by Chris Harris
The Clash attacked the establishment with Remote Control, only to discover their own record company was controlling them. Their furious response, Complete Control, exposed the music industry’s hypocrisy. The ultimate punk irony? CBS happily released the song condemning itself.
Remote Control is a song recognised equally for it’s brilliance as the story with it. It was a song about being controlled by people in authority, and within weeks of the album appearing, The Clash discovered that their own record company was doing precisely that. Subterfuge by the saw it released as a single with The Clash responding shortly afterwards with the one off single aptly called Complete Control as savage response to the record company. Complete punk rock.
Written primarily by Mick Jones following the disastrous Anarchy Tour of December 1976, Remote Control was an attack on the British establishment and its determination to keep people in their place. The tour, headlined by the Sex Pistols and featuring The Clash, had descended into chaos following the Pistols’ notorious appearance on Bill Grundy’s television programme. Local councils, venue managers and guardians of public morality began cancelling concerts, frozen out of places to play.
For The Clash, here was a country supposedly celebrating freedom and democracy, yet a handful of councillors and officials could decide what music young people were allowed to hear. Remote Control broadened that frustration into an attack on politicians, the police, big business and the wealthy establishment. The song’s title suggested that ordinary people were being manipulated from above, their lives controlled by institutions they had little influence over.
There are some particularly interesting references in the lyrics. The mention of a meeting in Mayfair is generally understood to allude to an EMI shareholders’ meeting in December 1976, after which the company withdrew support from the Anarchy Tour. There are references to the House of Lords, the police and the power of money. The underlying message is straightforward: if you haven’t got wealth or influence, those running the country aren’t particularly interested in you.
Musically, Remote Control is rather different from the frantic assault of White Riot or Janie Jones. It has a more measured, almost deliberate rhythm, with Mick Jones and Joe Strummer sharing the vocals. The guitar riff is catchy, the chorus memorable and the whole thing has a slightly sardonic quality. Rather than simply screaming their frustrations, The Clash sound as though they’re taking the piss out of the people who believe themselves entitled to run everybody else’s lives.
On 13 May 1977, CBS Records released Remote Control as The Clash’s second single, without the band’s agreement. They were away touring when the decision was made. The group had wanted Janie Jones as the next single. The Clash believed their fans deserved something new rather than being asked to buy the same recording twice.
It was an astonishingly stupid decision by the record company, considering the band’s politics and the subject matter of the song. Here was a group who had just recorded a protest against powerful organisations dictating what people could do, only to discover that the organisation paying their wages had decided to dictate what they could release.
The single failed to enter the UK charts. Its B-side was a rough live version of London’s Burning, which hardly compensated for the band’s objections. In a July 1977 interview with Record Mirror, Paul Simonon confirmed that they had wanted Janie Jones, while Strummer explained that they had effectively allowed CBS to make its mistake to prove their point.
Their response was Complete Control, released on 23 September 1977, one of the greatest singles of the entire punk era. The song directly attacked CBS for releasing Remote Control without permission, but its anger extended to the music business, touring restrictions, police interference and the supposed artistic freedom promised to musicians when they signed recording contracts.
Written at Mick Jones’s grandmother’s flat in a west London tower block, Complete Control was produced by Jamaican reggae legend Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, whose involvement was itself a remarkable meeting of musical worlds. The result was a furious, brilliantly constructed record, with Strummer’s increasingly impassioned vocals and Jones’s exhilarating guitar work. It reached number 28 in the UK singles chart, considerably outperforming its predecessor.
What makes the relationship between the two songs so fascinating is that Complete Control effectively became a real-life sequel to Remote Control. The first complained about the establishment controlling people’s lives. The second demonstrated that the same problem existed within the band’s own supposedly rebellious world.
And there’s another irony. CBS, the very company being attacked, released Complete Control. The record company was now selling a song condemning its own behaviour. You couldn’t invent a more appropriate example of the contradictions surrounding punk rock and the commercial music industry.
Nearly fifty years later, Remote Control remains a fascinating piece of The Clash’s early history. It might not command the attention given to White Riot, London’s Burning or Career Opportunities, but without it, we might never have had Complete Control.
What I would love to know id why CBS allowed a single to be released slagging them off. Did they listen, think chart hit, smell the money and take the hit, pardon the pun, Was it a legal or contractual issue or were record companies so big and powerful, they tool the view that there was no such thing as bad publicity?
Make both our days by buying a copy of my book!
Something About England: Amazon.co.uk: Harris, Mr Christopher, Turner, Louise: 9798181129351: Books
Welcome to Denham, a fictitious Sussex village where behind respectable doors, well-tended gardens and familiar faces, things have a habit of going badly wrong.
Obsession, ambition, deception, jealousy and petty rivalry run through this collection of tragi-comical and satirical short stories. From poltergeists and lottery winners to cricket club feuds and environmental disasters, ordinary people embark on discovering just how quickly an ordinary life can unravel into an extraordinary mess.
Darkly funny, occasionally poignant and populated by characters who are rarely quite what they seem, these stories explore the peculiarities of Middle England, and the uncomfortable territory between respectability and ruin.
