Lyrically "Straight To Hell" is a tour of the world, covering Britain, America, Vietnam and South America, and taking a jaded, caustic look at all of them before summing up in the final verse that the themes discussed in the lyrics - poverty, misery, disaffection - can be applied anywhere, and are present in any country in the world ("It could be anywhere, most likely could be any frontier, any hemisphere, no-man's land and there ain't no asylum here, King Solomon he never lived round here").
The first verse starts in The Clash's home nation of Britain, looking at the disaffected generation blaming immigration for society's ills ("If you can play on the fiddle, How's about a British jig and reel? Speaking king's English in quotation") as the British steel and manufacturing industry crumbles, leaving many millions unemployed in the harsh winter of 1980-81 ("As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust").
The second verse deals with the legacy of the Vietnam War, and the aftermath of Vietnamese kids growing up without ever meeting their fathers - American soldiers getting local women pregnant whilst on duty during the war, and the identity crisis that causes ("Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo kid, It ain't Coca-Cola it's rice").
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