The Clash
Should I Stay or Should I Go?

It's the only single by the band to reach number one. (...and I could already put an end to my writing today).

It comes out a few weeks after the release of the fifth album by the English band; that "Combat Rock" which marks the end of a group that rightfully entered the legend, because I never wanted to consider the subsequent "Cut The Crap" as a Clash album.

But let's get back to Should I Stay... and its genesis.

The band is on the brink of collapse, after an exhausting tour that had them engaged in Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong; precisely 25 dates in a month, from late January to late February 1982. A physical, and especially mental, massacre.

The Far East Tour is the last round of concerts with Topper Headon sitting and playing behind the drums; chronic drug problems lead to an irreparable and definitive break.

Topper still plays the parts on the disc; he appears on the cover image of "Combat Rock". But when the album hits the stores, the group has already lost its solid driving force.

Strummer and Jones do not want to risk anything and call back the trusted Terry Chimes: less talent, less technique, but greater reliability. And that's enough.

The perfect machine of the early years no longer exists; disagreements grow because Joe wants to return to a dirtier, more visceral sound, with recordings without too many studio overdubs. Mick thinks otherwise and wants to impose his belief: the band's fifth album should definitely shift towards total contamination, towards those "Black Music" sounds assimilated by the Clash during their American tours.

Thankfully, common sense prevails, and an inevitable compromise is reached: the album, initially planned as a double, is recorded in New York with many songs discarded. Only twelve remain; Mick is allowed to collaborate on the final mix.

But these are tumultuous months because the band disagrees on almost every single note of the songs; before reaching the final version, there's even time for a real physical collapse of Joe during one of the above-mentioned tour dates.

Back in Europe, Strummer is again the protagonist: extremely stressed, he disappears and lives incognito for a few weeks in France, making himself unreachable. Planned dates in England and Scotland have to be canceled.

In May, the album is released, and with Joe finally "recharged," they set off for another exhausting tour: first a series of 23 dates in a month between Canada and the United States. Right after, they make up the dates in England and Scotland for another 21 concerts. Yet another ocean crossing for 40 shows in the U.S.A.

1982 is the year of world success but also of bloody internal conflicts; physical exhaustion, disagreements, differences of opinion on future choices. "Combat Rock" reaches number two in the UK and number seven in America. Should I Stay or Should I Go tops the charts in many parts of the globe.

An unplanned leap for a band that, until a few years before, was struggling to have electricity in the basement used as a rehearsal room.

Thus, we reach September 1983 and the following succinct communiqué "Clash crash! Joe and Paul sack Mick."

No need to translate...just as there's no need to add anything about the single that everyone should know, from the tenderest age...THE LAST GANG IN TOWN...

Ad Maiora.