Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 22 Jun 2020, 9:10am
I think the verses are great but what a terrible chorus. Like a nursery rhyme or something.
If Music Could Talk
Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Page 7 of 9
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 22 Jun 2020, 9:12am
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 22 Jun 2020, 9:47am
Remember when being treated like trash by the mainstream was pretty standard with punk and was even regarded as an ironic badge of honour? Back-to-basics punk Joe seemingly didn't.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 22 Jun 2020, 9:55am
Didn't Three Card outlast This Is England in the vote off poll we did recently? Seems like a more interesting poll would leave Three Card off instead of TIE since we are all a bunch of edgelords.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 22 Jun 2020, 12:17pm
I'm not.
The tune is good but trying to convince Clash fans that the real Clash isn't dead. Simply didn't wash.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 22 Jun 2020, 12:35pm
His masterpiece.Marky Dread wrote: ↑21 Jun 2020, 5:27pmNot as good as "We Aren't The Clash" by some bloke I know.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 22 Jun 2020, 12:36pm
My fave is his version of Inoculated City.Olaf wrote: ↑22 Jun 2020, 12:35pmHis masterpiece.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 22 Jun 2020, 12:38pm
Don't remember that to be honest. Will check.Marky Dread wrote: ↑22 Jun 2020, 12:36pmMy fave is his version of Inoculated City.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 23 Jun 2020, 11:55pm
But remember -- as Mark and I said, in WATC -- the idea, apparently, was to celebrate the band and its ideals, using the "royal we" (so to speak) to do that. As in, "We are all the Clash," not so much the band itself. Obviously, that didn't come across, but, from what we researched, that was the intent.I'm not. The tune is good but trying to convince Clash fans that the real Clash isn't dead. Simply didn't wash.
Mind you, I voted for North & South, myself -- it's one of the few tunes that escapes the CTC studio mauling (relatively) unscathed. Solid tune, great vocals, nice guitar work, as well. That, plus Three Card Trick, were always my top favorites after This Is England.
While we're on the subject, We Are The Clash, to my thinking, was done way, way better on the spring '84 Euro tour, since it's got that extended coda that didn't make it to the album (one of the major differences between Clash II and the MJ era, in my opinion).
Whereas the CTC version sounds stiff and leaden, to my ears, and -- as my good friend Don has pointed out -- it's the only song of its kind where the guitar solo(s) get quieter as the track continues! Not an ideal situation, all the way around.
Which is my basic issue with CTC, having revisited it many, many times during the work on the book -- but I still felt as I did then, that it's largely a case of good songs recorded badly. That said, if you put Ammunition and Pouring Rain in there, you're talking about a stronger record, or at least one that makes a bit more sense. How Bernie could bench those two in favor of such bottom of the barrel fodder as Fingerpoppin' and Play To Win has always baffled me over the years.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 24 Jun 2020, 1:06am
When did Joe write Pouring Rain?Chairman Ralph wrote: ↑23 Jun 2020, 11:55pmBut remember -- as Mark and I said, in WATC -- the idea, apparently, was to celebrate the band and its ideals, using the "royal we" (so to speak) to do that. As in, "We are all the Clash," not so much the band itself. Obviously, that didn't come across, but, from what we researched, that was the intent.I'm not. The tune is good but trying to convince Clash fans that the real Clash isn't dead. Simply didn't wash.
Mind you, I voted for North & South, myself -- it's one of the few tunes that escapes the CTC studio mauling (relatively) unscathed. Solid tune, great vocals, nice guitar work, as well. That, plus Three Card Trick, were always my top favorites after This Is England.
While we're on the subject, We Are The Clash, to my thinking, was done way, way better on the spring '84 Euro tour, since it's got that extended coda that didn't make it to the album (one of the major differences between Clash II and the MJ era, in my opinion).
Whereas the CTC version sounds stiff and leaden, to my ears, and -- as my good friend Don has pointed out -- it's the only song of its kind where the guitar solo(s) get quieter as the track continues! Not an ideal situation, all the way around.
Which is my basic issue with CTC, having revisited it many, many times during the work on the book -- but I still felt as I did then, that it's largely a case of good songs recorded badly. That said, if you put Ammunition and Pouring Rain in there, you're talking about a stronger record, or at least one that makes a bit more sense. How Bernie could bench those two in favor of such bottom of the barrel fodder as Fingerpoppin' and Play To Win has always baffled me over the years.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 24 Jun 2020, 1:43am
Well, it's on those 11/83 demos from Lucky Eight, so it had to have been gestating since that summer before Mick got his walking papers -- or certainly, not long after. It's played in the looser, funkier style that characterizes its initial appearance on the spring '84 European tour. So I'm assuming it wasn't more than a few months old when Joe, Paul, Nick and Pete put it down in its earliest form.
To me, it's always been a crying shame that it never got recorded properly -- it was among the four new songs that they played at my gig (MSU, 5/10/84), and it stuck in my head as one of the highlights of that night.
To me, it's always been a crying shame that it never got recorded properly -- it was among the four new songs that they played at my gig (MSU, 5/10/84), and it stuck in my head as one of the highlights of that night.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 24 Jun 2020, 1:46am
Is it possible Mick was involved in the original incarnation of the song and that is the reason it was never considered for CTC?Chairman Ralph wrote: ↑24 Jun 2020, 1:43amWell, it's on those 11/83 demos from Lucky Eight, so it had to have been gestating since that summer before Mick got his walking papers -- or certainly, not long after. It's played in the looser, funkier style that characterizes its initial appearance on the spring '84 European tour. So I'm assuming it wasn't more than a few months old when Joe, Paul, Nick and Pete put it down in its earliest form.
To me, it's always been a crying shame that it never got recorded properly -- it was among the four new songs that they played at my gig (MSU, 5/10/84), and it stuck in my head as one of the highlights of that night.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 24 Jun 2020, 2:16am
No, I don't believe so, myself. Nick told me -- and this comment has already popped up here -- that Bernie didn't want Pouring Rain on the record, because he considered it a disco song, and evidently, this new Clash didn't play such things. That's confusing, of course, unless he was disparaging its earlier, funkier incarnation (which is my hunch). But as CTC's producer, overseer, supremo, whatever you want to call it, BR had the final say over what got on CTC, and what didn't.
Nick also said that Pouring Rain was a group effort, with everyone putting their ideas in, the only time that that ever happened. According to Nick, he suggested slowing it down, and came up with that intro, which sparked Pete into playing that terse, staccato drumbeat that drives the song, while Vince worked up a lot of those leads. To me, that story implies a reworking of something that was part of a (then) current era, versus reworking a half-finished idea from a previous one.
One other factor that might have had a hand in Pouring Rain's exclusion is that the process dragged on so long -- between the actual working up of the material, followed by its "road testing" live, and then, the actual sessions -- that perhaps enthusiasm waned for it, along with a lot of those songs that got aired initially (like Glue Zombie, for instance). That happens a lot in recording -- sometimes, you come up with something that feels more exciting than whatever idea you were working up in the first place, and so, you go with that instead.
The other factor that makes me think that Pouring Rain's not an MJ leftover is its construction. It's a very straightforward song -- four verses, four choruses, plus those moody melodic leads between them, then over and out. Whereas, a lot of the stuff Mick was doing then had some kind of twist, in particular, a coda that takes the song somewhere else. That, to me, is the biggest difference between the Clash II era, and the one that they were trying to leave behind (aside from the vocal interplay between Mick and Joe).
Nick also said that Pouring Rain was a group effort, with everyone putting their ideas in, the only time that that ever happened. According to Nick, he suggested slowing it down, and came up with that intro, which sparked Pete into playing that terse, staccato drumbeat that drives the song, while Vince worked up a lot of those leads. To me, that story implies a reworking of something that was part of a (then) current era, versus reworking a half-finished idea from a previous one.
One other factor that might have had a hand in Pouring Rain's exclusion is that the process dragged on so long -- between the actual working up of the material, followed by its "road testing" live, and then, the actual sessions -- that perhaps enthusiasm waned for it, along with a lot of those songs that got aired initially (like Glue Zombie, for instance). That happens a lot in recording -- sometimes, you come up with something that feels more exciting than whatever idea you were working up in the first place, and so, you go with that instead.
The other factor that makes me think that Pouring Rain's not an MJ leftover is its construction. It's a very straightforward song -- four verses, four choruses, plus those moody melodic leads between them, then over and out. Whereas, a lot of the stuff Mick was doing then had some kind of twist, in particular, a coda that takes the song somewhere else. That, to me, is the biggest difference between the Clash II era, and the one that they were trying to leave behind (aside from the vocal interplay between Mick and Joe).
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 24 Jun 2020, 2:59am
Thanks for the insight.Chairman Ralph wrote: ↑24 Jun 2020, 2:16amNo, I don't believe so, myself. Nick told me -- and this comment has already popped up here -- that Bernie didn't want Pouring Rain on the record, because he considered it a disco song, and evidently, this new Clash didn't play such things. That's confusing, of course, unless he was disparaging its earlier, funkier incarnation (which is my hunch). But as CTC's producer, overseer, supremo, whatever you want to call it, BR had the final say over what got on CTC, and what didn't.
Nick also said that Pouring Rain was a group effort, with everyone putting their ideas in, the only time that that ever happened. According to Nick, he suggested slowing it down, and came up with that intro, which sparked Pete into playing that terse, staccato drumbeat that drives the song, while Vince worked up a lot of those leads. To me, that story implies a reworking of something that was part of a (then) current era, versus reworking a half-finished idea from a previous one.
One other factor that might have had a hand in Pouring Rain's exclusion is that the process dragged on so long -- between the actual working up of the material, followed by its "road testing" live, and then, the actual sessions -- that perhaps enthusiasm waned for it, along with a lot of those songs that got aired initially (like Glue Zombie, for instance). That happens a lot in recording -- sometimes, you come up with something that feels more exciting than whatever idea you were working up in the first place, and so, you go with that instead.
The other factor that makes me think that Pouring Rain's not an MJ leftover is its construction. It's a very straightforward song -- four verses, four choruses, plus those moody melodic leads between them, then over and out. Whereas, a lot of the stuff Mick was doing then had some kind of twist, in particular, a coda that takes the song somewhere else. That, to me, is the biggest difference between the Clash II era, and the one that they were trying to leave behind (aside from the vocal interplay between Mick and Joe).
I get the point about the song being around for a while before recording then something new coming along sounding more exciting. There can’t be any other treason for putting those songs before the one that is clearly better.
Re: Leaving out This Is England, what is your favourite song on CTC?
Posted: 24 Jun 2020, 3:15am
Yes the old party line by Bernie and Joe that any version of The Clash could continue and be "The Clash". Total crap really and the truth to "We Are The Clash" is they were telling the world so what if Mick and Topper are gone we're still "The Clash". It had to be written in response to Mick saying tongue in cheek that he was going to take the real Clash on the road.Chairman Ralph wrote: ↑23 Jun 2020, 11:55pmBut remember -- as Mark and I said, in WATC -- the idea, apparently, was to celebrate the band and its ideals, using the "royal we" (so to speak) to do that. As in, "We are all the Clash," not so much the band itself. Obviously, that didn't come across, but, from what we researched, that was the intent.I'm not. The tune is good but trying to convince Clash fans that the real Clash isn't dead. Simply didn't wash.
Mind you, I voted for North & South, myself -- it's one of the few tunes that escapes the CTC studio mauling (relatively) unscathed. Solid tune, great vocals, nice guitar work, as well. That, plus Three Card Trick, were always my top favorites after This Is England.
While we're on the subject, We Are The Clash, to my thinking, was done way, way better on the spring '84 Euro tour, since it's got that extended coda that didn't make it to the album (one of the major differences between Clash II and the MJ era, in my opinion).
Whereas the CTC version sounds stiff and leaden, to my ears, and -- as my good friend Don has pointed out -- it's the only song of its kind where the guitar solo(s) get quieter as the track continues! Not an ideal situation, all the way around.
Which is my basic issue with CTC, having revisited it many, many times during the work on the book -- but I still felt as I did then, that it's largely a case of good songs recorded badly. That said, if you put Ammunition and Pouring Rain in there, you're talking about a stronger record, or at least one that makes a bit more sense. How Bernie could bench those two in favor of such bottom of the barrel fodder as Fingerpoppin' and Play To Win has always baffled me over the years.
As for the crap "C.C.Rockers" t-shirt that Joe wore. Remember when the "Rockers" were not a gang but a nod to jamaican roots rock reggae. Plus the awful "rock, rock, Clash City Rockers!" In "We Are The Clash" just so sad.