Ono kad neki bend zakopa album poput "London Calling" za par tjedana. Evo samo to je dosta da ostaneš bez riječi i pokloniš im se. A kamoli sve ostalo.

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Strummer, born John Mellor, is one-fourth Indian; his father was born in India, came to the U.K., and eventually entered the foreign service in some junior position. His mother was from the far, far north of Scotland, the rough equivalent of being from Nome. Strummer himself was born in Turkey. He also lived in Mexico, Egypt, and Germany before being sent back home to what he recalled was a repressive boarding school. (“It was a place when people hung themselves,” Strummer has said.) Despite once-a-year trips to exotic locales to see his parents, he was at that point decisively emotionally detached from them. At school he was, by his own account, a ringleader and one of the bullies, as opposed to the bullied. In the codes governing him and his fellows at the time, this background made him somewhat upper class, and he worked to suppress such leanings. He ended up in arts school, “the last refuge of malingers, bluffers and people who don’t want to work.” He played in a band called the Vultures, during which time he billed himself as “Woody Mellor” in homage to Woody Guthrie. He was eventually thrown out of school; on his way home that night, he tossed his portfolio into a garbage can.

The Magnificent Seven (1980)

Having rattled through punk, reggae, ska, dub and rockabilly inside five years, our boys assimilate the emerging hip-hop sounds they heard while in New York, and Strummer turns white rap pioneer. A terrific groove forms the platform for daft-but-inspired wordplay: “Italian mobster shoots a lobster.”

Train in Vain (1979)

After a planned NME flexidisc fell through, this sublime Jones unrequited love song was added to London Calling too late for listing on the initial sleeves. Pete Townshend’s favourite Clash tune, this is the band at their unashamedly poppiest. Headon’s killer drum intro fires one of the rhythm section’s funkiest grooves.

Rock the Casbah (1982)

Headon wrote and played most of the music on Combat Rock’s club/chart smash, which innovatively combines rock, funk and a slightly eastern feel. Strummer’s lyrics are inspired by Iran’s post-Islamic revolution ban on pop music, the singer’s idea being that the people would rise up and “rock the casbah”.

Death or Glory (1979)

Strummer’s ferocious blast at ageing, sellout rock stars builds to a hurtling climax on a lyrical twist as he fears a similar fate himself. Presumably it was ruled out as a single because of the infamous, hilarious line: “But I believe in this and it’s been tested by research / He who fucks nuns will later join the church.”

The Guns of Brixton (1979)

Brixton boy Simonon wanted some songwriting cash and so penned this memorable song about police harassment and discontent in his London neighbourhood, two years before the district exploded into rioting. In 1990, Simonon received an unexpected windfall when Norman Cook (later Fatboy Slim) sampled the groove for Beats International’s hit Dub Be Good to Me.

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