Song by Song: "London Calling" Quiz

Answer: 1979

Recorded at Wessex studios in the fall of 1979, the song was released with "Armagideon Time" on the B-Side on December 7, 1979. "London Calling" was The Clash's third studio album and was released in 1979 in the U.K. and in 1980 by Epic Records in the U.S.

Answer: Mick Jones and Joe Strummer

The song was written by The Clash co-founders and co-lead singers Mick Jones and Joe Strummer. At the time the song was written, the Clash was drowning in debt and Great Britain itself was suffering from economic and social crises. Rolling Stone magazine quotes Joe Strummer describing the band as feeling like it was "about to slip down a slope or something, grasping with our fingernails. And there was no one there to help us."

Answer: True

"London Calling" peaked at number 11 on the U.K. Singles Chart but did not chart in the United States. It was The Clash's highest charting single in the U.K. for over a decade, until "Should I Stay or Should I Go" was re-released in 1991 and peaked at number one.

Although it didn't chart in the U.S., "London Calling" was the first song of the Clash to chart anywhere outside of the U.K. It reached Australia's Top 40.

Answer: Topper Headon

Joe Strummer and Mick Jones played guitar on the song "in metallic unison," as Rolling Stone describes it, with Paul Simonon "thumping bass" and Joe Strummer "howl[ing] through a catalog of disasters, real and imagined." The song was produced by Guy Stevens and is typically classified as belonging to the punk rock genre.

Answer: the cupboard

"London calling to the faraway towns
Now war is declared and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls."

According to Songfacts.com, the phrase "London calling" is an allusion to the station identification of BBC World Service, which would start broadcasts to occupied countries with "This is London calling..." during World War II.

Answer: The Beatles

"London calling, now don't look to us
Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
Except for the ring of the truncheon thing."

"Beatlmania" was the term coined by the press to describe the intense adulation of fans for the popular English rock band, the Beatles. John Lennon famously - and controversially - said in 1966 that the band had become "more popular than Jesus." By the time "London Calling" was released, this mania for the Beatles had years ago subsided, and the Beatles had broken up in 1970.

Answer: The ice age

"The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in
Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error, but I have no fear
'Cause London is drowning
I, I live by the river."

In the 1970s, "Global Cooling" was a concern bandied about by many publications in the media. It was conjectured that a cooling of the Earth was imminent and that it would culminate in an ice age.

The "nuclear error" referred to in this verse, especially in the context of the previously mentioned "meltdown expected," appears to be an allusion to the meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in March of 1979.

Answer: smile

"London calling, yes, I was there, too
And you know what they said? Well, some of it was true
London calling at the top of the dial
And after all this, won't you give me a smile?"

VH1 included "London Calling" on its list of the "100 Greatest Songs of the 80s," although it was not actually released in the 1980s, but rather in 1979. "London Calling" is also included on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll."

According to shmoop, the song fades out with feedback that spells S-O-S in Morse code.

Answer: Jaguar

In the 2002 article "Brand New Jag: The Clash Sells Luxury Goods," Rob Walker asks, "Why does one of the most luxurious brands in the world want to go for a spin with one of the more aggressively anticapitalist bands of the punk era?" The song has also been used in a British Airways advertisement.

Answer: Arsenal

According to Chris Salewicz in the article "How Football Shaped the Clash's Greatest Album," the album's producer Guy Stevens "was an obsessive fan of the club." The album itself was recorded at Wessex Studios in Highbury, which is also the home of Arsenal. The studio was located in a former church hall, and the Sex Pistols also recorded there.