Great Albums – London Calling “To The Faraway Towns”
On TFAD we want to start a new occasional series, where contributors write about a great album and what it means to them. If you want to get involved please e-mail me your post and we’ll get it up on the blog.
Over to me:
In December 1979, a music-obsessed suburban teenager sat on the bus after school, reading his NME on the way to buy The Clash’s third album, ‘London Calling’. It was with a small amount of trepidation, after the let down of their second album, ‘Give ’Em Enough Rope’, that I stepped into Bonaparte Records in Guildford. ‘London Calling’ was on the turntable; ‘Guns of Brixton’ was blasting out from the record shop PA. My doubts disappeared. I knew at once that this was a very special record.
I listened to the album right through twice in that crowded record shop before handing over the fiver I’d saved from my Saturday job and dashing home with my prize. Over the next few weeks, I played it almost to death. Thirty years later, as I write this, that very same, and by now very scratchy, vinyl is playing on my Rega Planar 3 – and it still sounds just as fresh and exciting as ever. It’s no exaggeration to say that, in a lifetime of buying music, ‘London Calling’ is the album that’s most important to me. It’s my ‘Kind of Blue’, my ‘Sgt Pepper’.
Like Joy Division’s austere masterpiece ‘Unknown Pleasures’, which also celebrated its 30th birthday last year, ‘London Calling’ has the power of all great art to invoke a time and a place. It transports me back to a happy commuter town adolescence filled with mates, movies, bands, John Peel, NME, gigs and trashy Sci-Fi novels.
The album’s cover – dominated by Pennie Smith’s now-iconic photo of Paul Simonon smashing his bass at a gig in New York – is a perfect scene-setter: ‘London Calling’ is The Clash’s tribute to pulsing guitars, reggae bass lines and rebellion. The nineteen tracks feature continual classics, from ‘Guns of Brixton’ to ‘Spanish Bombs’, to the glorious ska rampage of ‘Wrong ’Em Boyo’ and the unlisted final song, ‘Train in Vain’. There isn’t a single duff track.
But the throbbing heart of the album is the title number. ‘London Calling’ is an anthem that grabbed me by the throat when I first heard it – and that still does today.
London Calling
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Guns of Brixton
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Wrong ’Em Boyo
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Train in Vain
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You can download the whole album here.
£5 for a double album, those WERE the days. I remember being desperate for a Friday at school to come to an end so i could dash off on the bus to Brent Cross shopping centre in order to buy The Jam’s “Setting Sons” on day of release and I wasn’t disappointed. But now we just idly flick a button on Amazon or download tracks so we don’t even get the artwork that as you say is so iconic on “London Calling”.
The thing about this album was that it was a calling card from London to embrace the rest of the world through it’s diverse music styles. The Clash then took that to the opposite extreme and lost all their London roots, not only physically relocating to the US, but Sandinista and Combat Rock which followed, were albums with some highs, but a lot of rootless lows of white punks trying exotic styles and sounding like poor tribute acts. Still, some kudos to them for trying I suppose.
I’ll e-mail you mine of “Cop” by Swans if that’s okay.
Marc
HMV Brent Cross! I was regular patron. Simon, what an excellent idea. This will definitely set the keyboards smoking. I remember getting this album very clearly. I’d also been very disappointed with ‘Give ‘em Enough Rope’. This was a very different experience. It was ambitious. Punk had done it’s work & a certain dogmatism was being laid to rest before your eyes/ears. You could hear how they now felt free to musically reveal all their enthusiams and influences, particularly a growing feeling for Americana.
Not all of it worked then or now, but it was still totally compelling. The opening bars of the title track was and still is a uniquely powerful (and slightly frightening) experience. One of THE great covers, agreed.
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What a great idea for a post series, and what a great album and band! Sure am thankful I got to see them live.