''Give 'Em Enough Rope'' is the second studio album by the English punk rock band

the Clash The Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 who were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they also contributed to the and new wave movements that emerged in the w ...

. It was released on 10 November 1978 through CBS Records. It was their first album released in the United States, preceding the U.S. version of the self-titled album. The album was well received by critics and fans, peaking at number two in the United Kingdom

Albums Chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include rec ...

, and number 128 in the ''Billboard'' 200. The album is tied with ''

Combat Rock ''Combat Rock'' is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Clash. It was released on 14 May 1982 through CBS Records. In the United Kingdom, the album charted at number 2, spending 23 weeks in the UK charts and peaked at number 7 i ...

'' for being the highest charting album for the Clash in their native United Kingdom. The album marked the first album appearance of drummer Topper Headon, who joined the band shortly after the recording of their first album. Most of the tracks, as with the prior album, were written by guitarists

Joe Strummer John Graham Mellor (21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002), known professionally as Joe Strummer, was a British singer, musician and songwriter. He was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and co-lead vocalist of punk rock band the Clash, f ...

and Mick Jones, with the exception of "

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...

" (a reworking of the traditional American folk song " When Johnny Comes Marching Home") and "Guns on the Roof", which is credited to all four band members, being Headon, Jones, Strummer, and bassist

Paul Simonon Paul Gustave Simonon (; born 15 December 1955) is an English musician and artist best known as the bassist for the Clash. More recent work includes his involvement in the supergroup the Good, the Bad & the Queen and playing on the Gorillaz a ...

Background

The album's cover art was designed by Gene Greif, the front of which was based on a postcard titled "End of the Trail", photographed by Adrian Atwater and featuring Wallace Irving Robertson. The cover of the first US pressings showed the band's name written in block capital letters. Subsequent U.S. pressings used a faux-oriental style font, which was then replaced with the more ornate faux-oriental style font used on the UK release. The original American issue of the album also retitled "All the Young Punks" as "That's No Way to Spend Your Youth". This was revised on later editions. " Tommy Gun" and "

" were released as the album's singles, either side of Christmas 1978. They entered the UK charts at numbers 19 and 25, respectively. Though the opening track of side two, "Guns on the Roof", is ostensibly about global

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

, war and corruption, it was partly inspired by an incident that resulted in the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

's armed anti-terrorist squad raiding the Clash's Camden Market base.

and Topper Headon were arrested and charged with criminal damage (and later fined £750) for shooting racing pigeons with an air-gun from the roof of their rehearsal building. The band continued to include contemporary subjects in their lyrics on the album; "Tommy Gun" deals with Middle Eastern terrorism, specifically the hi-jacking of aircraft, while "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" is a commentary on the infamous "

Operation Julie Operation Julie was a UK police investigation into the production of LSD by two drug rings during the mid-1970s. The operation, involving 11 police forces over a -year period, resulted in the break-up of one of the largest LSD manufacturing opera ...

" drug bust that saw the largest

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

production ring in the world, based in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, dismantled by an undercover police operation. The song also makes a reference to

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

' song "

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. It was written primarily by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnersh ...

" in the opening line, "It's Lucy in the sky and all kinds of apple pie". "Drug-Stabbing Time" is strongly anti-drug and describes the paranoia of being caught despite the band's (specifically Mick Jones's) drug usage. "Safe European Home" describes Strummer's and Jones uneasy writing trip to Jamaica. Jones later commented on the trip by saying, "we went down to the docks and I think we only survived because they mistook us for sailors." The song also contains references of Jamaican culture and buildings like the

Sheraton hotel Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is an international semi-luxury hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, Sheraton operates 446 hotels with 155,617 rooms globally, including locations in North America, Africa, Asia Pacific, Cen ...

in Kingston. During recording of the album,

's trademark

Telecaster The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it is the world's first mass-produced, commercially successfulLes Paul had built a prototype solid body ...

guitar needed to be taken in for repairs, so he played a hired semi-hollow

Gibson ES-345 The Gibson ES-345 is a stereo guitar manufactured by the Gibson Guitar Company. The guitar was produced from 1959 to 1981. It was designed as a jazz guitar and an upscale version of the ES-335. History The 345 was developed in 1958 as an upscale ...

for most of the sessions. Sandy Pearlman, who produced the original album, was not a big fan of Joe Strummer's voice, to the point that he ensured the drums were mixed louder than the lead singer's vocals on the entire album. Other songs recorded during the sessions included the single "

(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" is a song by the English punk rock band the Clash. It was originally released as a 7-inch single, with the b-side "The Prisoner", on 16 June 1978 through CBS Records. Produced by The Clash and engineered by ...

", as well as B-sides "

Pressure Drop Pressure drop is defined as the difference in total pressure between two points of a fluid carrying network. A pressure drop occurs when frictional forces, caused by the resistance to flow, act on a fluid as it flows through the tube. The main de ...

", "1-2 Crush on You" and "The Prisoner". Four more songs were recorded: "One Emotion", " Groovy Times", "Ooh Baby Ooh (It's Not Over)" (AKA "Rusted Chrome", later reworked and released as "Gates of the West") and "RAF 1810."

Critical reception

In a contemporary review for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'',

Greil Marcus Greil Marcus (born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. Biography Marcus wa ...

hailed ''Give 'Em Enough Rope'' as a poised, unpretentious record of "straight English punk with a grip on the future" and "accessible hard rock" showcasing the Clash's unyielding, humorous "vision of public life": "The band's vision of a world strangling on its own contradictions hasn't changed, but their idea of their place in that world has."

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

wrote in ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

'' that the album's pessimistic mood and a couple of bad songs or moments made it less listenable than the band's debut record, but concluded that most of the songs were "effective melodically as anything on ''The Clash'', and even the band's ruminations on the star as culture hero become more resonant as you hear them over and over again. This isn't among the greatest rock albums ever, but it is among the finest of the year." He named it the fourth best album of 1978 in his list for the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics in which ''Give 'Em Enough Rope'' also finished fourth. ''

Sounds In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

'' magazine named it the year's best record. In 1993, ''Give 'Em Enough Rope'' was named the 87th greatest album of all time in '' NME'' magazine. '' Q'' included the record in their "100 Best Punk Albums" list, and wrote in retrospect that it was "no more punk than Blondie" and "shined of quality", and "their drumming problems were over with the arrival of jazz-trained opperHeadon."

Track listing

Personnel

The Clash *

–

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, ...

and backing vocals,

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

* Mick Jones –

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the fe ...

, backing vocals, lead vocals on "Stay Free" *

–

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, backing vocals * Topper Headon –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

with: *

Allen Lanier Allen Glover Lanier (; June 25, 1946 – August 14, 2013) was an American musician who played keyboards and rhythm guitar. He was an original member of Blue Öyster Cult. Lanier wrote several songs for Blue Öyster Cult albums, including "T ...

–

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

on "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" (uncredited) * Stan Bronstein (of Elephant's Memory) –

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

on "Drug Stabbing Time" (uncredited)(Fletcher: ''The Clash: The Music That Matters'') * Bob Andrews – keyboards on "Stay Free" (uncredited) Production * Sandy Pearlman – producer * Corky Stasiak –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...

* Paul Stubblebine –

mastering engineer A mastering engineer is a person skilled in the practice of taking audio (typically musical content) that has been previously mixed in either the analog or digital domain as mono, stereo, or multichannel formats and preparing it for use in distr ...

* Dennis Ferrante – sound engineer * Gregg Caruso – sound engineer * Kevin Dallimore – sound engineer * Chris Mingo – sound engineer * Gene Greif – cover designer * Hugh Brown – concept designer, cover photograph

Charts

Certifications

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1978 albums The Clash albums Hard rock albums by English artists Epic Records albums Albums produced by Sandy Pearlman