Punk Rock Girl

The other day I was talking with a friend about my top 5 albums of all time. My criteria is it has to be something that you can listen to from start to finish and enjoy the whole album. There are lots of single collections or greatest hits, and that would be cheating. My list is so very ME.

 

5. Let it Be-the Replacements

4. Sandinista-the Clash

3. The Joshua Tree-U2

2. Ramones-Rocket to Russia

1. London Calling-the Clash

 

London Calling to me is THE perfect rock album. It is sublime, layered and just so different. It was the moment that punk became nuanced, and took it up another level. There were different stylings, all of which had been teased by previous Clash albums, but put on vinyl with London Calling. From the opening anarchy of the title track, to the surf rock a billy of Brand New Cadillac you get treated to scat and jazz on the appropriately named Jimmy Jazz. There are early gangsta overtones with the ominous Guns of Brixton, indictments of capitalism and marketing and just a good true blue romantic pining song in Train in Vain. Back in the vinyl days, that was the hidden track. It was like hitting the aural lottery when you heard it the first time.

 

I first got into the Clash when I was about my son’s age. I was in 5^th grade. I heard Train in Vain on 102.7 WNEW and it was all over. They became my favorite band. Since it was the days before the internet, I had to read articles about them on microfiche at the library. Rolling Stone seemed to feature them a lot, so I started reading it too. (I was quite the precocious 10 year old, but that’s ok. Its made me have discriminating taste.) I remember begging my mom for London Calling and when I finally got it (after what seemed like an eternity) it stayed on my turntable for a very, very, very long time. Well, at least until I got Sandinista the following year.

The album encouraged me to read about the Spanish Civil War. 

I read Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, and another literary love affair began. I read about the Crimean war and thrilled over Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. 

That led me to a poem that is still a favorite-Crossing the Bar.

 I read about Montgomery Clift and watched his movies. That in turn led to me reading another James Jones novel, the Thin Red Line. This begat me reading Rudyard Kipling, since the book title was inspired by a Kipling poem, Tommy. This lead me to read about World War I because of the Kipling poem, My Boy Jack. 

I became more literate because of the greatest rock album. Who says music can't change your life?