The 30 Best Clash Covers Ever

Head back to the beginning.

20. Living Colour — Should I Stay Or Should I Go

Did Mick Jones write this song about his relationship with Ellen Foley? Or about whether he should remain in the Clash? He isn’t saying, and it really doesn’t matter. There’s something primal and back to basics about “Should I Stay or Should I Go?,” from 1982’s Combat Rock, and its simple question is one that pretty much everyone has faced in life. And the Spanish background vocals by Joe Strummer and Austin progressive country stalwart Joe Ely are, in their own way, charming. (After Combat Rock, Jones actually did leave the Clash, which was never the same.)

Living Colour often performed the song live and released a version in 1990 as the B-side of a single. As you would expect, they take a hard rock approach to the song, with pounding drums, Vernon Reid’s punk/metal guitar and Corey Glover’s powerful vocals. Sadly, though, no Spanish background vocals. — Jordan Becker

19. Joy Zipper — Hitsville UK

The author of The Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer describes a period of his own politics of “Clashist,” led solely by his love of the band and the largely left-wing ideologies espoused by the expensively-educated but Bohemian-minded Joe Strummer. As such, the index has many entries for Sandinista, both the political movement and the album. That album gave us “Hitsville UK.” That then leads to this cover. In the 2000s, a band in thrall to the shoegaze bands of the ’90s gives a cover of a funky ’80s band evolving from their punk roots in the ’70s to give a tribute to the Motown bands of the ’60s. Fans of the movie Inception, along with lovers of great music, will appreciate it. — Mike Tobyn

18. Ethan Lipton — Corner Soul

Joe Strummer wrote “Corner Soul,” which appeared on 1980’s Sandinista!, to highlight the racial and economic tensions in London’s poor and immigrant neighborhoods at the time, which would soon after erupt into rioting. It references a 1968 speech from racist British politician Enoch Powell, who argued that mass immigration would lead to a “river of blood.” Despite the underlying anger, the song is a mid-tempo, reggae-inflected tune that may have been overshadowed by some of the more upbeat and experimental songs on the controversial triple album.

Ethan Lipton, a Brooklyn-based playwright (and Guggenheim Fellow), who also sings and leads Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra, contributed a cover to The Sandinista Project, a track-by-track remake compiled by writer Jimmy Guterman that provides several songs on our list today. Lipton recasts “Corner Soul” as a jazzy ballad, with his soulful singing, prominent upright bass, and some tasty sax. — Jordan Becker

17. Social Distortion — Death or Glory

It’s fitting that an American punk band that was founded only a couple of years after The Clash would cover their song about, in part, ’60s rock stars claiming they’d rather die than get old. It’s likely that lead singer Mike Ness knows who Strummer is talking about. Social Distortion turn the slashing guitar from the chorus into a harmonic lead at the beginning and their guitars are appropriately distorted, giving the song a bit more of an American punk feel than the original. Ness also drops Strummer’s Floydian vocal noises at the beginning of the bridge but they expand the palette a bit by adding a piano, which adds some trills and fills to the outro. It’s clear Ness and co. love the song and the message. — Riley Haas

16. The Quilz — Lost in the Supermarket

This cover swaps the opening syncopated hi-hat for electro-pop elements that continue throughout the cover. With its slightly slower pace, this version differentiates how the feeling of being lost is manifesting, less anxious than the original, but a little more dazed. There is some constancy between the versions though: high energy, a steadying guitar, and the continual “tsk tsk” of a hi-hat. — Sara Stoudt

15. The Beatlesøns — London Calling

The Beatlesøns, a band from Düsseldorf with no obvious connection to The Beatles besides the name, describes themselves as “trash polka.” They put out the simply-titled EP A Tribute, which turned out to be a tribute to…The Clash. The front cover shows a ticket stub from an infamous Clash concert at the Manchester Apollo where fans ripped out the theater’s seats. The whole thing is a treat, but nowhere more fun than a riotous accordion-driven “London Calling.” It’s quite a bit slower than the original, but just as energetic, building to a truly crazed peak. — Ray Padgett

14. Hinds — Spanish Bombs

This song is in the rich tradition of peppy yet political songs that teach us a little history as we rock along. The members of Hinds, a band from Madrid, Spain, have a closer-to-home perspective on the song’s storyline. They maintain the upbeat energy with percussion that doesn’t overpower and a guitar favoring dissonance over melody with the distortion of an electric guitar ebbing and flowing throughout. Hinds brings a snarly delivery to the lyrics, giving the sing-songy nature of the original more of an edge. — Sara Stoudt

13. Jimmy Cliff — Guns of Brixton

It’s rare that a song seems destined to be covered by a particular artist – think of Bruce Springsteen doing “Jersey Girl” – but Jimmy Cliff’s “Guns of Brixton” is absolutely one of those songs. “Brixton” saw the Clash going convincingly reggae, not an avenue other punk immortals were prone to going down. Named for the section of South London nicknamed “Little Jamaica,” it includes the lyric “You see, he feels like Ivan / Born under the Brixton sun / His game is called survivin’ / At the end of The Harder They Come.” So it would make sense that Cliff, who played Ivan in The Harder They Come and found reggae immortality in the process, should cover the song. But this is more than coming full circle. Cliff brings the light of Jamaica and the breath of its people into the song, filling it with a life both new and well-lived. He doesn’t just bring home the song’s message; he brings home the song. — Patrick Robbins

12. No Doubt — Hateful

The opening of the original already puts you in a ska kind of mind, so it’s no surprise that No Doubt took this song on. They even doubled down on that sound, kicking the song off with an accordion. No Doubt’s version has punchier percussion and sounds a little more playful with added call and response. Towards the end of the song, they slow the pace way down, very “Rock Steady,” before returning to an increasingly quick tempo to finish. — Sara Stoudt

11. Annie Lennox — Train in Vain

“Train in Vain” is one of the great songs about not being supported, not being stood by. We’ve all been there, though some have been there more urgently than others. Think of Annie Lennox. She pressed pause on her wildly successful–but personally suffocating–Eurythmics project, and then released her debut solo album, Diva, which looked back in anger at the Eurythmics period. Listen to its opening track “Why?” and you hear a desperation that connects to “Train in Vain.”

By the time Lennox recorded her version of The Clash hit–for Medusa, the 1995 all-cover follow-up to Diva–the singer’s passions had cooled, she’d moved on and taken back control. She could relate to Mick Jones’s wounded pride in the original song without needing to inhabit it; she gets a distance from it with a gospel vocal choir, a purring Hammond organ, and even a horn section. She turns those anthemic lines “Did you stand by me? No, not at all” into a soulful call-and-response with the choir. It’s equal parts defiance and joy, right down to the emphatic finality of the final words: “No way!” — Tom McDonald

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