This, That, and the Other

This week’s theme for Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday is punk songs. I’ve never been a fan of punk rock, so this is definitely taking me out of my comfort zone. According to Wikipedia, punk bands rejected the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often shouted political, anti-establishment lyrics.

One of the bands associated with punk is The Clash. I looked up songs by The Clash, and the only one I recognized was “Rock the Casbah.” I don’t know if that is, indeed, a punk song, but that’s what I’m going with.

“Rock the Casbah” was a song by the English punk rock band The Clash, released in 1982. It was released as the second single from their fifth album, Combat Rock. It reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the U.S., and was the band’s only top 10 single there.

The song was composed by the band’s drummer, Topper Headon, based on a piano part that he had been toying with. Finding himself in the studio without his three bandmates, Headon progressively taped the drum, piano and bass parts, recording the bulk of the song’s musical instrumentation himself. Interestingly, Headon had been fired from the group because of drug problems by the time the song became an enormous hit in the U.S.

Headon’s original lyrics were a filthy ode to his girlfriend. Band member Joe Strummer characterized the lyrics as “really pornographic.” Strummer then rewrote the lyrics to make the song about a Middle Eastern king and the king’s efforts to enforce and justify a ban on rock music. It also focused on protests against the ban by holding rock concerts in temples and squares (“rocking the casbah”). This culminates in the king ordering his military’s fighter jets to bomb the protestors. But after taking off, the pilots ignore the king’s orders and instead play rock music on their cockpit radios, joining the protest and implying the loss of the king’s power. The lyrics were loosely based on an actual ban on Western music, including rock music, enforced in Iran since the Iranian Revolution.

When this song became a hit, Strummer considered leaving The Clash. He couldn’t justify singing rebellious songs when the band was rich and successful. In their early years, when they were struggling, their music was sincere, but he felt they were becoming a joke. The band did break up in 1985.

The U.S. military used this song as a rallying cry when they invaded Iraq in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm. Strummer was irate over the song being one of the most requested on American radio because of the misunderstanding that it was anti-Iraq in sentiment.

Here are the lyrics to “Rock the Casbah.”

Now the king told the boogie men
"You have to let that raga drop"
The oil down the desert way
Has been shaken to the top
The Sheik he drove his Cadillac
He went a-cruisin' down the ville
The Muezzin was a-standin'
On the radiator grille, ow

Shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah
The Shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah

By order of the Prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out an electric camel drum
The local guitar picker got his guitar pickin' thumb
As soon as the Shareef had cleared the square
They began to wail

Shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah
Shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah

Now, over at the temple
Oh, they really pack 'em in
The in-crowd say it's cool
To dig this chanting thing
But as the wind changed direction
And the temple band took five
The crowd caught a whiff
Of that crazy Casbah jive

Shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah
Shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah

The king called up his jet fighters
He said, "You better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah way"
As soon as the Shareef was chauffeured outta there
The jet pilots tuned to the cockpit radio blare
Soon as the Shareef was outta their hair
The jet pilots wail

Shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah
Shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah

Shareef don't like it, he thinks it's not kosher
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah
Shareef don't like it, fundamentally can't take it
Rockin' the Casbah, Rock the Casbah

Shareef don't like it, you know he really hates it
Rockin' the Casbah, rock the Casbah
Shareef don't like it, really, really hates it