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Technically speaking, this drawing isn't a world cloud, in that the words don't directly flow out of one another. But that's okay. This is punk rock-style outsider art, which means we can call it whatever we want. I've always believed that if you're gonna be categorized, better to do it yourself, before the outside world slaps a disagreeable one on you that sticks like stale mashed potatoes. So, maybe in this case, we should call "1977 (Year Zero)" the anti-world cloud, I guess, since the words 'n' phrases don't care to rub shoulders with one another. It's also apropos for the song this drawing celebrates: "1977," which graced the B-side of the Clash's "White Riot," released in March of that storied year...what many writers refer to as Punk Rock's Year Zero.
That being said, what's striking, 40-odd years on, is how neatly "1977" straddles the punk-retro divide. On one hand, the riff is really a slower, stripped-down version of the Kinks' "All Day And All Of The Night," which shouldn't surprise anyone who collects Clash live tapes -- which showcase a leaner, angrier Mod-style garage band, with a gruffer vocal delivery, and more in-your-face lyrics than the era permitted.
At least, that's the evidence to these ears, based on the tapes that survived from the band's first half-year or so (notably, Screen On The Green, 8/31/76, The Roundhouse, 9/5/76, and Birmingham Town Hall, 11/5/76). Yet all the ramalama we soon called punk is present and correct here: the declamatory guitar, elementary song structure (verse/chorus, verse/chorus, verse/chorus, solo, and coda -- in 99 seconds), and no-frills approach (particularly the bass and drums).
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The other obvious difference lies in Joe Strummer's lyrics, which veer from Dylanesque fixations ("Danger stranger, you better paint your face"), to straightforward protest ("I'm too long on the dole/And I can't work at all"), and provocative statements ("Ain't so lucky to be rich/Sten guns in Knightsbridge").This feature, coupled with Strummer's raspy delivery -- when most British singers affected a Yankee, or at least, mid-Atlantic accent -- truly draws the line in the sand between past and present.
"1977" also marked another long-running tradition of Clash songs that would land Joe, at various times, in hot water with a) his punk-oriented peers, b) the music press, and c) rival bands, who gave him a great deal of grief for singing, "Sten guns in Knightsbridge." Was Joe suggesting. time to blow away those future British one percenters, Baader Meinhof-style, with automatic weapons?
Not quite, Joe responded, maintaining the lyric referred to those Sten guns being pointed at him. Which makes a bit more sense, if you think about it, right? The classic posture of the punk rock troubadour caught in the crossfire, an image that many other bands would quickly mine themselves, to varying degrees of success.
However, that grief paled in comparison to the chorus, which drove the song's central point: "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones, in 1977!" To Joe's critics, that assertion sounded -- well, downright dubious, considering that he'd bolted the more pub-rock-oriented 101'ers to join the Clash. How could the man who'd belted out Chuck Berry covers with abandon now seem indecently eager to bury him, as those slogans (CHUCK BERRY IS DEAD) daubed on his paint-splattered clothing appear to suggest?
Such questions are well worth asking, though 40-odd years on, what strikes me -- looking back -- is how many of Joe's critics, once they'd allowed themselves the luxury of making a rhetorical point, missed the fact that he, too, was making one of his own...that it was time to turn the page on the past, at least for the moment, and forge ahead with something new.
But that's what happens, isn't it, when people take art so literally. They don't see the forest for the trees, which is a more critical skill than ever to cultivate in these politically parched times...and why I felt, on the spur of the moment, ready to celebrate "1977" in my notebook on the train ride home. --The Reckoner
Links To Go
The Clash: "1977"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=KorwwAjKpaY
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