SPANISH BOMBS
by The Clash
on their "London Calling" album:
Spanish songs in Andalucia
The shooting sites in the days of '39
Oh, please, leave the vendanna open
Fredrico Lorca is dead and gone
Bullet holes in the cemetery walls
The black cars of the Guardia Civil
Spanish bombs on the Costa Rica
I'm flying in a DC 10 tonight
CHORUS
Spanish bombs
yo te quiero infinito
yo te quiero oh mi corazon
Spanish bombs
yo te quiero infinito
yo te quiero oh mi corazon
Spanish weeks in my disco casino
The freedom fighters died upon the hill
They sang the red flag
They wore the black one
But after they died it was Mockingbird Hill
Back home the buses went up in flashes
The Irish tomb was drenched in blood
Spanish bombs shatter the hotels
My senorita's rose was nipped in the bud
CHORUS
The hillsides ring with "Free the people"
Or can I hear the echo from the days of '39?
With trenches full of poets
The ragged army, fixin' bayonets to fight the other line
Spanish bombs rock the province
I'm hearing music from another time
Spanish bombs on the Costa Brava
I'm flying in on a DC 10 tonight
Spanish songs in Andalucia, Mandolina, oh mi corazon
Spanish songs in Granada, oh mi corazon
From: GeoffLawes - PM
Date: 01 Dec 10 - 08:07 PM
The following is an interesting extract about Joe Strummer and Woody Guthrie from Nora's Page of the Official Woody Guthrie Website dated May 2001. It is reproduced with the permission of The Woody Guthrie Foundation. The full text of Nora Guthrie's web posting can be read at the link HERE
But then, quite by accident, I came across a miscellaneous note on the site from one Brian Sheppard which referred to a Clash song 'Spanish Bombs' which was released on their London Calling record in 1979. Surprised and ever curious, I picked up a book about The Clash which I just happened to get from Billy Bragg for my birthday. Browsing through The Last Gang in Town by Marcus Gray (Owl Books), trying to find out about the song 'Spanish Bombs', I found instead that punk-rocker Joe (John Mellor) Strummer, Clash front man and songwriter, actually nicknamed himself "Woody" Mellor!
Gray goes on to explain; "Woody was the real-life Woody Guthrie, the hobo folksinger who traveled the USA in the Thirties.... 'Yeah, you could call us a folk group,' he (Mellor) told Sean OHagan when discussing the Clash in 1988. 'I came out of Woody Guthrie, in a way.' Indeed, upon his arrival in London John went one step further than Bob Dylan, who had merely borrowed Guthrie's singing voice and identity, by adopting the folk singer's name; for the best part of six years from September 1970 onwards, everyone who met him knew him as Woody."
Thanks to Tiffany Colannino,the Archivist at the Woody Guthrie Archives.
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 05 Jan 2011 - AM