Set aside all your anxiety about Trump’s assault on American democracy. If you think we’re headed for civil war and a breakdown of social order, the question becomes as simple as the one Paul Simonon asks here: When they kick at your front door, how you gonna come?
Though on one level it’s a song of resistance, Simonon, who was born in Brixton, was writing about the Jamaican inhabitants of what was at the time one of London’s most violent neighborhoods and a powder keg of unrest because of police brutality. That’s clear from the second verse, which name-checks Ivanhoe Martin, the Jamaican criminal whose story forms the basis for the Jimmy Cliff-starring film “The Harder They Fall.” Simonon was tapping into the truth: He wrote this in 1979 and the Clash recorded it for “London Calling,” which came out that December. Race riots broke out in Brixton months later.
The song, the first one Simonon ever wrote, quickly became an audience favorite in concert. Simonon originally wanted Joe Strummer to sing it, but Strummer insisted the bassist should sing his own song. Simonon, who had auditioned to be the Clash’s lead singer, learned to play his instrument on the job, and couldn’t play the song’s distinctive bass line while he was singing. So he and Strummer always swapped instruments for the song.
The song has been covered by several artists, most notably by Jimmy Cliff for his “Sacred Fire” EP in 2011.
