Singer Joe Strummer's mumbled vocals in the intro are famously hard to decipher. If you're struggling, the full transcript of these opening lyrics is as follows: The kingdom is ransacked The jewels all taken back And the chopper descends They're hidden in the back With a message on a half-baked tape With the spool going round Saying I'm back here in this place And I could cry/and there's smoke you could click on... It leads into the rousing chant of "What're we gonna do now?" a phrase lifted from Spike Milligan's TV comedy show Q5.
The lyrics as a whole continue the themes previously explored in The Clash first-album track "Career Opportunities" of striving to do more in life than be stuck in a dead-end job and conforming to your superiors, insisting, "Let fury hath the hour, anger can be power." The lyrics, "So you got someone to boss around, it makes you feel big now," could have been suggested by bassist Paul Simonon after his experience working in a John Lewis warehouse. "There was a lot of shop floor fascism - I got the s--t end of the stick," he told Melody Maker in 1988.
The opening line, "Taking off his turban, they say is this man a Jew?" is commonly misunderstood, with some claiming it was anti-Semitic. In fact, singer Joe Strummer, who co-wrote the song along with guitarist Mick Jones, was making a point about nationalistic stereotypes and illogical suspicion of foreign peoples in the rise of the far-right parties such as the National Front - this being written 30 years before the rise of the English Defence League.
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