Garageland (song) - Writing and Recording

Writing and Recording

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 Strummer

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.’

—Terry Chimes

Joe would go into everything at a million miles an hour and then change his mind.

—Bernard Rhodes

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 are the kind of garage band who should be returned to the garage immediately, preferably with the engine running, which would undoubtedly be more of a loss to their friends and families than to either rock or roll.

Followed by:

Their guitarist on the extreme left, allegedly known as Joe Strummer, has good moves but he and the band are a little shaky on ground that involves starting, stopping and changing chords at approximately the same time.

The Clash reacted immediately by writing the song "Garageland", whose opening verses are: "Back in the garage with my bullshit detector / Carbon monoxide makes sure it's effective", followed by the chorus: "We're a garage band / We come from garageland", and concluding with "Back in the garage".

Another theme in the song is about the band signing to CBS Records on 25 January 1977 for £100,000. The music press and fans criticized The Clash for having "sold out" to the establishment. Mark Perry, founder of the leading London punk periodical, Sniffin' Glue, let loose with what he would later call his "big quote": "Punk died the day The Clash signed to CBS." This was evidenced in the verses: "Meanwhile things are hotting up in the West End alright / Contracts in the offices and groups in the night / My bumming slumming friends have got new boots / And someone just asked me if the group would wear suits", and, after the chorus, with the following lines: "I don't want to know about what the rich are doing / I don't want to go to where the rich are going / They think they're so clever, they think they're so right / But the truth is only known by gutter snipes".

"Garageland", as well as the majority of the band's debut studio album, was conceived on the 18th floor of a council high rise on London's Harrow Road, in a flat that was rented by Jones' grandmother, who frequently went to see the band rehearsing. The song was recorded at CBS Whitfield Street Studio No. 3 on 27 February 1977. The tapes for the entire album were delivered to CBS at the start of March and the recording was released in the United Kingdom through CBS Records on 8 April 1977. The album was engineered by CBS staff engineer Simon Humphrey and produced by Clash live soundman Mickey Foote.