The Clash

Written after witnessing the Notting Hill Carnival clash, it was the first single, the first slogan the band threw out at the world.

• At a little over two minutes, the song is short, capturing the attitude of early punk, shouting with no excess.
• The alarm-like guitar sound in the intro recalls a police-car siren.
• Joe Strummer's vocal is closer to chanting a slogan than to singing.
• Built on the simple repetition of a thick-sounding chord struck on just two notes (the power chord), it is counted among the songs that even someone first learning guitar can easily play along with.
• Live, it is played even faster than the studio version and was often used as the opening number of early shows.

A debut finished cheaply in three weekend sessions, it captures the boredom and anger of London's streets at the time in all its rough sound quality.

• Working with producer Mickey Foote put speed before polish, and that rough texture became the character of the whole record.
• The track "Jimmy Jazz" is not on it, but "Janie Jones" deals with a dull working life and yet sounds oddly exhilarating, thanks to its brisk tempo and call-and-response chorus.
• It includes a reggae cover of the Jamaican song "Police and Thieves," previewing the seed of the sound that would later expand into reggae.
• The track listings of the British and American editions differ, offering a glimpse of how the record label of the time tried to package and sell punk.
• The black-and-white cover photo and the street-flyer-like lettering directly reveal a low-budget punk aesthetic.

Opening with apocalyptic images such as a nuclear accident and floods, it is a double album that goes beyond punk to take in reggae and rockabilly.

• In the opening of the title track, Paul Simonon's descending bass line lays down an ominous atmosphere first.
• Mick Jones's guitar trails a long reverb (echo), adding a feeling of emptied space.
• Joe Strummer's low, desperate voice sounds less like singing than like shouting a warning.
• The cover photo shows Paul Simonon smashing his bass on stage mid-show, and it parodies Elvis Presley's 1956 debut record by borrowing its lettering exactly.
• The album as a whole ranges from jazz-tinged ballads to rockabilly and reggae, so broad that it is hard to believe it is the work of a single band.

A three-record set, it was a political and experimental gamble, released at close to the price of one even at the cost of cutting royalties.

• In the track "The Magnificent Seven," Strummer shows a style of muttering as if speaking rather than singing, an attempt counted as influenced by the rap just then emerging in America.
• Paul Simonon's repetitive funk bass line drives the whole song.
• Jamaican-style remix techniques (dub) are used on several tracks, with variations that erase the vocals and leave only echo and resonance.
• Some tracks bring in a children's choir or gospel-style chorus, showing the band's attitude of not discriminating among genres.
• With a vast 36 tracks, it is easier to follow the flow by listening disc by disc than by taking it all in at once.

A song whose framework drummer Topper Headon completed alone, it gave the band its biggest American radio hit.

• The piano riff that opens the song was improvised by Topper Headon, who sat down at the keyboard instead of the drums.
• The bass is also said to have been played and recorded by Headon himself, with Strummer and Jones adding lyrics and guitar on top.
• The four-beat dance rhythm is built to be far more danceable than the band's other songs, showing a popular appeal unusual for a punk band.
• The music video was shot in the Texas desert and drew attention for its satirical imagery.
• It is a song consumed in unexpected contexts, to the point that an anecdote survives of it later being played on U.S. military radio during the Gulf War.

The band's most popular song, it was later used in films and commercials and returned to the charts after a long time.

• A simple riff repeating a chord struck with just two notes, ringing thick (a power chord), drives the whole song.
• The arrangement, which trades English and Spanish lyrics back and forth in every verse, creates a distinctive tension.
• With no bridge, only verses and a chorus repeating, it is an economical structure, a song polished for radio play.
• After being used in a 1991 jeans commercial, it reached No. 1 on the UK singles chart, famous as a belated success that came 9 years after its release.

A quiet song that, even at the peak of success, gazed side by side at the shadow of the Vietnam War and a decaying industrial town.

• Topper Headon's drums play a slow, dance-like bossa nova rhythm, quite unlike the band's usual style.
• Instead of a noisy riff, guitar lines that paint a mood fill the space.
• Two stories — the mixed-race children left behind by the Vietnam War and the decline of an English industrial city — continue in a calm, reportorial tone, never merging into one.
• Strummer's voice, unlike the desperate shouts of earlier songs, sinks low as if weary.
• Sampled in M.I.A.'s “Paper Planes” in 2007, it was introduced anew to a younger generation.