I’d like to thank Flip2k for uploading this track breakdown of The Clash’s epic “London Calling,” one of the great rock and roll anthems of all time. Released in 1979, the song and the album was an immediate classic. It was urgent, angry, anarchic and everything that is beautiful, relevant, and powerful about rock and roll: it moved your soul.
 

Mick Jones’ guitar sounds like a city in the middle of death throes. The concrete groans. Steel girders grind and shudder. Sirens call out for their lost lovers.
 

Topper Headon, the armies of darkness stomp to a martial beat. Distant explosions. Thunder under the bridge.
 

Paul Simonon’s bass is ominous, rousing, undulating and sexy. One of the most indelible riffs in rock and roll.
 

Joe Strummer’s wail is a warning shot and a call for unity, hope and action, pulled up from the gut of rock and roll. His rasp scratched at reality like a feral cat’s claws.
 
Via Exile On Moan Street