My Life Is a Clash Song

We hear you, Joe.

Sadly (or maybe not so much) I lost my job last week. There are a lot of pros to working as part of a small company of five people, namely that its a pretty loose environment stripped of a lot of the typical corporate world bullshit. But the one drawback is that companies like that are a house of cards. They’re not really equipped to handle much turbulence, so the second anything even remotely goes wrong shit gets right fucked up in a hurry.

But the hardest thing about unemployment, at least at the very start, isn’t the stress of having to find another job, or even concerns about staying financially afloat. It’s what to do with all the empty space that’s all of a sudden left to fill in your life. Ever since I started working six years ago, my days have been pretty jam packed. Whether I was running around covering meetings and filing stories or dragging my feet through the drudgery of a 9-5 office job, good or bad I was never short of things to do. Now that everything is up in the air, it’s the exact opposite, which is both exhilarating and maddeningly frustrating at the same time.

Like everything else in life, there’s a band or song or album that ultimately syncs up pretty closely to these feelings. Music draws from real life, so it makes sense that it would. And with that, I have to say that I’m gaining a healthier appreciation for the Clash as of late, something I didn’t think was possible until I started relating to the material a little more closely.

The Clash’s music has always had a real acute ability to tap into the tension that often arises through boredom and nothingness. The stress, anger and desperation that pours in buckets out of the band’s 1977 self titled debut is downright tangible. The whole album is a brutally honest reflection of its time, that of a less-than-glamorous period in London’s rich history where regular Joes were being held back and marginalized by forces outside of their control. Times were tough, jobs weren’t readily available for the many people who were in need of them, and as a result a lot of people began to feel victimized by fate.

I can’t really say that I all of a sudden feel like the album was written for me, but I definitely sympathize with its viewpoints a little more today than I did even a week ago, let alone when I was in high school. Back then I just liked the Clash because they were cool. They were loud, pissed off and didn’t bow down to anyone or anything. But I didn’t really bother delving in too deep to the band’s overarching political themes of government angst, middle class frustration and suburban blight. Why would I? I’m not even going to sit here and pretend I had much of anything to be mad about growing up because it largely all roses.

But then you grow up and you start seeing how the world has a lot of different little ways of setting you up for a fall. Not to be too dramatic, but lets face it: life’s not fair, and until you find yourself on the receiving end of the cosmos’ backhand it’s hard to really relate to that. In my case, my particular setback is minor in comparison to what a lot of other people have to go through (I was getting sick of my job anyway, so it could even be called a blessing in disguise), but even still I appreciate songs like “White Riot,” “Career Opportunities” and “London’s Burning” a little more now than I once did. All of a sudden, Joe Strummer’s lyrics went from being just words to thoughts and ideas that I could put in context.

Even taken out of my particular situation, all I have to do is walk around Boston for evidence that the band’s message is as alive today as it was 34 years ago. You see it when you walk by the Occupy protesters in Dewey Square, or with the various people holding signs in demonstration in Copley. You read it in the papers and see it in the news. People are frustrated, angry, confused and in desperate search for answers in a world that seems to constantly be calling their lives into question. In the end you have to wonder how much really separates 1977 from 2011? It’s all just further proof that it’s the Clash’s world, and we just live in it.

RB