Sunday, October 2

October 2, 2016 - The Clash - Straight to Hell (1982)


OK, another song about hell. Straight to Hell is the elegy recited at yesterday's funeral in Stull. It could be Stull (part 2). Perhaps this guy was guilted to death by the Clash, forced to listen to the lyrics by Joe Strummer on the way to Stull until he saw himself in them.

Go straight to hell boys...the verses describe three different situations in the world that were basically a piss-off to the working poor by those in power. Steels mills being shut down in England. Poor American boys sent to Vietnam who ended up fathering Vietnamese children who never knew them. Arson started in apartment buildings occupied by Puerto Rican immigrants in an effort to frighten them out of a neighborhood in New York.

The opening music has a hazy film of regret, and to me it also has a sci-fi aspect to it, like these are images being broadcast out into space - look alien beings, this is what our people do to each other. At 0:21 it sneaks in the oriental riff with some quasi-bamboo clack percussion.
Image result for the clash 1982

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