Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Letsgetabitarockin/Rock And Roll Time

"Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day!"
-Oklahoma
What the fuck happened to Spring?

Except that they both precede and resemble The Clash, and have "Rock" in their titles, there is no connection between these songs.


I can't believe the Clash didn't absorb the 101ers "Letsgetabitarockin'". At the very least it deserved a spot on their set list, and would have been quite at home on either "London Calling" or "Sandanista!".




At about the same time Roger McGuinn recorded "Rock N Roll Time" for his 1976 "Cardiff Rose" album. Written by McGuinn with Kris Kristofferson, and Bobby Neuwirth, and produced by Mick Ronson, who also played guitar, it seems to predict the Clash's sound, and would have fit better on "Give'em Enough Rope" than it did on Roger's album.



While I love "Letsgatbitarockin'", I think of "Rock N Roll Time" time as a curiosity. It took a lot of writing muscle to squeeze out a fairly mediocre song. A rich guys "rebellion".
I bought "Cardiff Rose" when it came out, largely because of Mick Ronson, and was kind of disappointed. It's not a great record. The really good tracks on it are covers:  Joni's "Dreamland", and Bob's "Up To Me".

Bonus Tracks:


6 comments:

Bill said...

Wow, would never have guessed that Rock n Roll Time wasn't a Joe Strummer/Clash song if you hadn't told me. Sounds pretty cool!

Jim G said...

Up To Me is a good one, but you are right, the album is pretty mediocre. Thanks for the posts

heartsofstone said...

I wonder how much input Mick Ronson had. Very underrated. Thanks for the share.

Anonymous said...

I agree Cardiff promised a lot but I only played it couple of times

DaveF said...

I haven't heard either of these songs before...what a great surprise. I can't believe Rock n Roll Time is on a Roger McGuinn album. Not in a million years. Thanks for this post my mind is blown!

dogbreath said...

Ditto for me, didn't know about the McGuinn/Ronson collaboration but damn good to hear now, big fan of Ronson's guitar work. The two bonus tracks posted are "video not available" - to me anyway. Cheers!