The First Great Post-Clash Song 4

We're wrapping up the series that saw Joe Strummer and Mick Jones' bands each get two nominations for First Great Post-Clash Song. "V. Thirteen", though part of a batch of songs co-written and co-produced by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones for the 1987 Big Audio Dynamite album No.Ten Upping Street, has a sound that is all B.A.D. That's good and that's not-so-good. Mick Jones' appeasement of the eighties fashionistas, with their thin, mechanical palette, can make his songs sound badly dated. Fortunately none of these limitations can overwhelm V. 13 though, with its Strummerized lyrics and Jones' keening hook. In fact, this song may represent the last echo of the Clash to be heard in the former memebers' music till into the ninties.

V. 13 (Mick Jones - Joe Strummer)

"Goodmorning Sodom and Gomorra
Goodmornig sinners
No that wasn't your radio set on the bleep again"

Sodom and Gomorra
Let the DJ play
'Cos I'm only gone tomorrow and here today

Lotta rockheads on the block
Dougie died and Sue got frocked
If the stove is hot then I ain't lost
And Rosa says my star is crossed
Little Jamie writes V. Thirteen
Comes in by the door goes out by screen
He don't listen to me he knows everything
Girls on the avenue ask me to sing

Sodom and Gomorra
Let the DJ play
'Cos I'm only gone tomorrow and here today

The paper drags and folds me down
Like a paper cup I fly around
I've been eating food that ain't been checked
And the Russian rain is beating down my neck
Screen blackout on the southern war
Cue talk breakdown on point forty four
There must be a place the preacher say "I guess"
But a drifter will tell you no place is best

Shout for all the people who have nothing to say
'Cos were only gone tomorrow and here today

Was a one off dirt jam when England came good
One night in a thousand they've played knock on wood
We used to go roamin' go roamin' around
When you don't look for something it's sure to be found

Sodom and Gomorra
Let the DJ play
'Cos I'm only gone tomorrow and here today
Shout for all the people who have nothing to say
'Cos were only gone tomorrow and here today
Sodom and Gomorra
Let the DJ play
'Cos I'm only gone tomorrow and here today
Yes I'm only gone tomorrow and here today

"Sodom and Gomorra this is London gov."

Here's a live B.A.D. take on V. 13


Here's Joe Strummer doing V. 13 song live in 1988 with Latino Rockabilly War