What is the most underrated Clash song?

White Man in Hammersmith Palais is underrated by the general public, if not by Clash fans or Joe Strummer — it was apparently his own favorite song.

The lyrics, an examination of how Joe Strummer, ‘the all-night drug-prowling wolf’ of the song, felt seeing a show of reggae performers that he felt had basically sold out to put on a grinning song-and-dance show for their mainly black, Rastafarian audience. He muses on the temptations facing a musician in the music business, the fact that ‘new’ punk groups are only in it for the money and seems to feel pessismistic about rock and roll as a revolutionary force at all.

The music, a classic potboiling burble, produced by “The Clash” which is code for “Mick Jones,” matches the brilliance of the music, building from a quiet punk/reggae groove to a howling crescendo that includes Joe Strummer prounouncing judgement on most of the musicians in the “punk”scene: “If Adolph Hitler flew in today/They’d send him a limousine, anyway”, only to swiftly die back down to it’s post-cathartic reggae groove.

Another runner up to this is the mainly Mick Jones penned “Complete Control”,a pretty clear indictment against the band’s record label and the fact that they had released a single without the band’s permission not long before. It just. fricking. rocks.’ First song Topper Headon played on.

Clash fans love these songs.

As far as songs underrated by Clash fans….hard to say. There is something for everyone in the Clash: I’d go with some of the lesser known songs on Sandinista, perhaps. If I had to nominate one which I think is largely underrated(and it is hard to narrow it down to one), I’d probably go with the beautifully melodic “Corner Soul”.

I’m not really sure what the lyrics are about. One interpretation is that it is a comment on UK politician Enoch Powell’s belief that white and black cultures living together would eventually bring about a “River of Blood” — if so, it may be Strummer’s statement of belief that music as a unifying force between cultures: when he asks if the “music is calling for a River of Blood”, I think he is implying that the answer is “No.”

Another interpretation, and my own personal first impression is that the “Sammy” of the song is a young civilian boy caught up in the Vietnam War: given Joe Strummer’s many Vietnam-themed lyrics of the time (Charlie Don’t Surf, Sean Flynn, Straight to Hell) it seems to fit.

Written February 6th