This is Radio Clash

The initial idea for "This Is Radio Clash" apparently came from a conversation between singer Joe Strummer, aide Kosmo Vinyl and manager Bernie Rhodes about the band setting up their own radio station. Having read Dispatches by Michael Herr, Strummer wrote the line "ghettology is an urban Vietnam" and later fleshed out the lyrics at Marcus Music in Kensington in April 1981 in the inaugural sessions before the song was completed at the Electric Lady studios in New York in November of that year.

Joe Strummer admitted in an interview with Melody Maker in 1988 that he had nicked the bassline from the Queen hit "Another One Bites The Dust" (which in itself shares many similarities with another disco classic, Chic's "Good Times"). The song as a whole is the band's tribute to New York rap acts such as the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - indeed, Strummer's sinister high-pitched laugh at the start of the song was directly inspired by Grandmaster Flash's "The Message."

Two sets of lyrics exist for "This Is Radio Clash" - the original, featuring references to the Bill of Rights, Napalm and the American Armed Forces Network, and a separate set that was recorded onto another take, later named just "Radio Clash." Confusingly they are both identical tracks bar the lyrics, and even feature as A and B sides on the single, which led to some mistakes in later re-releases - on the Story of the Clash Volume 1 compilation, the tracklisting lists "This Is Radio Clash," but it is in fact the "Radio Clash" version on the CD.