” Every time I listen to London Calling, I anxiously await “Guns Of Brixton.” It’s like my mile marker. Oh we’re still a few songs from “Guns Of Brixton!” 2 more until “Guns Of Brixton!”

To this day, I have not been able to make it through a full listen-through of London Calling. Why? Because every single time, I have to replay this song.

Aside from the title track, “Guns Of Brixton” is the most outwardly menacing song on the London Calling. At least with tunes like “Spanish Bombs” we get to escape the paranoia through the more lighthearted atmosphere. Silly Spanglish and the like. “Guns Of Brixton” is an oppressive, suffocating heatwave you can’t get out of because your A/C is broken, your water’s been shut off, and your landlord is using your rent to pay for some pink flamingo timeshare. As much as I appreciate the jolt of energy the guys gave this song live, nothing beats the reggae-infused original. But this place is very culturally rich. After all, Brixton has made significant contributions to reggae, ska, dub, and drill. It was Paul’s homage to where he lived, and just how culturally rich it is.

“When they kick down your front door, how you gonna come? With your hands on your head, or on the trigger of your gun?” This is one of those uncanny songs that transports you exactly to a specific place in time. The untenable London of punk’s golden age. People were pissed and they channeled it into lightning. It’s got this incredible, palpable atmosphere of justified paranoia; lingering low in the atmosphere like sulfur.

“Guns Of Brixton” turned out to be oddly prophetic. In 1981, the British equivalent to America’s stop-and-frisk laws threw a lit match into a pool of gasoline. With everything already going on in Britain at the time, plus a racist institution continually stamping Brixton down into poor infrastructure, unemployment, drugs, and crime, it lit right the fuck up. The cherry on top – or maybe the butter flour and eggs – of “Guns Of Brixton” is of the greatest basslines of all time. The exact midpoint between groovy and sinister, swampy and cool. Paul Simonon is the king of cool and his fingerprints are all overLondon Calling. He played so high on his fretboard he might as well have become another guitar part. He fills that space in the song, and comfortably. “Lovers Rock.” “I’m Not Down.” The “Koka Kola” lick– you know the one. The one that sounds like a question mark lashed down the middle. The verses of“Death Or Glory” go nuts! Between London Calling and Peter Hook on Unknown Pleasures, 1979 was a great year for bass playing.

Imagine being Paul Simonon in the late 70s. In just a few years, you went from barely being able to hold a bass to smashing it so perfectly it’s been likened to a religious relic.

Pictured: the "icon"ic Fender bass, as photographed for the Museum of London.

Oh. And the first song you ever write becomes your band’s best song, ever.

Don’t get me wrong, London Calling is of such high quality for so much of its run time it’s stupid. Thereisn’t a bad song here. But the double album is a wiley beast. It’s hard to sequence, hard to pace, and hard to enforce quality control upon. Even the Beatles couldn’t wrangle it. To this day, 56 years later, people are still cutting and pasting the White Album to their liking. London Calling isn’t quite so hotly contested, but it starts to spin out of control on the 2nd disc. The weakest tunes of the bunch are “Koka Kola” and “Train In Vain.” The former is underdeveloped, I get the feeling it was stuck there for pacing. “I don’t know where else to put this song about white-collar drug abuse, so we’ll just shove it between ‘Death Or Glory’ and ‘The Card Cheat!’” As for the latter: hearing it was tacked onto the end of the record in wake of a failed business partnership...it, unfortunately, makes sense. Ending an album

Though there’s the occasional half-baked moment, an idea or two that didn’t get quite as fleshed-out as the others, the London Calling duds are merely a handful of tunes I couldn’t warm up to. Other people seem to really dig “Revolution Rock,” I’m still warming up to it. Same with “Train In Vain,” I’ve even heard it called a perfect album closer. If anything, “Revolution Rock” is a brilliant showcase for drummer Topper Headon. He’s been holding things down for 60 minutes now, rolling with the punches the whole way. Now he gets to have a little fun with a loose, breezy swing. I didn’t truly appreciate his drumming until I saw the footage from The Clash on Fridays. Tops is razor sharp through a killer medley of “Guns Of Brixton” (with Paul on guitar and Joe on bass!) and “Clampdown.” This LP's valleys are a prime example of how The Clash threw basically whatever genres they wanted together and got, at the very least, a passable outcome every time. Most of the time, it’s really really good.

Overall, London Calling is way tighter than I expected. It took any preconceived notions I might’ve had from that iconic cover and threw them right out the window. These guys spent months in a punk-rock petri dish; interacting with their producer, each other, and their music, and little to nothing else. And it shows. There are some funny choices on here, some rubber snakes in the bag. Take the suddenly lo-fi faux-live “Jimmy Jazz.” But without those silly moments, this album just wouldn’t have its strongest asset: its personality.

London Calling is clean chaos. Sharp, produced intentionally. (Which is a goddamn miracle considering what antics Guy Stevens got up to in the studio!) For example, you think “Four Horsemen” is gonna descend into madness at the end, but it doesn’t. It quickly picks itself and turns itself around on one rubber heel to transition seamlessly into “I’m Not Down.” It’s so intentional I might call it slick...but something tells me that’s a cardinal sin in this sphere.

The album’s sequencing generally makes sense too. Punk albums can be a real assault on the senses, if they’re long you can get worn out by the intensity. For an hour-long record, London Calling holdsmomentum and conserves its energy shockingly well. This is made even more impressive by the breadth of styles happening here. Utterly bonkers as he was, Guy was this thing’s golden ticket. He took thevery wide array of ideas presented to him and recorded them in a manner where they’re just sonically cohesive enough. Alas, nothing can last forever. Guy Stevens died of an overdose, Joe got into some trouble with the law. Topper was fired and hubris took over; that which sellouts could only have.

What I dig about The Clash is their willingness to have a wide array of influences, and display them all proudly. Like I said earlier, they really didn’t give a fuck about looking or playing punk – I think that was the Sex Pistols’ biggest hangup. What mattered to The Clash was retaining the punk sensibility; they did that just fine with the album’s thematic content. That much is strong enough to carry themthrough even their poppiest tunes here. London Calling really is the perfect bridge between the 70s and 80s; we haven’t gone totally drum machine/synth-crazy yet, but there’s still a sense of fun. Hell, not giving a fuck about being punk was maybe the most punk thing they could’ve done. They championed authenticity to themselves and their influences above posturing for the scene. I LOVE that.

On this album’s working title “The Last Testament”: I believe The Clash used this idea of “the last rock-and-roll album” as their muse. They rejected any expectations, including mine. It’s a testament to these guys’ talent that they could craft the themes of disillusionment, paranoia, resentment so many different ways.

I am blown away. To all who say punk is one-note, brutish, uncultured, or dumb: I present you London Calling. Punk is high culture. Punk is high art. Change my mind.

Personal favorites: “London Calling,” “Brand New Cadillac,” “Rudie Can’t Fail,” “Spanish Bombs,” “Lost In The Supermarket,” “Clampdown,” “The Guns of Brixton,” “I’m Not Down”

– AD ☆

Watch the full episode above!