Analyze: I'da Called you Woody, Joe

Rico said, "I'ma turn you onto a sound, cool out your head.
This is the sound from Camden town."

And then I heard it like a shot through my skull to my brain,
I felt my fingertips tingle and it started to rain,
When the walls of my bedroom were tremblin' around me,
This ramshackle voice over attack of a bluesbeat,
Tellin' me he's only looking for fun.
This was the sound of the very last gang in town.

As heard by my wild young heart, like directions on a cold dark night,
Sayin', 'Let it out... You're doin' all right.'
And I heard it in his chain gang soul.
It wasn't just the same sad song.
Saying, 'Let it out, you're doing all right.'
And I'm doing all right, are you doin' all right?

And I carried these songs like a comfort wherever I'd go.
They was there when my summers was high, there when she left me alone.
Saying... 'The soul is hard to find.'

And I never got to tell him so I just wrote it down,
I wrapped a couple chords around it and I let it come out,
When the walls of my bedroom trembled around me,
To this ramshackle voice over attack of a bluesbeat,
And a girl, on the excitement gang.
That was the sound of the very last gang in town.

[Chorus]

That was the sound...
I hear the sound...
Do you hear the sound....
I hear the sound...
Of the very last gang in town...

I know this entire song is a tribute to Joe Strummer, so lets figure out all these clash references!

Be sure to post what you figured out and a link to your evidence

The sound from Camden town is a reference to where The Clash got their start

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7238820.stm

and a girl on the excitement gang is from Coma Girl when it was Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros

http://www.theclash.org.uk/coma_girl.htm

Last Gang In Town is actually a Clash song, track 5 on the Give 'Em Enough Rope album.


I'll get my Dad on this tomorrow as he's quite the clash fan!


Also in We're Getting a Divorce.. the line 'looks to my left and look to my right'
Could possibly be borrowed from
The Clash - The Prisoner

"I look to my left, I look to my right, I'm looking for a maaaan..."

i dont know this for sure but im thinking chain gang soul has something to do with

Three Card Trick by The Clash heres lyrics http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Three-Card-Trick-lyrics-The-Clash/5C56AF803D4EE8E8482568AB00320209

Stalls_Standing wrote:

Last Gang In Town is actually a Clash song, track 5 on the Give 'Em Enough Rope album.


I'll get my Dad on this tomorrow as he's quite the clash fan!


Also in We're Getting a Divorce.. the line 'looks to my left and look to my right'
Could possibly be borrowed from
The Clash - The Prisoner

"I look to my left, I look to my right, I'm looking for a maaaan..."

post some links and then I will add it to the lyrics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_'Em_Enough_Rope

Track 5 is 'Last Gang In Town'

Stalls_Standing wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_'Em_Enough_Rope

Track 5 is 'Last Gang In Town'

Stalls, good find, but I used the link to the lyrics for The Last Gang In Town instead of the CD

All is good!

Why do the lyrics say "Then Rico said..." when the dude in the record store's name was Jerry, according to the Kerrang! article?

Jerry Rico?

ooh, maybe. didn't think of that. though rico's kinda a first name usually

not it's not, what about PUERTO RICO? HAHAH

no but really, i dunno i was just guessing.

maybe he's just changing the name, like he does with girls. I mean, I doubt the girls he knows are actually all named Maria, Mary, Virginia, Bobby Jean, Estella, Gail, Jane, or Anna.

Oh, and the "He's only looking for fun" line is from "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais."

Jukebox Romeo wrote:

Oh, and the "He's only looking for fun" line is from "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais."

I have been waiting for someone to point that out... good job romeo... give me a link to the lyrics and I will add it to the first post.

Un-related, I saw Anti-Flag last night and they played I Fought The Law by The Clash, it was awesome

written first by buddy holly i believe

"The soul is hard to find" is from the Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros song, Johnny Appleseed.
"We think there is a soul, we don't know
That soul is hard to find"

Lake, give me a source for the lyrics so I can edit the original thread

It's a great song, but Clash fans will wince when they hear the line "the sound from Camden Town". The Clash were a West London band not North London, and their sound was rooted in the Westway, even if they did play some gigs in Camden. It might seem a minor detail, but it's akin to calling TGA the "sound of New York City" when they are so obviously Jersey.
Ideally, they should re-record the song with an amended lyric. Yeah right, that's going to happen. But at least in live shows perhaps they might consider changing the line to , say, "the sound of Ladbroke Grove", just to stop Joe's ghost getting restive.

Well technically it IS the sound from Camden town, the sound was rehearsed and recorded in Camden Town. Sure they were from Brixton and the like but Camden still was where they rehearsed and came into their own

You're right of course. Rehearsal Rehearsals was on Chalk Farm Road.
It's just that their sound was so redolent of the West, from London's Burning's vision of the Westway, to Let's Go Crazy's Notting Hill imagery. They rehearsed in Camden, because that's where their manager had his office, and it was convenient for him.
Btw, if Brian had have tried to call Joe Woody, he may have been either ignored or given a slap in the mouth. Strummer didn't take kindly to people recalling his old hippie identity.

I know this is an old thread but here's some I didn't see mentioned.

"This ramshackle voice" - "Ramshackle Day Parade" from the Streetcore album

----

"over attack of a bluebeat" is from (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais:

"Dress back, jump back, this is a bluebeat attack"

----

"And I heard it in his chain gang soul."

I think this could also be a reference to Joe's song "Long Shadow"

"I hear mutterings on the chain gangs
It’s those men who build the roads"

----

Oh and:

JoshRaymond wrote:

written first by buddy holly i believe

Sonny Curtis, I think he was Buddy Holly's bass player.

Joe strummer was most definetly from west london, clash nicknamed 'Westway wonders' and was were they lived, not camdem buts thats being quite pedantic. And its nice and rhymes so he can be forgiven. I read recently that brian intended the lyrics to be poem that he actually sent to joe's wife, lucinda, to let her know how much he meant to her. It was quite a good interview, the interviewer went on about bruce springsteen but brian quickly said that bruce is a good guy but joe strummer 'will always be my number one'. That thing about names he gives is true, brian said when i went to see em a while back how if you use peoples real names they might hear the song on the radio and ring up and be like 'hey, wheres my ten bucks' and so 'everyone knows a mary'. i think most artists substitute names in songs. And to disagree with the othr guy about joe 'slapping' you if you called him woody is a bit rash. I think it's a really nice statement and its what attracted me to gaslight about a year ago as i got the refrence and thought, 'hey these guys might be talking about joe strummer'. he definetly probs would have in his clash days, but joe said himself at his core he was a hippie later in his life and thats all punks were anyway. i reckon its a knowing little staement about joe saying how he didn't have to be wrapped up in the punk thing and brian and us fans love him for what he was. its funny how he choose to (in my opinion) bring up joe's only fault, image obsessed in the early days of the clash, in the title but its still full of affection for the great man.

(for those who don't know, joe, when he was involved in the london squatter scene and when he was in the 101'ers, was nicknamed woody after woody guthrie but quickly changed his name to joe strummer when the clash were formd and hated anyone from the old scene and hence anyone who called him woody)

...shit i've wrote a lot, if only i put as much effort into my work i'd be straight As all the way baby!

Brian might not be slapped but I dunno if Joe would like it. Listen to this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001BHJRNM/ref=dm_dp_trk19?ie=UTF8&qid=1247098406&sr=301-1

(The track is only 19 secs long so you can hear the whole thing by playing the sample)