The late, great Joe Strummer was always quick to credit manager Bernie Rhodes as an important early influence on the band: “He constructed The Clash and focused our energies, and we repaid him by being really good at what we did,” said Strummer. One of Rhodes’ early edicts to the band was ‘no love songs’. When pushed on what they should put pen to paper about, his response was invariably: “An issue, an issue. Don’t write about love, write about what’s affecting you, what’s important.”
Rhodes’ advice worked well for The Clash, whose reputation for being ‘the only band that matters’ was based, for a large part, on the political and social issues they were never afraid to confront head-on in their songwriting. The Clash weren’t soppy, they didn’t want to hold your hand, they were much more inclined to chop it off.