Happy 45th Anniversary to The Clash’s third studio album London Calling, originally released December 14, 1979.
Over the last several years, I’ve grown to seriously dislike the phrase "this album changed my life." For as long as I can remember, many well-intentioned music lovers tossed out this go-to cliché like an endless supply of Halloween candy.
I once even had a friend say to me, "That Coldplay album (Parachutes) changed my life." This may have been the moment when I declared a moratorium on the phrase. I proceeded to go all Samuel L. Jackson on my poor unsuspecting friend and said "M****r F****r, no it didn't! It changed Chris Martin's life, not yours!" Just so you don't think I'm a complete asshole, I did say it jokingly, but it didn't change the fact that I was done with the phrase.
Now, drumroll please, for my very public moment of hypocrisy. The Clash's London Calling absolutely changed my life.
London Calling was released when I was 14 and dealing with the standard bullshit most teenagers are faced with as well as my own set of issues. I was angry, sullen, prone to having mood swings and felt like I fit in nowhere. The universe and all of its experts love to tell people who they should be, what they should or should not like based on their race or gender. There were people in my orbit who could not understand how I could like Parliament-Funkadelic and Led Zeppelin equally because "brothers don't listen to that white boy shit." Ironically, these same people would ask to borrow my Billy Squier album because they used the drum beat of his song "The Big Beat" when they were DJ-ing parties.
Constantly hearing this left me feeling isolated and incapable of fitting in anywhere. I became the kid who spent most of his allowance on records, so I had tons of music to listen to, but I eventually became bored with a lot of the music at the time. I was desperately in need of music that I could play on my Walkman without skipping songs.
One day I ran into a friend of mine who was the first and only Haitian punk with a mohawk that I ever met. This kindred spirit began to tell me about this band called The Clash and their new album London Calling. I had already heard "Train in Vain" on WPIX-FM (when they played alternative music for a brief period of time) and I thought the title of the song was "Stand By Me.” I really liked the song a lot and upon my friend's recommendation, I marched to the record store looking for London Calling.
I found the record rather easily, but I did not see "Stand By Me" on the track listing, so I put the album back. I didn't dare ask the judgmental record store clerks out of fear of being laughed out of the store, so I sheepishly walked away. Side note: several years later I wound up working at Tower Records Lincoln Center, vowing to never make a customer feel like shit for not knowing something.
Listen to the Album:
On April 25, 1980, I watched an episode of the TV series Fridays (ABC's answer to Saturday Night Live), and the musical guest that night was the Clash. They opened with "London Calling" and within two minutes of hearing the song, I knew what I was going to do the next day; I was going to buy that album, even if that "Stand By Me" song wasn't on it.
Mick Jones was dressed in a purple suit reminiscent of Cesar Romero's version of The Joker and Joe Strummer belted out the words "The ice age is coming, the sun's zoomin'/ Engines stop running, the wheat is growin' thin / A nuclear error, but I have no fear / Cause London is drowning, I, I live by the river.” That last lyric was a reference to a neighborhood that was susceptible to flooding called World's End, on the River Thames. Strummer and his then girlfriend were living in a small flat there at the time. The Clash also played "Train in Vain (Stand by Me),” "The Guns of Brixton,” and "Clampdown" on the show. After watching that performance, I wanted to hear more.
Every month since that Saturday, almost 44 years ago when I bought London Calling at Sam Goody, I've listened to at least one track from it. It became my default music choice when I could not decide what I was in the mood for.
Over the years, I began to notice the similarities between the growth of the Clash and my own personal development. London Calling was not what everyone had expected of them at the time. Those who followed them from their punk rock beginnings were thrown off a bit when the Clash experimented with different genres on the album. I even had a college classmate, who liked to consider himself a punk, tell me that "this was the album where they sold out,” which is a patently ridiculous statement in itself.
London Calling exposed me to reggae artists I had never heard of at the time. Being an avid reader of liner notes, I discovered that "Revolution Rock" was a cover song and I dove deep into exploring who the original artist (Danny Ray and the Revolutionaries) was. I learned that reggae extended far beyond Bob Marley & The Wailers and Jimmy Cliff. The album gave me the push to go even further out of my comfort zone and learn about different types of music and the world around me. Until I heard "The Guns of Brixton,” I knew absolutely nothing about Brixton and the Afro-Caribbean residents in that area of London.
London Calling is that perfect album you play while walking and listening on whatever device you may have in your possession, plus it features one of the best side 1's ever recorded. The sequencing throughout the album is flawless, but side 1 is classic. The title track, “Brand New Cadillac,” “Jimmy Jazz,” “Hateful,” and “Rudie Can't Fail" deliver what every album should aspire to: the eagerness of the listener to flip the album over and play side 2 without hesitation. Before you know it, you've gone through all 19 tracks.
The word “masterpiece” gets thrown around a lot when speaking of London Calling, but there's so much more to it than that. It's the story of a band that was open to change, broadening their horizons and listening to what other musicians had to offer. It made them better musicians and as a result, Simonon and Headon played their respective instruments better than they ever had. While touring the US in 1979, instead of choosing other punk acts to open for them, they went with artists such as Bo Diddley, Lee Dorsey and Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Their interest in the music of these rock & roll legends was the initial inspiration for London Calling. The Clash's desire to experiment and grow only increased with their subsequent album releases, Sandinista! (1980) and Combat Rock (1982).
Enjoying this article? Click/tap on the album covers to explore more about The Clash:
London Calling has rightfully taken its place on numerous best of all time lists in the last forty-five years. Even the iconic album cover featuring Simonon smashing his bass onstage at the Palladium has made its way onto best album cover lists. The album came along at a time when rock music seemed like it was on life support. There were a few good albums released in 1979 and 1980, but not many have had the lasting effect that London Calling has. The 1970s had the good fortune of being ushered in by Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1971) and being led to the next decade by London Calling. The album definitely brought joy to me when I was 14, not knowing at the time that it would be the musical gift that keeps on giving. The Clash were once heralded as "the only band that matters" and when I first listened to all four sides of London Calling, in my mind, it became a statement of fact.
LISTEN:
Editor's note: this anniversary tribute was originally published in 2019 and has since been edited for accuracy and timeliness.