Something About England

Produced by

Historical and musical context: “Something About England” is one of many crazy musical variations on the Sandinista! album, with The Clash experimenting with Music Hall… Read More

Dec. 12, 19801 viewer14.1K views

Something About England Lyrics

(Mick Jones)
They say the immigrants steal the hubcaps
Of respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine and roses
If England were for Englishmen again

I saw a dirty overcoat
At the foot of the pillar of the road
Propped inside was an old man
Who time could not erode
The night was snapped by sirens
Those blue lights circled past
The dance hall called for an ambulance
The bars all closed up fast

My silence gazing at the ceiling
While roaming the single room
I thought the old man could help me
If he could explain the gloom
"You really think it's all new
You really think about it too"
The old man scoffed as he spoke to me
"I'll tell you a thing or two"

(Joe Strummer)
I missed the fourteen-eighteen war
But not the sorrow afterwards
With my father dead, my mother ran off
My brothers took the pay of hoods
The twenties turned the north was dead
The hunger strike came marching south
The garden party not a word was said
The ladies lifted cake to their mouths

The next war began and my ship sailed
With battle orders writ in red
In five long years of bullets and shells
We left ten million dead
The few returned to old Piccadilly
We limped around Leicester Square
The world was busy rebuilding itself
The architects could not care

But how could we know when I was young
All the changes that were to come?
All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield
And now the terror of the scientific sun
There was masters and servants and servants and dogs
They taught you how to touch your cap
Through strikes and famine and war and peace
England never closed this gap

So leave me now the moon is up
But remember the tales I tell
The memories that you have dredged up
Are on letters forwarded from Hell"

It's a long way to Tipperary
It's a long way to go
Goodbye, Piccadilly
Farewell, Leicester Square

(Mick Jones)
The streets were now deserted
The gangs had trudged off home
The lights clicked out in the bedsits
Old England was all alone

About

Historical and musical context:

“Something About England” is one of many crazy musical variations on the Sandinista! album, with The Clash experimenting with Music Hall, one of British music’s oldest genres, stretching back to Victorian and Edwardian times. The campy vaudeville elements sound an odd contrast to Punk music.

“Something About England” is very complex, with Jones playing piano for the whole song, drummer Topper Headon playing a delicate ‘quotation-mark’ percussion beat and a horn section comprising of session musician Gary Barnacle, Gary’s father Bill (a noted jazz musician) and military bandsman David Yates). Because of this complexity (and the worry that the first verse may be misinterpreted by certain sections of the audience), the song was never performed live.

The lyrics are structured as a conversation between the narrator, guitarist Mick Jones, and a wistful old tramp, singer Joe Strummer.