As promised…the Clash Cup is back, sadly I can’t same for Arsenal as we were dismantled by a Manchester United team who were far more efficient with their attacks and aided by some extremely naive defending by my club. It cast a shadow over the entire day and was only remedied when I dragged my 42 year old legs down to the park this afternoon to play some football myself. Ah well…you’re not here to learn of my malaise but to get back into The Clash Cup – our own unofficial quest to determine the best 16,8 and finally top 4 Clash songs of all time. I dusted off my spreadsheet this afternoon and learned we have one final Round One match to make our votes heard on and then this week we’ll dive into round two. The songs that remain in round two are for the most part all exceptionally good so the voting will be frantic and important.

A brief explanation if you’re new to the blog – we originally listed all know Clash songs and then took a few weeks to ’seed’ 16 of the best Clash songs. The remaining songs (142 of them) all went into the bucket and a random number generator selected songs to be paired off and voted for. The online poll allows one vote per user and we closed the polls typically 72 hours after the posting went live. The response was great and not everyone could be happy with every result (myself included) but with one vote remaining we are now just about ready to move onto Round 2. First though that final battle -

Protex Blue versus The Magnificent Dance

Two well known tracks on the final slate so please give careful consideration. I’ll close the polls on Wednesday and plan to start Round 2 on Weds or Thursday of this week.

Protex Blue - I believe this is one of the very oldest existing songs that The Clash recorded, the original version dating back to 1975 when Mick Jones wrote it during his brief spell as London SS. Musically its one of the most raw of Clash recordings and a basic chord progression and bridge it has a real garage sound feel. Even the subject matter is a bit fifth form (condoms) but it remains a fun song. Who would have guessed that 35 years later Mick and Tony James would be a band once more writing and recording as Carbon Silicon.

The Magnificent Dance – 12″ records were as much a part of the early 1980’s as being impacted by the cold hand of Margaret Thatcher. The 12″ single evolved for the disco scene initially and became a place for bonus B sides, alternate versions, instrumental versions and the ‘remix’. I’ve always loved this remix of The Mag 7 – probably because my early excellent efforts to make mix tapes always ended with a version of this track faded out at the perfect length to finish side one of my TDK AD 90. If you’re less than 30 years old you probably wonder just what I’m on about.

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