After getting the 25th Anniversary edition of London Calling I ordered this CD as well as a couple more of the Joe Strummer and Mescalaros CDs. Having listened to them all I am convinced that Joe Strummer played a significant role in my musical and political philosophy. I am not saying 75% of my brain is dedicated to his lyrics but, you know, for a guy I never saw in concert and maybe saw on TV for less than a couple of hours, his work has been bouncing around in my brain for over 25 years now.

It definitely began on a Wednesday night in the spring of 1978 because I won Give 'Em Enough Rope on CBC national radio's pop music chart show 90 Minutes with a Bullet. I would have had to write in and maybe answered a question. This second record by the Clash had just been released and 90 Minutes with a Bullet ran an interview with the band. I know it was spring because we moved to to a different town that summer. Also, I remember some grade 12 girl coming up to me and asking junior high me if I was the guy who won the record off the radio. I would have been 14 or 15 and I recall it being one of those voice-cracking moments the mid-teens were just so great for.

One of my favorite things about this record is its musicality. Some of the songs, like the sarcastic "Safe European Home" and its view of the Third World from the point of view of a racist white-world tourist or "Guns on the Roof" probably could have been included on the Mescaleros last record, Streetcore, fairly seamlessly. From "Guns on the Roof":

Guns guns
They torture all the women and children
Then they've put the men to the gun
'Cos across the human frontier
Freedom's always on the run

We may read this now as sophmorically paranoid - unless you think of being a guy on the street in a place like Sierra Leone during its civil war. Here's "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" [2.9 MB .wma file] and here are the lyrics. I was listening to this song the other day and noticed the music hall piano which I supposed I had heard 157 time before. Why use what is practically a tack piano in a punk song? Why approach prison sentencing for recreational drugs so scoffingly? Because it works. The experimentation is forms of pop music that the Clash and, later, Strummer and the Mescaleros pursued can be heard to start with this album.

So, what did I learn at 15 that is still kicking around? Don't be too impressed with authority. Do what you like or you will end up doing what others want. It's good to dance to music with lyrics about real stuff.