The Ghost of Joe Strummer

In 1983, I was (11) years old and hadn’t quite found my musical compass.  Whatever I could tune in on radio (or what my sibs were into) was what I listened to.  Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Joan Jett, Eddie Rabbit, New Edition, Kool and the Gang; none of which is inherently bad, just not in my wheelhouse. It seems odd to me now that I was ever clueless about music but hey, I was just a kid.  I do remember, lying under the covers spinning the wheel of the transistor looking for something, anything that was better than Eddy Grant’s Electric Avenue.  Actually, in hindsight in many ways that song primed me for my later love of Bob Marley and even the Clash in some respects.  At any rate, I knew or at least hoped there was something else out there.  It’s just occurred to me that I’ve always been a musical snob even before I knew what good music was.  Oh well.

This is at a time long before the internet and iTunes, so one’s musical tastes were somewhat limited by their environment.  I didn’t live in NYC, quite the opposite actually.  MTV was on-air then but certainly wasn’t carried on the local cable provider – it being the handiwork of the devil and all.  Radio was a year behind.  We did have Friday Night Videos though and that was something, but I never saw the Clash on FNV. 

One day my brother received a package in the mail from Columbia House.  Anybody remember those days?  Inside were the (12) + (1) free cassette tapes he had purchased for a penny when signing up for this record club.  I’m not even that old and that last sentence just sounds stupid to me now!  Record club?  Really?  Yup.  I don’t think I’ve ever told him this but those (13) cassette tapes probably had more impact on my musical sensibilities than any other single event in my life.  There was some great stuff in that box man – Stevie Wonder, The Police, Electric Light Orchestra, Eagles, Big Country – I can’t believe I still remember that.  The most important tape in the stack though was Combat Rock by the Clash.  One look at the cover and I was hooked, before I even heard the songs.  Who were these guys?  Whoever they were they were dangerous and they were not the people in my little town and I loved it.  It was new.  It was different.  And it opened my eyes to a musical world that I had no idea existed.  Being just a kid, I filed it away after a couple of months. 

Over the next several years any time I heard Rock the Casbah or Car Jamming I went right back to that first day I met Joe Strummer.  The Clash were always around.  I listened to every song but I never really heard the music. 

Years later after I’d moved out of my first marriage, I was sifting through the damage and happened across this actual cassette from my way back.  I must have swiped it when brother wasn’t looking, I don’t remember really.  I still have it though, properly alphabetized (of course) in the crate under the bed with the rest of my cassette tapes from back in the day.  (How can I get rid of gold?)  I popped it in and listened to every track and it took me back to my childhood in a way that I can’t describe – to some of the absolute best memories I knew. 

That wasn’t enough.  Honestly, as a kid I hadn't known that Combat wasn’t even nearly their best work, but as a young man I realized that I had to hear what Joe and Mick were saying, not just listen to the music.  The lyrics had not registered with me at (11) but they did that day.  Luckily by then Al Gore had invented the internet and I went to work re-discovering and devouring every morsel of music and information I could get my hands on.  I was (29) [I think] and from that day to this not a day has passed that I didn’t listen to at least (1) Clash song and more often than not a helluva lot more.  I’m Not Down quickly became my personal anthem and almost literally carried me through those days.  It’s carried me through tough times since and is back in heavy rotation even now.  And is there a better song when you’re going through a break up than Train in Vain?  I don’t think so.

Joe Strummer died on Sunday, 22 December – the winter solstice as it is tonight – I think appropriately on the longest night of 2002.

I will not condescend an attempt to eulogize the man that Joe Strummer was and I certainly won’t try to convince you of how important the Clash remain to this day. They are, in fact still the most important band in the world.  If you don’t understand that by now, if you don’t agree with that statement I’m not sure what to say to you.  I was not aware of how groundbreaking they were when they happened.  The politics, the social statements that were made?  If you look at what Joe was saying then in today’s terms it might not be that shocking: but against the backdrop of Reagan-era policy, the cold war and everything else that was the cluster of late ‘70s / early ‘80s world culture it will blow your mind.  Groundbreaking is the largest understatement ever made as a description of who Joe Strummer was and what the Clash meant and still mean to music and more importantly to this world.  His words resonate with me tonight same as it ever was.

When the 1^st Gulf War started it's been said that one of the first bombs dropped on Iraq had the phrase “Rock the Casbah” scrawled along the side.  Strummer reportedly wept when we heard this – so many years after the fact and the world still did not understand the underlying message of his music.

The ghost of Joe Strummer haunts me every day / every night and I wouldn't have it any other way.  I would say rest in peace old friend on this the anniversary of your death but I won’t.  You’re not dead – you live on inside of me and millions of others whose lives you’ve touched.  You were the absolute deal brother.  I get that and as long as I’m alive everyone within earshot will get that too, or at least be made aware. 

I’ve said too much.  Listen to the music.  Maybe you will hear.

Car Jamming

Rock the Casbah

Spanish Bombs

Train in Vain

London’s Burning

Long Shadow

I’m Not Down

“Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control and it didn't have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realized that you either became a power or you were crushed”

--Joe Strummer

21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002

"I've been beat up, I've been thrown out

     but I'm not down, I'm not down
I've been shown up, but I've grown up
And I'm not down, No I'm not down"