Joe Strummer Quotes

The future is unwritten.

If I had five million pounds I'd start a radio station because something needs to be done. It would be nice to turn on the radio and hear something that didn't make you feel like smashing up the kitchen and strangling the cat.

Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control and it didn't have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realised that you either became a power or you were crushed

We aren't particularly talented. We try harder!

When you're out to get the honey you don't go killing all the bees

People can change anything they want to, and that means everything in the world.

And so now I'd like to say - people can change anything they want to. And that means everything in the world. People are running about following their little tracks - I am one of them. But we've all got to stop just following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything - this is something that I'm beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other. That's because they've been dehumanised. It's time to take the humanity back into the center of the ring and follow that for a time. Greed, it ain't going anywhere. They should have that in a big billboard across Times Square. Without people you're nothing. That's my spiel.

It is fun to be alive. It's a hell of a lot better than being dead.

Yeah, all those things, responsibility, pressure. It's a bit stressful. I try and come to terms with it by not thinking about it.

everybody has a story to tell

You've gotta be slightly stupid.

Without people, you're nothing.

I want to grow up with my audience. I don't expect to be getting through to the younger pop crowd. I learned that from Paul Simon.

A lot of people... use a calculator!

The hippy movement was a failure.

And the pebbles fight each other as rocks/And my father bends among them/Two hands outstretching up to me/Not that I can hear.

He (Joe Strummer) was one of the great English rock stars, bold and influential beyond reckoning. We could do with another one like him, right now.

As the floods of God Wash away sin city They say it was written In the page of the Lord But I was looking For that great jazz note That destroyed The walls of Jericho The winds of fear Whip away the sickness The messages on the tablet Was valium As the planets form That golden cross Lord I'll see you on The holy cross roads After all this time To believe in Jesus After all those drugs I thought I was Him After all my lying And a-crying And my suffering I ain't good enough I ain't clean enough To be Him The tribal wars Burning up the homeland The fuel of evil Is raining from the sky The sea of lava Flowing down the mountain The time will sleep Us sinners by Holy rollers roll Give generously now Pass the hubcap please Thank you Lord

The most profound voice of any musician I have ever heard. Joe (Strummer) took his message to the world, and the world listened. He managed to influence more than one generation with his innovative and determined manner, and I am not alone in repeatedly turning to his thoughts and lyrics when searching for inspiration. The Clash was the greatest rock band. They wrote the rule book for U2.

You ain’t alive and kicking unless you’re fighting.

I tell her how sorry I am, and as I speak my words feel inadequate and pathetic.

There was an intelligence about him (Joe Strummer) that allowed his band to change and evolve, just as Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols were disappearing up their own bondage trousers. And there was a generosity about Strummer, too, a warmth and humanity about the guy. He was a brilliant musician, a beautiful man, and a charismatic artist. There is a part of me that bitterly resents the fact that the Clash never replaced the Rolling Stones in rock music's hall of heroes. But the Clash were not about milking if for a lifetime...I thought they were the greatest band I had ever seen. And, half a lifetime on, in a large part of my soul, I still do...They changed lives. They certainly changed mine. Because they made me believe that, with passion and commitment and a bit of fire in your belly, you could be exactly the person you wanted to be.

But the Clash as a performing band, either live on-stage, or back together in the studio: that can never happen again. It was hard enough to envisage a Clash without Mick Jones in 1983, but it is impossible to envisage one without Joe Strummer now or at any time in the future. Even if the other members of the band do get back together, and they (or Sony) choose to use the name, it won't be the Clash. Joe Strummer is dead, and irreplaceable. That's it, now. From here to eternity.

One of the new species is Alviniconcha strummeri, named as a joint tribute to the research submarine and to Joe Strummer, the lead vocalist and guitarist of the British punk band The Clash. It was a nod to these hard-as-nails snails that live in the most acidic, most sulphur-ridden hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean, close to the islands of Fiji. And like many of the band’s 1970s punk followers, the snails have spiky hairdos in the form of a bristly layer of protein known as the periostracum, which covers their shells.

And so we say We ain't digging no grave We're digging a foundation For a future to be made

We’d play to old age pensioners if they’d have us but we don’t have to. The Stones are taking care of that now.

You see, I'm not like Paul [Simonon] or the others, I had a chance to be a 'good, normal person' with a nice car and a house in the suburbs – the golden apple or whatever you call it. But I saw through it. I saw it was an empty life. I only saw my father once a year (after being sent to boarding school). He was a real disciplinarian who was always giving me speeches about how he had pulled himself up by the sweat of his brow: a real guts and determination man. What he was really saying to me was, 'If you play by the rules, you can end up like me'. And I saw right away I didn't want to end up like him. Once I got out on my own, I realized I was right. I saw how the rules worked and I didn't like them. [-- LA Times interview]

thought The Clash were spectacular. They were charming to me when we met, and Joe Strummer clearly had a heart of gold. His work for political causes, especially anti-racist ones, was inspiring.

If Adolf Hitler flew in today, they'd send a limousine anyway.

Strummer’s father’s profession of career diplomat didn’t arise from any position of privilege—quite the opposite, in fact. “He was a self-made man, and we could never get on,” said Strummer. “He couldn’t understand why I was last in every class at school. He didn’t understand there were different shapes to every piece of wood, different grains to people. I don’t blame him, because all he knew was that he pulled himself out of it by studying really hard.

one of his first creative contributions on linking up with Mick Jones was to change the title of a love song called “I’m So Bored with You” to “I’m So Bored with the USA.

I’ve got a big problem: Mick was right about Bernie [Rhodes].” He had finally realized he had been manipulated. He caught a plane to the Bahamas, where Mick Jones was on holiday: an ounce of grass in his hand, he sought out the guitarist’s hotel, and presented him with this tribute, asking to get the Clash back together. But it was too late: Jones had already formed a new group, Big Audio Dynamite; although Joe Strummer ended up coproducing BAD’s second album, his own plans came to nothing.

talk to Rat Scabies, former drummer with the Damned. He tells me he and Joe had been working together in 1995 on the soundtrack of Grosse Pointe Blank, but that they fell out over that hoary old rock ’n’ roll chestnut—money. “I was stupid,” he admits. “I thought I knew everything from playing with the Damned. But working with Joe was like an entirely new education. He understood how to trust his instincts and go with them every time. I couldn’t believe how fast he worked.

The truth is only known by gutter snipes...

And so we say We ain't digging no grave We're digging a foundation For a future to be made Joe Strummer, North and South