John Richards

Abit (8) Maryland - International Clash Day ID Good morning and happy Friday. "The future is unwritten"....Joe Strummer. It's International Clash Day, with our focus on the band that inspired change and on the current climate crisis. The lyrics for "This Is Radio Clash" say, "Can we get the world to listen?": www.youtube.com

Addy (9) Bainbridge Island - International Clash Day ID "Number three... You have the right to free speech.... As long as You're not dumb enough to actually try it...." : www.youtube.com

Marvin Gaye left love ballads behind to explore deeper social and environmental themes in his classic 1971 album, "What's Going On." He said about this song: "If only we would adhere to certain laws that Mother Nature... THAT'S THE KEY! We appear to have reached the bottom line. And, just like Bunny says (here he's referring to the Jamaican musician Bunny Wailer), it's in obeying the laws of nature that this wisdom and freedom lies. "

This song was originally recorded by the Jamaican group Danny Ray and the Revolutioneers in 1976. Danny Ray sampled the Jackie Edwards song "Get Up" on the track, so Edwards and Ray are the credited songwriters of "Revolution Rock."

ID - Djuna Nesbitt and Adele Armstrong of Eckstein Middle School. -- Singer Joe Strummer noted in a interview that the title "Hate and War" was a direct reversal of the hippie phrase "Love and Peace," done to illustrate the contrast between the optimism and hope of the late 1960s and the grim reality of Britain in the '70s. "It was a good punk rock blast to have a song called that" he said. remembered that he "wrote the lyrics in a disused ice cream factory I'd broken into. It was just behind the Harrow Road in Foscote Mews. I wrote it in the dark by candlelight and the next day took it to Rehearsals and Mick put a tune to it."

With a little imagination, Joe Strummer's vocal delivery can be considered "rapping," which would make it the first rap track ever written by a white rock band under this loose interpretation - it was recorded in March 1980, six months before Blondie's own attempt at the genre with "Rapture." Rap was emerging in the New York music scene when The Clash arrived in town to record Sandinista!, and guitarist Mick Jones really got into the genre, carrying a boombox around and garnering the nickname 'Whack Attack' from his bandmates. "When we came to the US, Mick stumbled upon a music shop in Brooklyn that carried the music of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the Sugarhill Gang... these groups were radically changing music and they changed everything for us," noted Strummer.

"We won’t stop until we’ve beaten down the planet into pellets....Poor kids saying, “This is the future that you left us?”: genius.com Watch Kate Tempest perform this song live at KEXP: www.youtube.com

Adele (8) International Clash Day ID "We won't stop until we've beaten down the planet into pellets....Poor kids saying, "This is the future that you left us?" Watch Kate Tempest perform this song live at KEXP: www.youtube.com --

"Time is running out for us... But you just move the hands upon the clock..." Here's Mr. Yorke performing an acoustic version of this song: www.youtube.com

The "Hammersmith Palais de Danse" was a famous music venue in Hammersmith, London, that hosted, among numerous others, The Sex Pistols, David Bowie, The Cure and The Rolling Stones. It was shut down on April 1 2007; the final gig was played by post-punk band The Fall. This was one of Joe Strummer's favorites - in the post-Clash era he continued to play it with his new band The Mescaleros, and it was also played at his funeral.

Junior Murvin (born Murvin Junior Smith, circa 1946 was a Jamaican reggae musician. He is best known for the single "Police and Thieves", produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry in 1976. : www.theguardian.com

Arden (9) International Clash Day ID -- This cover is the first example of The Clash incorporating reggae into their repertoire, something that can be heard in original songs like "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" and "Guns of Brixton." At the time, reggae was the music of Britain's oppressed Jamaican population.

Midnight Oil performed this in front of a worldwide audience of billions, (including Prime Minister John Howard, who had claimed it as his favorite Midnight Oil song) at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The whole band were dressed in black, with the words "sorry" printed conspicuously on their clothes. This was a reference to the Prime Minister's refusal to apologize, on behalf of Australia, to the Aboriginal Australians for the way they have been treated over the last 200 years.

Watch Peter Garrett front Midnight Oil in a live performance of "Dreamworld": www.youtube.com

Ari Theodoropoulos (10) Toronto International Clash Day ID -- Audrey (6) Poulsbo - International Clash Day ID -- Clash bass player Paul Simonon said that this song is about the lack of jobs and how kids had the same old, nearly identical lives. Most of Paul's friends from school went to work at a factory around the corner because the school didn't give them any other opportunities or decisions.

Ahhh...the Friday song. Read this KEXP essay about how artists are approaching sustainability and find out how you can do your part as well. : www.kexp.org

"Lost In The Supermarket" was first conceived and written in an actual supermarket under the block of flats Joe Strummer was living in at the time with his girlfriend Gaby Salter. While it was too small for Strummer to literally get "lost in the supermarket," he did note in a 1999 interview that the song "occurred to me as I stumbled around dazed by the color and the lights." This would certainly explain the heavy themes of commercialism in the lyrics ("I'm all tuned in, I see all the programs, I save coupons from packets of tea").

Bella (6) and Olivia (2-3) in background - Washington - International Clash Day ID "Sharif don't like it..." Read a brief history of "Rock the Casbah": www.geeksandbeats.com

Roger Charlery, aka Ranking Roger, died last year of cancer: www.npr.org He performed "Rock the Casbah" in 1981 to aid Joe Strummer's charity, Strummerville: thebeatofficial.com

"Beautiful Day" was written by all members of U2. Bono wrote the lyrics whereas the other band members (The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr.) wrote the music. The song was produced by the renowned English musician and record producer Brian Eno, Canadian record producer Daniel Lanois and English record producer Steve Lillywhite. Michael Stipe once famously said he loved the song so much that he wished he had been the one who wrote it.

Aurora Aksnes , known as AURORA, is a Norwegian singer, songwriter and record producer. "The Seed" is a single from her third album, due for release on June 7th. She says, “People say ‘live like you don’t care’ or ‘party like you don’t care’, but I like to care.....I think people do, too, now more than ever. It’s a time of open ears and open eyes”.: consequenceofsound.net

Brady (13) Joshua (11) Jacks (2) Pennsylviania - International Clash Day ID Björk : "Human Behaviour is an animal's point of view on humans. And the animals are definitely supposed to win in the end."See the video for this song from Bjork's debut album: www.youtube.com

Cara (8) Dublin Ireland - International Clash Day ID -- A "Rudie" is a "Rude Boy," which is a term for the first English generation born to Jamaican parents who had emigrated to England - the so called JamEnglish generation. These "Rude Boys" were often looked down upon as irresponsible, which is the theme of this song, but others would celebrate their ways as a rebellious expression of freedom.

This song is about Clash frontman, the late Joe Strummer, looking back at his life, acknowledging the complications and responsibilities of adulthood. Kind of odd to read ripped-and-tough lyrics like these and think that the cynical punk rocker was an avid tree-hugger. In fact, Strummer founded The Carbon Neutral Company (originally called "Future Forests"), dedicated to planting trees all over the world in order to combat global warming. Strummer was also the first artist to record, press and distribute records while remaining carbon neutral.

Cedar (9) from Chicago - International Clash Day Bill Berry said in 1986 that the song was specifically about Acid Rain, which occurs when the burning of fossil fuels releases sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere, causing rain to be acidic and threatening the environment. The video was filmed upside down in a rock quarry, and snippets of the environmentally concerned words flash on-screen throughout: "Buy" the sky, "Sell" the sky, etc.: www.youtube.com

Charlie (10) Little Rock - International Clash Day ID This song as written and sung by bassist Paul Simonon, who grew up in Brixton, South London.

"Who's in a bunker?" Thom Yorke refers to this song (ironically) as "Radiohead's happiest song.": www.wordsinthebucket.com

"Earthquake, tsunami, there's still no place i'd rather be..." They love Seattle, and we love TacocaT. Watch a KEXP live version of "I Love Seattle": www.youtube.com

The song was inspired by a conversation singer Joe Strummer was having with his then-girlfriend Gaby Salter on the way home from the studio one night about the Basque separatists who at the time were engaged in a bombing campaign against various holiday resorts on the Costa Del Sol. "There should be a song called 'Spanish Bombs' about it," noted Strummer. So he wrote one.

Charlie (10) Little Rock - International Clash Day ID The Clash began to implode while recording "Combat Rock" in late 1981. Personal problems aside, Mick was into hip-hop, Paul was into reggae and Joe was all over the place, though he still loved traditional punk. They had a hard time fusing these elements together, especially since they pledged to confine the record to a single LP. Somehow or another, everything came together perfectly on "Straight to Hell," a snarling attack on American soldiers in Vietnam who left behind pregnant locals. They finished the song on New Years's Eve at Electric Lady studio. "I knew we'd done something great," said Strummer. "It was one of our absolute masterpieces. But the band had to shatter after that record."

That's guitarist Mick Jones singing the vocals on this song. "Train in Vain" isn't listed on the sleeve credits for "London Calling" because it was originally going to be a flexi giveaway with NME magazine. Unfortunately, the idea proved too expensive and the track went on the album instead.

Cole (11) Seattle International Clash Day ID Watch Karl Wallinger (World Party) in a live KEXP in-studio performance that included "Put the Message in the Box": www.youtube.com

Declan (9) from West Seattle - International Clash Day ID Read a discussion of this Earth Day anthem: medialoper.com

Djuna and Adele(12) International Clash Day ID -- Elijah (11) Tacoma - International Clash Day -- Halilah from Bellingham (7) Clash Day ID This was the B-side to "The Call Up" single. Joe Strummer: "I was messing around on the organ, trying to play 'Green Onions', but I couldn't figure out how it went. I got Topper to play along and I just put down this thing I put the lyrics to it at Wessex, just before it became a b-side."

Hazel (9) Maine - International Clash Day ID "Where MY future matters...." Thanks, Hazel. See The Clash singing "Should I Stay..." at Shea Stadium many years ago: www.youtube.com

Big Audio Dynamite sampled Mick Jones' previous band, The Clash, here. Here's a look at the other samples: www.whosampled.com

It's been forty years since The Clash released "London Calling." As this article notes, the song was years ahead on global warming: karmaimpact.com

The song features rapping vocals by graffiti artist Futura 2000, who had previously designed the sleeve for The Clash's "This Is Radio Clash" 7" single.