The last great collaboration between Joe Strummer and Mick Jones
"Should I Stay Or Should I Go" is the flagship of the Clash and the last great collaboration between Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. A song that is in the musical imagination of the 80s and turned the band into an icon of Punk-rock.
Among the curiosities of the song we want to focus on the chorus sung in Spanish.
This was Joe Strummer's idea, who loved the musicality of the Spanish language but couldn't speak it, so he asked for help to one of the sound engineers at the New York studio where they were recording, a certain Eddie Garcia.
Eddie called his mother in Brooklyn and they had everything translated over the phone, but with an Ecuadorian accent: "And so there's me and Joe Ely singing with an Ecuadorian accent in the choirs", said Joe Strummer.
"Should I Stay or Should I Go" peaked at number 17 in England and when it was re-released ten years later, in 1991, it reached number 1. The Clash Official | Facebook
NME Explains: How The Clash wrote ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’
FEATURES, in partnership with Sony - By NME - 26th May 2022
The Clash’s ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ has been a gateway song for incoming punk fans since its release in 1982.
First recorded at Electric Lady in Greenwich Village, New York – an iconic recording studio which had previously played host to Jimi Hendrix, Blondie, Rolling Stones and Lou Reed – it was written for the band’s fifth album ‘Combat Rock’. While much of the rest of the record was filled with references to the Vietnam War and American politics, this jangling single combined the snarl of punk with giant power-pop melodies, rockabilly and Spanish backing vocals.
Though recording sessions for ‘Combat Rock’ were often tense elsewhere, ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’’s greatest quirks came about as a result of playful studio experimentation.
For example, while laying down the track, the band decided they wanted to perform the backing vocals in Spanish. In need of a translator, they called up friend Joe Ely – a Texan musician known for playing honky-tonk and rock’n’roll. “My Spanish was pretty much Tex-Mex,” Ely told Song Facts, “so it was not an accurate translation. But I guess it was meant to be sort of whimsical, because we didn’t really translate verbatim.”
For the latest installment of NME Explains, we take a deeper look at how The Clash wrote ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’, revisiting their recording sessions and taking a look at the song’s long standing legacy. Watch the video in full above.
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THE CLASH – STRAIGHT TO HELL (EXTENDED VERSION)
On this date in 1982, THE CLASH released their fifth studio album, COMBAT ROCK, (May 14th, 1982).
The title of The Clash’s fifth studio album, COMBAT ROCK, could have been read more than one way, just as its blurred, off-handed cover picture showed the band planted at a crossroads.
At least part of the Clash's directive was to combat the rockist attitude so many accused them of perpetuating, the kind of close-mindedness that marred the band's N.Y. shows in 1981, when their legions of admirers booed opening acts like Grandmaster Flash.
Offering a whistle-stop tour of styles, ‘Combat Rock’ saw The Clash motoring on enthusiasm. Here we had funk ('Overpowered By Funk'), rockabilly ('Know Your Rights'), R&B ('Should I Stay...'), but arguably the best moments were those that depended on dub space for their mood, notably 'Straight To Hell' and 'Sean Flynn'.
The former was the album's tour de force, a lament for lost homes, homes disrupted by American invasion in the Far East and by heroin invasion in the American ghettos.
Combat Rock showed the Clash remaining as determinedly street-wise as ever.
The video here is STRAIGHT TO HELL, the extended Version which originally appeared on the bootleg "Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg" and "Clash on Broadway".
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