The lead singer of The Clash passed away suddenly twenty years ago. And a character like this is absent where personal beliefs are so intertwined with artistic experience
The Unwritten Future: The phrase in large letters dominates a mural in the heart of the East Village, the heart of New York’s underground. And it stood out on the back of the famous Combat Rock, the Clash record of zeal and passion. it is the leitmotif of the life and work of Joe Strummer, poet rather than singer of the English band: if not the most important punk of the late ’70s, then at least the most caustic and least volatile. A phrase that would go well with this dark present: full of clouds, between pandemics and rebound wars, but who knows if it is also full of good hopes.
Yes, we need the vision of a Joe Strummer. But the undisputed leader of an era as well as a musical adventure, life slipped away too soon: exactly twenty years ago, suddenly, without warning. A man of the time has gone, leaving a deep void, and no rhetoric. Out of time because in few instances art and life, beliefs and rock have been as intertwined as Joe’s, whether there was the Clash or not: anti-racist (and just the other day we lamented another disappearance, that of Terry Hall of the Specials , which Joe learned a lot about), anti-military, anti-colonialist and socialist, from day one to the last, on and off stage. Granitic but not dogmatic, who knows what future he would have written.
December 22, 2022 (Modification December 22, 2022 | 08:06)
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