Magnificent Seven

I was originally doing some light research about another Clash song ("Ghetto Defendant") for a music blog I write for, when I came across this performance of "Magnificent Seven". It, too, has been on my mind lately as I wrote a short screenplay a few months ago that used it in a scene. But this live version is so, um, alive that I decided to write about it instead -- especially because it nicely bookends the other song from 1981 I wrote about the other day.

"Magnificent Seven" was apparently the first rock/hip-hop song recorded and released, beating out "Rapture" by a few months. The lyrics were a stream of consciousness doing by Joe Strummer, and in that the song is pretty amazing by itself. The recorded version on Sandanista! is a great dancey-punk number, and I suppose the funky bass and beat were the first to hook me on it.

In this live version, recorded for the Tom Snyder Show in 1981, many more themes and influences play out. There's a heavy dub flavor with the guitars. The lyrics are delivered with more of a punk growl. It's less night club-oriented and more rock-club oriented. Above all, this is a rock band, and they could/should (have) give(n) lessons on TV performance.

But addressing the lyrical content: this song is about the post-modern urban rat race.

Ring! ring! its 7:00 a.m.!
Move yourself to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too
Must get up an learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet.

It's about consumerism, superficiality, and the silent toil of the masses. And then there's a little economics lesson about opportunity costs:

Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
Its our profit, its his loss
But anyway lunch bells ring
Take one hour and do your thaanng!
Cheese-boigah!

But ultimately, it is not rich versus poor. It attacks what lurks for all of us. After it describes the hollowness of the salary man, it preaches about the emptiness of the workingman:

So get back to work and sweat some more
The sun will sink and we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin' anywhere?



There's also a video for the ensuing interview, but it's a little disappointing. They are all kinda nervous without guitars in their hands, and for the first two thirds they resort to Sex Pistols-style rhetoric.