My Top Ten Clash Songs: Death or Glory (#8)
By Four Walls
@FourWalls (62133)
United States
October 4, 2016 7:51pm CST
I'm continuing to look at my ten favorite songs by the legendary, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group the Clash. Here's another song from my favorite album (and I promise this countdown isn't "ten songs from London Calling 
).
#8: Death or Glory
Did you know!!!! Peter Gammons, the Baseball Hall of Fame writer and reporter for MLB (and formerly ESPN), did an album called Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old, and one of the songs he did on that album was "Death or Glory." (He also did Warren Zevon's "Model Citizen.") It's not the greatest cover you've ever heard, but it's certainly no Pat Boone-thinking-he's-a-metalhead piece of slop, either.
Back in the 60s the Who sang, "I hope I die before I get old." In the 80s They Might Be Giants sang, "I hope that I get old before I die." The rebellion, idealism ("we thought we could change this world with words like love and freedom," the Eagles sang in "The Sad Cafe"), and wildness of youth eventually become conformity (listen to the late John D. Loudermilk's song "The Great Snowman," about a man who went from a romeo to a doting husband with "six kids and his mother-in-law" as a much tamer example of that notion).
So the Clash took that notion of "growing up" and becoming the "model citizen" that Zevon (and Gammons) later sang about to task here. Didn't they do that? If you listen to Joe Strummer's contributions to the great, vastly underrated soundtrack to Permanent Record (I never saw the movie but had the soundtrack because of Strummer and the BoDeans) you might say he also succumbed to the "death or glory becomes just another story" mentality himself.
Like the "cheap hood" in the opening verse who "strikes a bargain with the world (and) ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl," most of us surrender to our mortgage payments and our nicer cars. But it's great to hear the Clash badmouth us for doing so.
Death or Glory
Written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones
From London Calling, 1979
Another great song from the classic album (profanity alert for this song):
).
#8: Death or Glory
Did you know!!!! Peter Gammons, the Baseball Hall of Fame writer and reporter for MLB (and formerly ESPN), did an album called Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old, and one of the songs he did on that album was "Death or Glory." (He also did Warren Zevon's "Model Citizen.") It's not the greatest cover you've ever heard, but it's certainly no Pat Boone-thinking-he's-a-metalhead piece of slop, either.
Back in the 60s the Who sang, "I hope I die before I get old." In the 80s They Might Be Giants sang, "I hope that I get old before I die." The rebellion, idealism ("we thought we could change this world with words like love and freedom," the Eagles sang in "The Sad Cafe"), and wildness of youth eventually become conformity (listen to the late John D. Loudermilk's song "The Great Snowman," about a man who went from a romeo to a doting husband with "six kids and his mother-in-law" as a much tamer example of that notion).
So the Clash took that notion of "growing up" and becoming the "model citizen" that Zevon (and Gammons) later sang about to task here. Didn't they do that? If you listen to Joe Strummer's contributions to the great, vastly underrated soundtrack to Permanent Record (I never saw the movie but had the soundtrack because of Strummer and the BoDeans) you might say he also succumbed to the "death or glory becomes just another story" mentality himself.
Like the "cheap hood" in the opening verse who "strikes a bargain with the world (and) ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl," most of us surrender to our mortgage payments and our nicer cars. But it's great to hear the Clash badmouth us for doing so.
Death or Glory
Written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones
From London Calling, 1979
Another great song from the classic album (profanity alert for this song):
Album: London Calling Track: 12 Year: 1979 ALL RIGHTS GO TO THE CLASH!
4 people like this
3 responses
@JohnRoberts (109857)
• Los Angeles, California
5 Oct 16
So good. You have to admit Pat Boone going heavy metal was pretty hilarious.
1 person likes this
@teamfreak16 (43421)
• Denver, Colorado
5 Oct 16
Peter Gammons is great. So is this song. Excellent choice!
1 person likes this
