I Liked It Better When It Was Just
Grunting and “Oi’s!”
Posted on September 4th, 2006 by Brad
So I foolishly decided to look up the lyrics to the Clash’s “Complete Control,” which is one of their very awesomest all-time songs. Unfortunately, the lyrics aren’t about sticking it to the man so much as bitching about their record label. I liked it better when I didn’t know what the hell they were saying.
Wasn’t back when they worked for “The Man Records” though??
I have that song filed in the same small drawer in my head as “Rough Trade,” by Stiff Little Fingers.
Isn’t that always the way? Any time I read the lyrics to a favorite song, I think, “Gee, that’s kind of disappointing.” Exept the Ramones, bless them.
It’s a tradition. EMI was a good song, nice and bitter.
I don’t think you’re getting it. In the early days of punk (British at least) it was always understood that a pisstake on the music business was merely the first step toward an anarchist revolt that would end with strangling the last capitalist with the guts of the last cleric.
I never found those lyrics particularly hard to decipher in the first place. Now, Safe European Home on the other hand….
A few years later they did get complete control, over ¡Sandinista!, and practically bankrupted themselves in the process. Nice of them getting us fans a three-LP set for $20 though….
Nothing is sadder to me than the complete watering down and Hot Topic-ization of punk rock. Particularly odious is the subgenre of emo, which is basically punk rock with crying. Kids today are real fucking pussies.
Wrong Clash “Control” song there, Brad R. Remote Control is more yer rabble rousing Clash (note: “can’t get no gear” = can’t get no drugs):
Who needs remote control
From the Civic Hall
Push a button
Activate
You gotta work an’ you’re late
It’s so grey in London town
With a panda car crawling around
Here it comes
Eleven o’clock
Where can we go now?
Can’t make a noise
Can’t get no gear
Can’t make no money
Can’t get outta here
Big business it don’t like you
It don’t like the things you do
You got no money
So you got no power
They think you’re useless
An’ so you are – puuuuuuunnnnnk!
They had a meeting in Mayfair
They got you down an’
They wanna keep you there
It makes them worried
Their bank accounts
That’s all that matters
And you don’t count
Can’t make no progress
Can’t get ahead
Can’t stop the regress
Don’t wanna be dead
Look out’ those rules and regulations
Who needs the Parliament
Sitting making laws all day
They’re all fat and old
Queuing for the House of Lords
Repression – gonna start on Tuesday
Repression – gonna be a Dalek
Repression – I am a robot
Repression – I obey
$20?! I remember it being somewhere in the $13-$15 range. (If it was $20, I don’t think they would have taken that much of a bath — single LPs were about $8.99 at that point, if memory serves, which it probably doesn’t.)
It’s no wonder kids music is as overblown as it is. It’s not possible to have a song like Complete Control come out and not know it’s about the overcontrolling record company. Back in the day, you would listen to the album by yourself in your room and imagine what it was about, or you would be cruising around with your friends and hear it on a tape deck and you’d not only get your imagined version but your friends imagined versions too. How could the real version ever live up to your colective imaginations?
These days you hear about the song on a message board, download it and then check out the fan sites, etc. You’ll never have any mystery anymore. You can’t have a god without some myths.
Poor Emo kids. Except the haircuts, those are still just pussy-do’s. Anything haircut that uses actual hair product is not a punk hair cut.
Art Brut is probably the best punk rock band going today. The Icarus Line was kind of fun for a while in a nihilistic, Stooges kind of way, but their heyday is already over.
Back in the early nineties, I went thru a period where I was REALLY strung out. Serious substance issues, to the point where everybody stopped trying to help me and ran away as fast as they could. During the end run, I really liked Aerosmiths “Amazing”. Played it over and over, LOUD, as a party song. Had NO idea what the lyrics meant. A few months later, in a rehab house with my first 12 step experience and imagine my amazment to discover what the words meant.
I often wonder how many more songs I’m completely misinterpreting…
mikey
ToofFat:
Not to mention videos. Sheesh.
I went through a really shitty breakup about ten years ago– my ex just absolutely ripped my heart out. I came to love the song “Positively 4th Street.” I now realize that the song was probably an attack by Dylan on his demanding, hard-core folkie fans, but damnit if that song doesn’t work great as a breakup song.
Isn’t this true of just about every Clash song?
Come on. The Clash had their moment but it was just that, a moment. Don’t romanticize the media friendly punks and successful punks more than necessary.
What I don’t get is why they didn’t want “Remote Control” on the la-ay-bel. As Henry notes, it’s a pretty good song.
JK47 —
“My Back Pages” is Dylan’s kiss-off to the hardcore folkies. I’ve never heard it suggested that “Positively 4th Street” is anything but a relationship song.
But “My Back Pages” came out in 1964. The folkies were still reverent of Dylan in ’64. Dylan’s rift with the folkies didn’t happen until 1965. “Positively 4th Street” was recorded on July 29, 1965, mere weeks after Dylan’s infamous “electric” performance at the Newport festival.
“Positively 4th Street” is most definitely a ‘kiss-off’ to the Irwin Silber/Sing Out!’ folkie crowd. “My Back Pages” was sort of Dylan’s “opening farewell” ….
Don’t forget It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue in the folkie kiss-off songs. It’s pointedly the song Dylan played when they coaxed him to encore with an acoustic song after the ruckus his electric set caused at Newport.
Come on. The Clash had their moment but it was just that, a moment.
Well, considering that “moment” lasted from 1977 until 1982, that’s an awful long “moment”, I’d say.
Don’t romanticize the media friendly punks and successful punks more than necessary.
That’s probably good advice, but The Clash during that time frame I wrote above, were simply a great band, they transcended punk after London Calling, definitely. I’d say that happened with the vastly underrated and totally kick-ass Give ’em Enough Rope, which has the great Safe European Home on it:
Well I just got back an’ I wish I never leave now (where’d you go?)
Who dat Martian arrival at the airport yeah? (Where’d you go?)
How many local dollars for a local anaesthetic? (Where’d you go?)
The Johnny on the corner was very sympathetic (where’d you go?)
I went to the place where every white face is an invitation to robbery
An’ sitting here in my safe European home
I don’t wanna go back there again
Wasn’t I lucky and wouldn’t it be loverly? (Where’d you go?)
Send us all cards, and have a laying in on Sunday (where’d you go?)
I was there for two weeks, so how come I never tell (where’d you go?)
That natty dread drinks at the Sheraton Hotel yeah? (Where’d you go?)
I went to the place where every white face is an invitation to robbery
An’ sitting here in my safe European home
I don’t wanna go back there again
Ah-ah
Ah-ah
Ah-ah
They got the sun and they got the palm tress (where’d you go?)
They got the weed, and they got the taxies (where’d you go?)
Whoa, the harder they come, n’ the home of ol’ Bluebeat (where’d you go?)
Yes I’d stay and be a tourist but can’t take the gun play (where’d you?)
I went to the place where every white face is an invitation to robbery
An’ sitting here in my safe European home
I don’t wanna go back there again
Yeah? Rudie come from Jamaica Rudie can’t fail
Rudie come from Jamaica Rudie can’t fail
Rudie come from Jamaica cos Rudie can’ t fail
Rudie come From Jamaica rude cant fail
Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie can’t fail
Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie can’t fail
A-Rudie loot and a-Rudie shoot and a-Rudie come up then back down
Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie *&^$&£�£%£*
Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie can’t fail
Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie, Rudie he can’t fail
Nice guy European home
Explosive European home
Twenty Four Track European home
Yes he come and yes he go knows what Rudie knows
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” packs a lot into four amazing verses. I always thought it was more a song about growing up than anything else. I love the scene in “Don’t Look Back” where Donovan plays his cutesy little song, only to be completely annihliated by Dylan’s performance of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, baby blue
Yeah, our old rabbi Uncle Bob can get them layers into his songs. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” has more than a few dimensions.
“Who’s this Donovan?” …. I love the way he asked that in “Don’t Look Back”
(I’m told Mr Leitch lives on the edge of the desert outside of Los Angeles.
I’d like to think he’s subletting Captain Beefheart’s trailer.)
“Repression – gonna start on Tuesday
Repression – gonna be a Dalek
Repression – I am a robot
Repression – I obey”
Wow, it never occured to me to look for a Dr. Who reference in a Clash song before!
Yoiks!
That’s really frightening, and I don’t even know ya that well!