This Legendary Punk Band Released Their First Single 49 Years Ago Today
On March 18, 1977, The Clash released their very first single, "White Riot." The song was included on the band's self-titled debut album, which came out a few weeks later on April 8.
Per the group's website, "White Riot" is about the Notting Hill Carnival riot in 1976, which came after tensions erupted between police and the London neighborhood's Black community. When police tried to arrest an alleged pickpocket, a group of Black youths came to his defense. Things quickly escalated as more and more people got involved, which led to 60 carnival attendees and over 100 police officers being hospitalized, as well as 66 people arrested.
The Clash members Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon witnessed the riots first-hand. “We were there at the very first throw of the very first brick,” Strummer told Vive Le Rock. “Paul, Bernie and I were walking along when this conga line of policemen came through the crowd. Someone threw a brick at them and all hell broke loose, and I mean hell!" Strummer even claimed to have set a car on fire.
Participating in the riot led them to write a song questioning why the white youth didn't stand up in solidarity. "I was aware all the time that it was a black people’s riot…" Strummer explained. "They had more of an axe to grind and they had to guts to do something physical about it.”
Strummer later elaborated on this when discussing the song's lyrics, explaining that the real division is not race, but class. “The only thing we’re saying about the Blacks is that they’ve got their problems and they’re prepared to deal with them," he told NME (via Far Out). "But white men, they just ain’t prepared to deal with them—everything’s too cosy. They’ve got stereos, drugs, hi-fis, cars. The poor Blacks and the poor whites are in the same boat.”
Even the single's cover was a commentary on police brutality, with Strummer, Simonon, and guitarist Mick Jones reenacting a stop-and-frisk, posing with their hands above their heads. "I wanted to make a photo-journalistic image that would say something about the context that inspired the emotional intensity of their lyrics," the cover's photographer Caroline Coon wrote in The Guardian, "the political songs about government failure, clampdowns and lack of opportunity."