OK, so I think I know the answer to this question, so why won't I accept it? Maybe that's the better question.
The original question, which has gnawed away at me for what, 20 years, is why can song lyrics affect me so powerfully, yet taken cold, without the music or the vocals, they seem flat, sometimes verging on idiotic?
And that's if you've heard the song. When you haven't, they just sound like complete garbage. Often.
How can a little singing and melody transform them so profoundly?
Why won't I accept that they do?
The latest trigger came this weekend, when some trivial statement tripped a mental wire and my all-time favorite song erupted inside my head and I got all wistful and meloncholy for it. I tried to explain to person I was talking to, even pulled up the lyrics online, knowing how fruitless it would be--and of course, received the dreaded Huh?
And yet I'm going to post them here anyway. Just because I want to. And maybe because one or two of you adore the Clash as well--though "adore" seems an odd word to pair with that group--and will smile at the feelings it provokes.
In this case in particular, I think the full power of the song does emerge completely from the sincerity and intensity of the way he pleads those last two words. Stay free. The rest is just prelude.
But what a prelude.
And those two words--what two words. So much power in them to begin with. And then they created a scene, a vivid world, where they meant so much.
I'm reading back through it again for the tenth time in as many minutes, and for me, having experienced it audibly, it just tears me apart inside. The last verse, I mean. The prelude--it's all about setting up the payoff, isn't it?
The intimacy between the two characters. Almost embarassingly candid the way we glimpse them. Slightly painful toward the end, when he more or less apologizes for not writing enough, saying he did his best, obviously a little remorseful that it wasn't enough.
And the candor. Pissing on everyone in the school is not exactly an endearing quality. But it's the truth, you can feel where the anger comes from, and he still feels release at the memory of fighting back any stupid way he could figure out at the time. And it's delivered so preposterously yet sincerely, how can you react with anything but a snicker?
All building toward that huge rush of emotion as he hears that 'you' were free. It's the fear, I guess, of losing it again once you felt it.
It's also a matter of who this comes from. The Clash was right on the edge back then--their first album had exploded in the UK, but Epic Records refused to even release it in the U.S., claiming it was too incendiary. This was their second outing, Give 'Em Enough Rope.
They had to be feeling a lot of danger--to their career, if nothing else, to their art, maybe to imprisonment if things got too out of hand. You can hear that coming through, their sense of innocence and anarchy one moment, the fear of ominous repurcusions the next.
God, just look at the song titles on that album:
- Safe European Home
- English Civil War
- Tommy Gun
- Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad
- Last Gang in Town
- Guns on the Roof
- Drug-Stabbing Time
- Stay Free
- Cheapskates
- All the Young Punks
Nearly every one evokes danger, just occasionally safety from it.
Julie has been turning people in to the drug squad, by the way. That one is comically lighthearted, mixed with suddend bouts of sobriety: You got fifteen years -- that's a mighty long time.
"Last Gang in Town" gets vaguely paranoid: "You better watch out for they're all comin' around . . ."
And the one that hit me hardest immediately and stayed with me forever oscillates wildly between the anarchy and the price to pay. I guess that's why this song tugs at me so badly year after year. Always drawn to the danger, terrified of where it may lead.
Them too.
I've made a few risky choices. Last Christmas, one of my sisters informed me I was the black sheep of the family. I protested, and most or all of my eight siblings--everyone present, except, oddly, my mother--joined in. Adamantly. "I can't believe you weren't aware!" one of them, said.
I don't think of my choices as dangerous at the time, but I do tend to find myself in some risky situations. Physically, financially, psychologically.
I said I don't think of the choices as dangerous, but I often do sense of feeling of danger. Meaning, I guess, that I don't feel like there's a real choice. I know what I have to do.
And the real fear comes later. After I'm committed, but before I can really see the consequences. Because usually they're going to be murky, especially with the psychological ones.
And then I hear The Clash hurtling through these scenes, no real telling what shape the danger might take; plunging blindly ahead anyway. With that one constant emotion cutting through all the rest: Whatever becomes of us, whatever price we might pay, just leave us free to keep doing it.
Huh. I guess it wasn't so much the lyric mystery I wanted to write about. I wanted to explain why that song keeps ripping my guts open. Nobody ever understands. They never seem to have heard the freaking song, and I can't for the life of me explain what's so freaking special about it. Maybe I didn't want to soil it trying.
I'll never capture the power of their pain with words alone, but at least I figured out what it was doing to me. Sometimes, I get scared.
Them too. I've been waiting 20 years to find that out.
Enough out of me. This little treasure from the Clash. (Written by Mick Jones and Joe Strummer.) Best song I've ever heard, or at least the one that affected me most deeply.
Stay Free
We met when we were in school
Never took no shit from no one, we weren't fools
The teacher says we're dumb
We're only having fun
We piss on everyone
In the classroom
When we got thrown out I left without much fuss
An' weekends we'd go dancing
Down streatham on the bus
You always made me laugh
Got me in bad fights
Play me pool all night
Smokin' menthol
I practised daily in my room
You were down the crown planning your next move
Go on a nicking spree
Hit the wrong guy
Each of you get three
Years in brixton
I did my very best to write
How was butlins?
Were the screws too tight?
When you lot get out
Were gonna hit the town
We'll burn it fuckin' down
To a cinder
Cos years have passed and things have changed
And I move anyway I wanna go
I'll never forget the feeling I got
When I heard that you'd got home
An' I'll never forget the smile on my face
'cos I knew where you would be
An' if you're in the crown tonight
Have a drink on me
But go easy...step lightly...stay free
Update:
I found this site where you can hear 30 seconds of it.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Glorious.
I forgot the abandon in his voice.
And the music. Vicious thrusts of sonic anarchy after that throwaway "menthol" line. And then right back to the utter sincerity of him closed up in his room hacking away at his art. Punctuated by gleeful bursts of exquisite guitar squeels.
God, the intensity of this song. Every emotion played to the hilt, but never melodrama, just raw, hearfelt emotion.
In my heart, I always knew I was meant to be a writer, but I really wanted to be a musician of some sort: singer, songwriter, producer, instrumentalist. All together, preferably. Prince, but without the affectations.
This is a brilliantly-written song, but not as a stand-alone work, only as a trealise to weave all the power of the vocal delivery, and the abstract soulbursts from the guitar transmitting anger one moment, elation the next.
And finally, one deadpan line, a delivery you might not expect out of a group calling itself The Clash, particularly on the title phrase of the most powerful song they ever produced. They didn't need to belt the line out like "Born Free," though, by the end of the song, it speaks for itself. And it isn't meant as a rallying cry or manifesto, it's the quiet little voice whispering in the back of your head as the forces are marshalling at the barricades, drunk with mob power, oblivous to the personal consequences. Stay free.
Dutton (Penguin) in early 2009. 
