So I’m talking the other night to a young millennial woman from London and during the conversation I tried to illustrate a point about someone going back on his stated beliefs by quoting the closing couplet of the second verse: “I believe in this and it’s been tested by research/He who fucks nuns will later join the church.” Sure, she’s young, but c’mon, she’s British! She’s into “old” music (by which she meant music from the ’90s). And she looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
No, she had never listened to The Clash — she missed punk and didn’t really understand or like it. She had heard of Joe Strummer, but never heard his music. And I couldn’t play it at the time because the other millennials in the room had put on — one shudders to recall it — the new ABBA album. So, Anna, here it is, one of Strummer’s most cynical songs — I can’t think of a more withering opening line than, “Every cheap hood makes a bargain with the world, and ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl.” Strummer is gone, but the lesson is timeless.
The song was originally written as a slow piano ballad. Jeff Tweedy’s acoustic cover gives a sense of what that might have sounded like. This was part of “A Song for Joe,” a virtual tribute concert held Aug. 21, 2020, on what would have been Strummer’s 68th birthday.
