Great writing, though I disagree with some of it pretty fiercely.
In Revolution, Won’t Get Fooled Again and Holiday In Cambodia, cynicism about the political process is not “conservative”. In particular, interpreting Holiday in Cambodia as some sort of neo-con anthem is bizarre and revisionist.
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I was not really aware of Safe European Home — I must have heard it because I’ve listened to that album, though I don’t own it. I feel that a song talking about racism and class warfare is intrinsically progressive and as above, to interpret any statement from the Clash as somehow conservative requires a strong reality distortion field to pull off.
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On the other hand, you missed out bigtime in omitting Rush’s 1976 2112 (did I get the order right?)
With the whole endless A-side a thinly veiled dramatization of Ayn Rand’s dreary little 1937 SF novel Anthem, and the classic drug song Passage To Bangkok on the flip, 2112 is likely the first example of the trope that a libertarian is a conservative who smokes pot.
(Passage To Bangkok still stands up musically if you don’t listen too closely to the lyrics — the best verse is “Sweet Jamaican pipe dreams/Golden Acapulco nights/Then Morocco, and the East/Fly by morning light,” and it goes downhill from there, with such wincers as, “The natives smile, and pass along/A sample of their yield.” Best taken as a period piece.)
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I left, and I am returned, with a print issue of the November 1976 Galaxy magazine in front of me.
It contains a brutally funny review of 2112, written by the celebrated Canadian SF writer Spider Robinson, and through the miracle of the Internet and Archive.org specifically, you can see a high quality image of it here: the 2112 review starts all the way to the right.
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As for the rest of the article — great, thanks for ruining these already awful songs a little further!
But I jest, it was a fascinating read and the whole thing brought me back to days when I was younger and dumber and had a lot of fun.
