WombatNation

Joe Strummer suffered a heart attack and passed away yesterday at the age of 50.

The Clash's three LP masterpiece Sandinista! was the first really great, life-changing music I experienced. One of my brother's high school friends was exposed to the Clash's music while DJ'ing at Johns Hopkins. He told my brother to check out a couple bands - The Clash, U2, Adam Ant, and Black Flag. This was 1980, I was 15 years old, and finding music by any of these bands in Biloxi, Mississippi, at that time was not particularly easy.

When Sandinista! came out the following year, I snapped it up and listened to it over and over. The music and the lyrics exposed me to not only the best band I had ever heard but also to other cultures and to leftist politics.

Listening once again to all three LPs of Sandinista!, I'm amazed I can still remember the lyrics to many of the songs. From the initial jangly strains of "The Magnificent Seven" to the shuffling dub dirge of "Shepherds Delight", this is simply a stunning album.

If you have a copy of Sandinista! or know someone who does, be sure to read through the six-page foldout lyrics sheet with cartoons by Steve Bell. Holding this big lyrics sheet in my hands reminds me of a lot of what we gave up with the move to CDs and downloaded music.