Introduction [00:08]: It's time once again for Alan Whiting to continue our series, looking at the work of some of Britain's best songwriters.
And this week, Alan talks to Joe Strummer, one of the most enigmatic singers in the rock scene.
Now, in the early days of punk, he had more brushes with the law than he had hit records. He runs in marathons, and he once disappeared without trace, causing tour dates to be postponed.
But above all that, he's a really, really good writer. And Alan started by asking Joe about the early punk songs, which were very, very basic.
Introduction: Did he think the first songs from The Clash fell into this category?
Joe Strummer: Well, in the sense that they were basic, I was dealing with frustration. The reason that The Clash hit was because we had songs, rather than just some noise that would go scrunch, scrunch. It was a song, and the lyrics are very much part of that, in that I don't think that you can write from it any point of view that isn't something you really feel.
And you can translate that into something you really care about or something you really know about. I mean, if you research literature, you'll find that Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald come into that conclusion that write what you know about. And I translate that through Kurt Vonnegut, who also says the same thing, into what you care about. And those songs were very much a sense of frustration of like,
Being young, you know, being in a Western society, having the advertisements flaunt the wealth of the civilised developed world in front of your eyes, and being unable to find a niche, be that a meal or a roof over your head or some gainful occupation for your hands and your mind. Instead, you know, we're presented with the drudgery of, say, a factory job or nothing, or go and draw, at the time it was a £10.64, you know, go and draw that, and... kick your heels for a while.
Alan Whiting: So the Clash's songs were a reflection of that frustration.
Joe Strummer: Yeah, but it was a lived experience. I really believe that you've got to live something to sing about it in a convincing way. What I'm trying to say is that it's experience that writes songs. You know, you directly feel it. You've got to... When you hear a great song, that's a piece of someone's life. You know, someone lived that. When you hear a really great song, someone's torn that piece out of their life and managed to present it as a song. Today, it's very hard to talk about these things, because we live in a time of disposable music, where, okay, it's number one this week, and all... Everything's got built-in obsolescence.
Joe Strummer [02:50]: Yeah, all the guys and girls are popping in the studio, and it's number one this week, and all the lights are on it. But next week, we'll be pushed to remember even the damn title.
Alan Whiting: So why do Clash songs remain durable?
Joe Strummer: Well... I think because they were fate, a lot of the Clash songs that we continue to play today, like Career Opportunities, are born out of frustration, you know, a real sense of life going to waste, you know, real genuine anger, and that's why they still live.
Alan Whiting: When did you first realize that a lyric was very important?
Joe Strummer [03:10]: All we've got to communicate really is the language. I mean, this has always interested me. This is my subject. If I got an idea and I want to communicate it to you, I could stand here with sign language, but it would take us 19 hours longer than if I could just say it in a sentence.
And that's why I think that we've always got to struggle to make the language ours. I tie everything into lyric writing. You know, newspaper, TV, all things in life are really lyrics to me. I don't like this school of journalism that we've got here, which is the worst in the world. They're sort of, almost like, it's not a conscious decision, well I hope not, but they're cutting down the vocabulary that the average person will know day by day they seem to limit it well we can get rid of that word and substitute it with this one and day by day they're coming down to some kind of dog speech you know that we'll all be speaking in 10, 20 years unless we watch out i don't want to use words in songs that i can't use because they're not common currency for example the word hacker all right to me this word is pregnant with meaning you know who knows what a hacker is only a small microcosm of computer weirdos know what a hacker is. It's one of the most exciting things going.
Alan Whiting: What is a hacker?
Joe Strummer: A hacker is somebody who will get into... You see, all computer systems are linked through the phone lines. All they want to do is get into systems where they're disbarred from. You know, you've got to know your password, you've got to know the right code to dial. There's various things, and hackers... It's a 21st century rebel, really, a hacker. But I think it's prime stuff for a song. But I've got to wait for the rest of the world to catch up with the word hacker before I can hit them with it.
Alan Whiting: Well, let's go and look at a lyric that's language was quite simplistic. London's Burning. That was one of your early punk songs.
Joe Strummer [05:12]: Yeah. I have to say the First World War inspired this song because the First World War set up the social structures that we are living under today, which means that the town is going to shut down at 11pm and there's a lot of people a raging drunk on the street and this song is really a cry of frustration of like we're young we're energetic we're restless we need some excitement give us something to do that's what this song is.
Alan Whiting: Is there a particular line in the song that stands out for you as a favourite?
Joe Strummer: Well, I always liked
What a great traffic system, it's so bright, you know.
I can't think of a better way to spend the night.
Joe Strummer: It's just all you had left in the town was to look at the wonderful works in concrete and street lights that they directed for the motor car. I mean, that was the entertainment was really looking at the motorway going through west London. I think any song you write out of true feeling if it's true feeling it won't go away.
Joe Strummer:
All across the town, all across the night,
Everybody's driving with four in light.
Black or white, you turn it on your face like you really don't.
Everybody's sitting there watching television.
That's why we're so young now.
Now this funny dance, now this funny dance
Now this funny dance, now this funny dance
Now this funny dance, now this funny dance
Now this funny dance, now this funny dance
Now this funny dance, now this funny dance
Joe Strummer: I don't know. All right.
Alan Whiting [08:10]: How do you write most of your songs, Joe?
Joe Strummer: I like it best when there's an idea, a line and a tune. All in one. And then you can expand outwards and get a song. But when that doesn't happen, it's always a good idea to bang a lyric out that says something. I like to experiment with the way you can put it down on a simple bit of paper. You know, I like the blank sheet of paper.
I like the physical idea, and I like the idea of tapping with a typewriter, say. You know, I like the idea of the hammer striking the paper and the characters printing out. That's exciting to me. I like to use really old typewriters. I've got this beautiful job from Venezuela in about 1925, you know, and £5 on the Portobello Road, and it's got peculiar symbols that you've got no idea what it is. I like the sort of...
The feeling that it gives you know you can almost imagine that it was in a hotel room with that the um fan going around on the ceiling and someone being shot in the corner. I go about it in a showmanship kind of way like I make sure I'm wearing the right clothes even though I'm on my own in a room and no one's there to see right it's very show you know I like to make sure I'm wearing the right clothes that
My typewriter's funky. I've got some nice paper, you know, nice white paper that you can get into. And I like to have a decent ashtray, preferably stolen from a French cafe, you know. And a nice pack of cigarettes and swan vestas, you know. Get all the artefacts.
Say, you know, feel the tradition of writing.
Alan Whiting: Do you like the romantic image of the songwriter?
Joe Strummer: Definitely, definitely, because I mean what else have you got, you know? It's a pain really. I mean Dylan Thomas, I heard he once said that writing a poem is just so much work, you know. This is after the world was facing him for being a poet. He said sometimes I get the first mind down then I sit there going oh my god you know Dylan Thomas said that and it is a yeah it's it's work but you know, you need something to nice it up, you know, and that's why I get into the style of it.
Alan Whiting: Let's look at another of your songs then, London Calling.
Joe Strummer [10:37]: Okay, now, London Calling. We saw the danger of punk being followed to the letter, of it becoming a dogma. And we weren't interested in that because punk originally meant to us the spontaneous, the creative, you know, the crazy.
The lunatic you know suddenly all that was let in the door and so it should be and so it always should be but for once it was let in and it came great things happened because of that but when it started to become a dogma like the right uniform the right type of rhythm the right chords you know the right grunting and hollering it became just plain boring because okay we've seen all that give us something new that's what our attitude was like yeah we've done all that now let's move on what i was trying to say in london calling was was in the lit was like encourage people to believe in themselves really you know like it it goes on like london calling to the imitation zone forget it brother and got it alone and i wanted to give some positive thing to them to say like forget imitating anybody you know forget heroin believe in yourself and you can take it, you know, you can do it.
And that's what really London Calling was about. And then you get to the chorus, and at the time I was living in the World's End State, which is right by the Thames, and I was following a lot of the doom prophecies that were going about. You know, the scientists having the big arguments about who's right and who's wrong. And one lot was saying that, hey, the ice age is coming, you know. And then another lot was saying, well, we're going to collide with the sun. And obviously that's diametrically opposed. I mean, we can't have an ice age if we're about to collide with the sun and roast and boil alive.
And all this stuff was going on, making you feel like, oh, I'm just an ant. Is it worth living? And then they were going on, you know, this is before the flood, Thames flood barrier. They were going, well, you better watch out down there on the Thames. We're due for a flood on the spring tides and you're all going to drown. I was having a laugh. I was cheering myself up by putting all these ridiculous things into one basket, you know. And the ice age is coming and the sun is zooming in, you know. The atoms are melting down now. The wheat is growing thin. The engines have stopped running because of the fuel crisis and all that. But never mind all that because London is drowning and I live by the river. By the river.
Joe Strummer [12:50]:
Calling to the faraway towns
Now war is pickling and battle's come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cobbled, you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look to us
Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
Except for the ring
to the invitation zone forget it brother.
I don't want to shout, but while we were talking, I saw you running out.
See, we ain't got no hide, except for that one with the yellowy eyes.
See, I see you coming, the sun's coming in, into the morning.
Do we think we'll take a nuclear air?
Well, I have no fear.
The ice is a cover, the sun's coming in.
And you're not burning, the wheat is burning.
A nuclear power, but I have no fear.
Cause London is gonna lie.
I live by the river.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Again.
Alan Whiting [15:18]: Who are your favourite lyricists?
Joe Strummer [15:48]: I like the ones that stick in the head. I mean, even, I don't know anything about 30s or 40s music, but we all know, you know, I get a kick from champagne. That mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all.
You know, things like that. The classic things that stick in your head, that's the ones I admire. You know, I think that's Cole Porter. Things from the musicals that you've only got a nodding acquaintance with that stick in your mind, like Old Man River or even Sorry With A Fringe On Top, you know, things that stick in your head. Who's that guy, Hoagy Carmichael? You know, some heavy stuff there. That Old Man From Hong Kong song, oh dear. I like things that... that I can feel the craft in.
You see, what a lot of young writers don't realise is that they're not telescoping their lines enough. Like, what those old writers realised was that you say one idea and say half of a line, and there's no need to reinforce it in the second half of the line and then add extra detail with a whole number two halves of a line. And then you've got two whole lines of a song that...
A crafty writer would have disposed of in the first half of a line and gone on with a fresh... Lyrical writing is like boxing. You know, it's no use one punch and then waiting before you bring another punch in. It's got to be like Sugar Ray Leonard, you know, combinations. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And then to adjust that, and then bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And quite often when I hear a pop song or something that's hot on the radio, you know, I wish I could have got hold of the writer and gone, hang on, look, see this line here where you're just reinforcing what you said in the line before.
Dump all that, bring a fresh idea in there, and the whole thing becomes stronger, and I feel that maybe there's not a craft in it that's why I admire those old songwriters for the craft and um one period of lyric writing which we're talking about which has never been equaled and I've looked at it through a four-dimensional viewing scope and I can't still quite understand it is you know jack the ripper sits at the head of the chamber of commerce that period of of Bob Dylan writing was quite a short period I think he probably in months he could historically bring that down to but a lot of that writing on Highway 61 Revisited and stuff like that.
Very dense. You know, I think I do well for a lot of people to study that if they want to write lyrics. The denseness, it's like a forest. Wait, just as you've hit, one image has hit you, another one is risen to take its place, you know.
And even though you couldn't really sit down and say, what does that mean? Like, let me quote you something.
At dawn my lover comes to me and tells me of her dreams.
And now the important bit.
With no attempt to shovel the glimpse into the ditch of what each one means.
Now, take those last two lines, right?
With no attempt to shovel the glimpse into the ditch of what each one means.
That to me is lyric writing at the highest because you know what it means.
You see, it hit me what poetry was. And Robert Frost, right, some great American poet, they said, define poetry, Robert. And he said, poetry is that which gets lost in translation
Now, when I read that quote, it hit me like a hammer. I realized that poetry must stay within the bounds of the language that it was written in because, and this is lyrics too, Poetry is halfway between thought and language. So it's an association. Yeah. And you cannot read foreign poetry in a translation. It just doesn't go yet. If you want to appreciate R for Rambow, I'm sorry, mate, you've got to learn late 19th century French.
Alan Whiting: Does that apply to lyrics as well? Do you think that you can only appreciate a good lyric in its musical sense?
Joe Strummer [19:54]: Well... Mostly, yeah. Although, for example, that one about the ditch you can dig just in the free air. I think a good lyric should stand out freer than music, yeah, to answer your question.
Alan Whiting: A lot of your recent lyrics have taken an anti-American stance and notably their foreign policy involvement in Central America and the Far East. What first brought that particular part of their policy to your attention?
Joe Strummer [20:23]: Why America became important to me was I realised that that everybody realizes now that we were just a a lap dog of theirs you know the present government's policies and their missiles on our turf and you know they call us the aircraft carrier Great Britain it's true that we're just a lap dog of theirs so what they were deciding in the pentagon and in the white house was directly affecting our destiny here or well and all over the world really because of their armament power and what incensed me to get into songs like Washington Bullets and stuff was because how can a country that's supposed to be a superpower so economically and militarily enormous as the United States worry about whether Nicaragua has a socialist or or what kind of government.
Alan Whiting: Straight to Hell … does reflect that anti-American feeling?
Joe Strummer [21:14]: Well, Straight to Hell really I wanted to cast around the world I wanted to see if a song could straddle the world and it struck me that the message that the young people are receiving is you don't exist or too bad mate you know too bad go over there and don't bother us and i condensed it down as much to someone going to you go straight to hell imagine we're in a pub and you ask somebody something for a light or a fag or a 10p, they would go straight to L. You know, it'd be very clear. And this is where I felt the message that was increasingly being put to use around the world. Like, for a start, to the youth in Britain, they were being told, who born you? I mean, that's bad English, but who born you? What do you mean, rights?
That's what punk gave, which... long gone now and too far gone for living memory but it gave that sense of feeling of I am a human being and I have my rights you know I have a birthright and a lot of young people today are being cheesed off that are being. They don't even dare even tiptoe up to that glowing truth.
And the first verse of Straight to Hell is about that, you know? I'm sorry, but we've got to talk about politics when we're talking about these lyrics, because the life that has lived in Milton Keynes is because of the decisions that are took in Westminster, and the life that has lived in Bradford is the same. So we've got to talk about politics, and I just feel that squeezing the manufacturing heart out of our country is going to bring us to our knees. And it's just going very rapidly towards that. You know, I can't see the sense of it.
Alan Whiting: What's the third verse in Straight to Hell about? I think the second one's self-explanatory.
Joe Strummer [23:20]: The third verse is about the solution that the dispossessed have found, which is drugs, in Parkland International. Ha! Junkiedom, USA. You know, it's just about the fact that city life centres around these parks in America where Everybody goes to get their painkillers. I haven't seen so many of my friends go down that way, you know. I mean, into the coffin. I know how attractive it is when you've got no solution. Hell, take a five-pound bag of that and you can forget all about it for a few hours.
Joe Strummer: You know, what an attractive solution. I'm hoping that that realisation will... will make some draw back from the brink because it's only a one-way street you know you've got nothing to do you're gonna end up in that heroin flat sooner or later and they all go.
Joe Strummer [24:14]:
The steel mills rust
Water froze
In the generation
Clear as winter ice
This is your paradise
There ain't no need for ya
Go straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boy
Wanna join in a chorus
Of the Aberration Blues.
When it's Christmas out at 14 minutes 15
kitties say pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-sand
Take me home, see me cop
Photo, photo, photograph of you and ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-sand
Of you and ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-sand
Let me tell you about your blood bamboo kiss.
It ain't Coca-Cola, it's rice.
Straight to hell, boy.
Go straight to hell, boy.
Go straight to hell, boy.
Go straight to hell, boy.
Oh, Papa Sam, please take me home.
Oh, Papa Sam, everybody, they want to go home.
So Mama Sam says...
You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
On the doggy-drag-ragtime USA
In Parkland International
Hey! Junkiedom USA
Where pro came through with the purest rock man groove
And rat poison.
It's a volatile, volatile test.
Can you cough it up loud and strong?
The immigrants, they want to sing all night long.
It could be anywhere, most likely.
It could be any frontier, any hemisphere.
In no man's land.
There ain't
Alan Whiting [28:00]: Do you think of yourself as a protest songwriter, Joe?
Joe Strummer: Well, now, I call protests complaining.
Alan Whiting: Are you complaining?
Joe Strummer: Yeah. Or whoever is singing it is complaining. And I don't think complaining music goes a long way to anything. See, there is a difference between protest and complaining. And I don't think it's known widely enough. And I don't think even a lot of writers have even thought that there is a difference. You know, a protest song, to me, goes a long way. But a complaining song stops short. Just a complaining song, like... We don't want no government. No, no, no, no.
It just doesn't go far enough. In fact, there's a school called calling the kettle black, which must be avoided because it's just not good enough. You know, it's like we all know that the kettle is black. You know, when it's been on the fire and it's all black underneath. There's no point picking it up and going, the kettle is black. No, no, no, no. Because we all know that. I'm looking for something that goes beyond.
Alan Whiting: So do you complain with subtlety?
Joe Strummer [29:24]: Excellent complain with subtlety you know and and if possible with poetry too you know I love this comment Johnny Rotten made when they were slagging him off in the early days for his songs and he went what do you expect some kind of poetry. I just thought that was good because it was some kind of poetry you know eat your heart off a plastic tray tell me that ain't poetry.
Alan Whiting [29:51]: Joe Strummer, thank you very much indeed.
Joe Strummer: Adios, amigo. Si, si, hasta la vista.
Alan Whiting: I'm waiting there talking to the Ernest Hemingway rock, Joe Strummer. And next week, Alan talks...
