Garageland (song)
| "Garageland" | |
|---|---|
| Song by The Clash | |
| from the album The Clash | |
| Language | English |
| Released | 8 April 1977 |
| Recorded | 27 February 1977, London |
| Genre | Punk rock |
| Length | 3:12 |
| Label | CBS |
| Composer(s) | Mick Jones |
| Lyricist(s) | Joe Strummer |
| Producer(s) | Mickey Foote |
"Garageland" is a song by English punk rock band The Clash featured as the final track for their 1977 debut album The Clash.
The song was penned by Joe Strummer as a response to music journalist Charles Shaar Murray, who, after a gig in 1976, wrote a review saying that they were "the kind of garage band who should be returned to the garage immediately". It also served as a declaration to their fans – and their new record company, with which they had signed a contract for £100,000 on 25 January 1977, – that they would still remain the same as they were before the signing.
I never want that to happen. After our second gig a critic in New Musical Express wrote that we should be returned to the garage and locked in with a motor running so that we died. "Garageland" is about that. I was trying to say that this is where we come from and we know it, and we're not going to get out of our depth. Even though we've signed with C.B.S. we aren’t going to float off into the atmosphere like the Pink Floyd or anything.
Joe was really excited about this idea of a garage band, that led to the song "Garageland". He really thought, ‘We belong in a garage.’ He'd hit on something like that and get very, very excited and live off that for a few days. Then he'd be depressed about something else and he'd come in and say, ‘We're not really a garage band at all.’
Joe would go into everything at a million miles an hour and then change his mind.
Upon The Clash's early appearance at the Sex Pistols Screen on the Green concert, Charles Shaar Murray, an NME critic, produced a damning review of the band:
The Clash reacted immediately by writing the song "Garageland", whose opening verses are: "Back in the garage with my bullshit detector / Carbon monoxide making sure it's effective", followed by the chorus: "We're a garage band / We come from garageland", and concluding with "Back in the garage".
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