Best Tracks Ever: "Spanish Bombs"

The Clash "Spanish Bombs"

At the beginning of Manhattan, Woody, as might be expected, claims that his main character is one who has “romanticized New York City all out of proportion.” I’ve always done the same with Spain. The first brick in this romance might have been laid by Hendrix’s "Spanish Castle Magic," I don’t know. It doesn’t matter how it began, just that it still beats. Spain, for me, has always been a magical place where people make love in sunflower fields all day long. When Sufjan said “I fell in love with a place,” I was puzzled to discover that he was talking about "Chicago" and not Spain. While Marvin Gaye had Tupac feeling like black was the thing to be, George Orwell had me feeling like Spain during the Civil War was the place to be. Had I been alive, I would’ve joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, for sure. If the anarchists had had one more romantic soul tossing bombs in the trenches, Franco’s pig-fascist guts might have been blown out of his goddamn pig-fascsist brains.

In 2003, I went to Spain for almost two months. I spent one month studying Spanish in Sevilla, and by “studying” I mean “drinking many Cruz Campos, smoking Fortunas, eating lots of fried fish, getting tranced out by the women, conquering the maze-like streets, stumbling across late night flamenco sessions, romancing Monica (OMG, she was my professora), meeting my future lawyer (Sam/Steve), and being completely mesmerized by absolutely everything that I touched.” I spent another two weeks going up the coast to Valencia, meeting up with a lovely young woman from France and spending some time with her in Barcelona, wandering around Zaragoza, and finally returning to Madrid to hunt down an elusive Schiele that was hiding out at La Reina Sofia. THEME SONG: I played the same song at the moment my plane pulled out from Washington DC, and the moment it pulled out of Madrid: The Clash’s “Spanish Bombs.”

Aside from holding great personal nostalgic value, “Spanish Bombs” holds a collective nostalgic value for all of us who have ever been Anarchists, Marxists, or far-left-morons of any sort. When Strummer asks, “Can I hear the echo from the days of 39?” he’s referring to the moment that now seems impossible to the rational among us: the moment when it felt like the anarchists might take Spain. But, as we all know, thanks in large part to that asshat Stalin, the anarchists were eventually annihilated by the fascistic forces of both the right and the left. As beautiful as this nostalgia is, though, it has led to an almost neurotic romanticization of this great historical moment. However, I’m not too sure that it matters how accurately we remember things, or if it’s even possible to do so. I like to think of memory in the same way that Bergman thinks of the theater, namely as being the little world in which we get to create the things that are impossible to create in the big world. (This notion, of course, has some pretty awful consequences when considering the Spanish Civil War, but it sounds nice for now.)

The song itself exemplifies what The Clash did best: merge pop music with radical politics. This, I think, is a lethal combination. If “Spanish Bombs” isn’t one of the greatest pop songs to ever exist, then I don’t know what is. What they have done with this track is construct a danceable song that inspires critical thought and the remembrance of moments in which humans almost got it right. To say that the pop aesthetic is just a smooth way to sugarcoat the political message would be false—both parts are equally powerful, and without this equality, the track would either plunge into mindlessness or dogmatism. The Clash’s merging of these two critical forces reaches the height of perfection here.

When I listen to the song now, I recall the following: One day, I was walking by myself through the streets of Sevilla, crossing over the Guadalquivir, heading over to the other side of the city in search of the small pottery district, stopping at every cathedral along the way. It was ridiculously hot, but there was a light breeze. I looked up, and waving from an apartment window was that most beautiful of flags—you know, the one that is half red and half black. I took a picture of it so I would never forget. Similarly, in “Spanish Bombs” The Clash has eternalized that magical moment when the “trenches (were) full of poets” who “sang the red flag (and) wore the black one," except within a three and a half minute pop-bomb that's still ticking.

STREAM: Spanish Bombs at hype machine

YOUTUBE: Spanish Bombs, live, Paris, 1980
YOUTUBE: Spanish Civil War meets Spanish Bombs

Reading and Viewing recommendations for the heads:

The link above, where I mention Orwell, will take you to an online version of the text. Anyone interested in the Spanish Civil War, should read Orwell’s beautiful and tragic first hand account in Homage To Catalonia. Murray Bookchin’s The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, is also really great. Any good indie video store should have a VHS copy of Land and Freedom, which is a pretty decent film. The propaganda posters from the war are absolutely beautiful. UC San Diego has posted some images from their collection that are worth checking out. Finally, check out AK Press’s Spanish Revolution section for more reading recommendations.