Ghetto Defendant - Remasteredby The Clash

Allen Ginsburg rehearsed this song backstage with the band prior to performing it live in a Times Square Club in 1981. Allen Ginsberg says “They led me onstage at the beginning of their second set,” continued Ginsberg. “We launched right into the guitar clang. It’s punk in ethos and rhythmic style for abrupt pogo-dancing, jumping up and down, but elegant in the sense of having specific political details. First stanza drags a little, but there’s one point where we all get together for two verses, an anthem-like punk song. Only one tape exists [not entirely true, actually] taken off the board. They gave me a copy and it’s been sitting around all these years like a little toy.”

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This song was initially written and rehearsed in September 1981 at Ear Studios. The guest vocal on the finished track is the famous beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who The Clash met earlier in the year when he joined the band onstage at one of their New York residency shows in June to recite some poetry with the band, providing an impromptu musical backing (referred to in bootlegs as "Capital Air"). Ginsberg then dropped in to the Combat Rock sessions with the initial aim of getting The Clash to provide musical backing to several of his recordings, but in the end the opposite transpired and he was invited to add a "voice of God" vocal to "Ghetto Defendant." Singer Joe Strummer remembers that "Ginsberg wrote his own bit to 'Ghetto Defendant' but he had to ask us what were the names of punk dances. He just did it on the spot, it was good." On Oct 3 1957 Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl and Other Poems' is ruled not obscene by San Francisco Municipal Court Judge Clayton Horn. www.songfacts.com

A recurring motif of The Clash's 1982 'Combat Rock' is the impact and aftermath of the Vietnam War. Other songs, if not directly about the Vietnam War and U.S. foreign policy, depict American society in moral decline. "Ghetto Defendant" features beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who performed the song on stage with the band during the New York shows on their tour. At the end of the song, Ginsberg recites the 'Heart Sutra' -- a condensed version of the Buddhist Mahayana teaching of the Two Truths doctrine, which says that ultimately all phenomena are Śūnyatā -- or emptiness.

"Ghetto Defendant" features beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who performed the song on stage with the band during the New York shows on their tour. At the end of the song, Ginsberg recites the Heart Sutra -- a condensed version of the Buddhist Mahayana teaching of the Two Truths doctrine, which says that ultimately all phenomena are Śūnyatā -- or emptiness

"Ghetto Defendant" features beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who performed the song on stage with the band during the New York shows on their tour. A recurring motif of 'Combat Rock' is the impact and aftermath of the Vietnam War. Other songs, if not directly about the Vietnam War and U.S. foreign policy, depict American society in moral decline.

Join KEXP for a special evening with Mark Andersen, author of the book "We are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band that Mattered" on Wednesday September 5th... www.kexp.org

From their 5th studio album released in 1982.

Beat poet Allen Ginsberg sings lyrics he wrote on this song as “the voice of God”. 60 years ago today Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that you couldn't judge a work obscene if it had the 'slightest redeeming social signficance' based on an obscenity charge brought against Ginsberg's Howl.

Requested by Amplifier John!

That's poet Allen Ginsberg intoning on The Clash's "Ghetto Defendant." "Ginsberg, like Dylan and Strummer, never wanted his art to be limited to coteries or crowds, so collaborations were natural, even if awkward the way Allen could be....": behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com

This "midtempo dub take on the pathos of heroin addiction and underclass angst, features a cameo spoken-word vocal from Allen Ginsberg, who co-wrote the song with Joe Strummer. Far from simply lending the song Beat cred—as Burroughs would for a string of artists, to varying degrees of artistic success—the Ginsberg appearance feels positively essential, such that the poet joined the band on stage during the New York leg of their tour in support of the album. But before 'Ghetto Defendant,' there was 'Capital Air,' a composition of Ginsberg’s own that he performed impromptu with the band in New York in 1981. As Ginsberg tells it, he joined the band backstage during one of their 17 shows at Bonds Club in Times Square during the Sandinista tour. Strummer invited the poet onstage to riff on Central American politics, and Ginsberg instead taught the band his very own punk song, which after 5 minutes of rehearsal, they took to the stage and played." bit.ly

Combat Rock was the Clash's most commercially successful album. It reached number two on the U.K. charts and made the American top ten in 1983. The song is "a midtempo dub take on the pathos of heroin addiction and underclass angst, features a cameo spoken-word vocal from Allen Ginsberg, who co-wrote the song with Joe Strummer." www.openculture.com

Featuring the spoken poetry of Allen Ginsberg, whose birthday we are celebrating today on The Afternoon Show.

Allen Ginsberg contributed vocals and lyrics to this Clash tune.

Ghetto Defendant began being written in September 1981 at Ear Studios. It features Allen Ginsberg as "the voice of god".

Check out an album review for "Combat Rock" on the KEXP website blog.kexp.org

(featuring spoken excerpts from Allen Ginsberg)

This song featuring spoken-word backing by Allen Ginsberg. We're celebrating the life of Allen Ginsberg on the anniversary of his death (April 5th in 1997). Read a story about Ginsberg's 39th birthday where invited the Beatles' John Lennon and George Harrison and greeted them wearing nothing but his underwear on his head and a "do not disturb sign" on his cock. bit.ly