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List by Dave Simpson – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/09/the-clash-40-greatest-songs-ranked. Play all.
This is a comprehensive list of songs recorded by the English punk rock band the Clash that have been officially released. The list includes songs that have been performed by the band. Other side projects are not included in this list. The list consists of mostly studio recordings; remixes and live recordings are not listed, unless the song has ...
SongOriginal ReleaseWriter (s)Producer (s)"1–2, Crush on You"B-side of "Tommy Gun"Joe Strummer Mick Jones"1977"B-side of "White Riot"Joe Strummer Mick JonesMicky Foote"48 Hours"Joe Strummer Mick JonesMicky Foote"All the Young Punks"Joe Strummer Mick Jones- 1977
- White Riot
- What’s My Name
- Know Your Rights
- I’m So Bored with The USA
- Janie Jones
- Charlie Don’T Surf
- Brand New Cadillac
- The Guns of Brixton
- Clash City Rockers
A historical artefact, not for the proto-punk music, but because the lyrics epitomise the new wave’s perceived threat to the old guard. “No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones / In 1977,” sang Joe Strummer, hardly about to let his love of such pop greatsget in the way of punk’s declaration of year zero.
Guitarist Mick Jonesnow dislikes the first Clash single, its lyrics written by Strummer after the band were caught up in the 1976 Notting Hill riots and he concluded white people needed “a riot of our own”. The sentiment hasn’t aged well, but the song exemplifies the amphetamine-fuelled punk the band would leave behind.
A Clash curio in that it’s the only one of the group’s songs to bear a writing credit for Keith Levene, the band’s original guitarist. Levene showers melodic gold dust all over this otherwise shouty punk stomper, but is better known for his work with John Lydon in Public Image Ltd.
From Combat Rock, the final album by the classic quartet of Strummer, Jones, bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon. The tank was getting emptied, but Strummer’s black humour brimsthrough lines such as “You have the right to free speech / As long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it.”
This hugely anthemic track on debut album The Clashbegan life as I’m So Bored With You, a song about Jones’s girlfriend, before Strummer’s ad-libbed “… SA” took it in a new direction. The blistering critique of US imperialism and exported culture (“Yankee detectives are always on the TV”) didn’t stop the Clash’s love of American iconography, cars a...
Original Clash drummer Terry Chimes – uncharitably credited as Tory Crimes on The Clash – propels the debut’s storming opener, a eulogy to a 60s pop celebrity and libertinewho had been jailed for vice offences in 1973. On release, the convicted madam returned Strummer’s affections in the song Letter to Joe.
By the epic three-disc fourth album, Sandinista!, the Clash arguably had too many ideas for their own good, but within the 36-song sprawl are undoubted treasures. Titled after a Lt Col Kilgore quip in Apocalypse Now, there’s an element of the doo-wop era to this sweet song about, well, cultural imperialism.
This bracing cover of a 1959 Vince Taylor and the Playboys trackrefers to the early Brit rockers’ glamorous dream car (when most of them probably had to make do with a humble Ford Anglia). From the double album London Calling, the Clash’s creative zenith.
Brixton boy Simonon wanted some songwriting cash and so penned this memorable song about police harassment and discontent in his London neighbourhood, two years before the district exploded into rioting. In 1990, Simonon received an unexpected windfall when Norman Cook (later Fatboy Slim) sampled the groove for Beats International’s hit Dub Be Good...
Year zero meant many punks hurriedly buried their pasts in pub rock bands with long hair, but this 1978 single reworks a song from Strummer’s old pub rock band, the 101’ers, around trademark Clash self-mythology. The shift from aggressive guitars (surely copied from the Who’s I Can’t Explain) to something more mournful suggest musical adventure to ...
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- Dave Simpson
AKA: The Only Band That Matters. About The Clash. The Clash were a punk rock band from London, England, United Kingdom, active from 1976 to 1985. One of the most successful and iconic bands...
The Clash - Apple Music. Top Songs. Should I Stay or Should I Go. Combat Rock · 1982. Rock the Casbah. Combat Rock · 1982. Train In Vain (Stand By Me) London Calling · 1979. The Magnificent Seven. Sandinista! · 1980. I Fought the Law. Hits Back (Deluxe Edition) · 1979. Police On My Back. Sandinista! · 1980. The Guns of Brixton.
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