Still Calling

IT’S NOT JUST THE GRAY HAIRS OR THE EXPANDING WAISTLINE THAT SUGGEST ONE IS GETTING OLD: IT’S ALSO WHEN THE ALBUMS YOU LOVE SO MUCH, AND SO VIVIDLY REMEMBER HEARING FOR THE FIRST TIME, HAVE BECOME A PART OF THE ROCK HERITAGE INDUSTRY. SO IT IS WITH LONDON CALLING BY THE CLASH, WHICH CELEBRATES ITS 40TH BIRTHDAY IN DECEMBER 2019.

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In 1979, when it was released in the UK, I couldn’t have imagined such a thing. But then, as a British teen who had just left school, I was more interested in seeing if the Clash were a spent force or not: They held a special place in my heart because the eponymously titled first album had, without exaggeration, changed my life in more ways than just my hairstyle. The Clash was my coming-of-age album and had been like a grenade tossed into my small suburban home. Yet, I was massively disappointed with their second album, Give ’Em Enough Rope: At the time there had been much debate on where punk was headed, but surely it wasn’t toward the overproduced AOR sound of this record. With an irrational but sincere emotional investment in the band, I willed their third album to be a success.

I remember the frisson of the stylus touching the vinyl when I heard the opening salvo of guitar and drums on the new album’s title track. With its fiercely insistent chord pattern, near martial beat, and a refrain that plays on the famous BBC World Service station ID—“this is London Calling”—the song combines images of war and a nuclear holocaust with pop-culture references and a dash of gallows humor. Surely “London Calling” is one of the greatest album openers ever, setting the scene, framing what is to come, and signaling the album’s intent as a serious message—or, to be more precise, a number of serious messages.

Two minutes in, I knew the Clash were back.

Tear