The Clash - This Is Radio Clash - Non-Album Tracks (1981-1982)

My last two posts have been collecting all the good stray studio tracks from The Clash. This is the third and final such album.

This album covers the years 1981 and 1982. The Clash lingered on until 1985 without key member Mick Jones. I might have included some songs from that 1983 to 1985 line-up even though many people don't really consider that the true Clash. However, I've heard most of those stray songs and they're just not very good.

Only one album was released during this time, 1982's "Combat Rock." That album originally was going to be a much longer album, called "Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg." I've listened to a bootleg of that, and I feel the group make a good decision to shorten the songs. My usual policy is to not include songs on official albums unless they're significantly different. Some of the longer versions of songs that made it on "Combat Rock" could be called different, but I don't think they improve the songs, so I left all those off. If you're interested, get the "Fort Bragg" bootleg. A couple of completely unreleased songs, like songs 9 and 10 here, are also on that bootleg.

Also around this time, the Clash were quite enamored with dub and remix versions of their songs. Some of them were given different song titles. I didn't include any of those, regardless of song title, because, again, I didn't think those versions were very good.

You may note that I start and end this album with the classic Clash song "This Is Radio Clash." That's because they did two versions with almost entirely different lyrics. In this case, I DID consider both versions worthy of repeat listenings.

By the way, the song "Graffiti Rap" might sound like something other than a Clash song. But in fact, it is, and it was sometimes done by the Clash in concert at the time. The guest rapper Futura 2000 totally dominates the song. But note that he's also a key part of the song "Overpowered by Funk" on the "Combat Rock" album.

01 This Is Radio Clash (Clash)
02 Midnight to Stevens (Clash)
03 Graffiti Rap [Live] (Clash with Futura 2000)
04 House of the Ju Ju Queen [Demo] (Clash)
05 First Night Back in London (Clash)
06 Cool Confusion (Clash)
07 Long Time Jerk (Clash)
08 The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too (Clash)
09 Idle in Kangaroo Court [Kill Time] (Clash)
10 This Is Radio Clash [Alternate Lyrics Version] (Clash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15105201/TClas_1981-1982_ThisIsRadioClsh_atse.zip.html

I got lucky with the cover art. I used the cover for the "This Is Radio Clash" single. Most versions don't include the words "The Clash" on it, but I found one rare version that does.