The Clash Version
| "I Fought the Law" | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by The Clash | |||||||||||
| from the album The Cost of Living | |||||||||||
| B-side | "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" | ||||||||||
| Released | July 26, 1979 (U.S.) | ||||||||||
| Format | Vinyl | ||||||||||
| Genre | Punk rock | ||||||||||
| Length | 2:38 | ||||||||||
| Label | CBS | ||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Sonny Curtis | ||||||||||
| The Clash singles chronology | |||||||||||
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In mid-1978, the Clash were working on their second album, Give 'Em Enough Rope. Singer Joe Strummer and guitarist Mick Jones flew out to San Francisco to record overdubs in September–October at the Automatt studio. The owner of The Automatt kept his collection of classic jukeboxes distributed around the various rooms of the studio complex. Strummer and Jones listened to the Bobby Fuller version of "I Fought the Law" for the first time on one of the jukeboxes, and by the time they returned to England they could perform the song.
Their version first appeared on the EP The Cost of Living in May 1979 in the UK, and then later in 1979 was made part of the American edition of the Clash's eponymous album. This cover version helped gain the Clash their first taste of airplay in the States and is one of the best-known cover versions of the song. The live recording of the song, performed at the Lyceum Theatre, West End, London on December 28, 1978, features as the last piece of the 1980 film Rude Boy directed by Jack Hazan and David Mingay. The Clash were dressed all in black for that gig and the song, at that stage, was considered the film's title song.
In 1988, CBS Records re-issued the single (catalog number) in CD, 12" and 7" vinyl formats, with "City of the Dead" (2:24) and "1977" (1:40) as its 7" B-side. The song is featured as a downloadable track in the music video game series Rock Band.
In 1989 during Operation Just Cause, the US military surrounded the Apostolic Nunciature in Panama while trying to capture Manuel Noriega, the strongman of Panama. US forces blasted loud rock music—including "I Fought the Law" by the Clash—to put pressure on Noriega to give himself up.
In 2012, the Clash's version of the song was featured in the video game Sleeping Dogs as part of a karaoke mini-game.
Read more about this topic: I Fought The Law
Famous quotes containing the words clash and/or version:
“Simile and Metaphor differ only in degree of stylistic refinement. The Simile, in which a comparison is made directly between two objects, belongs to an earlier stage of literary expression; it is the deliberate elaboration of a correspondence, often pursued for its own sake. But a Metaphor is the swift illumination of an equivalence. Two images, or an idea and an image, stand equal and opposite; clash together and respond significantly, surprising the reader with a sudden light.”
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