The Clash Songs - What's My Name Lyrics

The Clash - What's My Name

The Clash - What's My Name Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Clash
Released: 1977

What's My Name Lyrics

What the hell is wrong with me?
I'm not who I want to be
I tired spot cream an' I tried it all
I'm crawling up the wall

What's My Name, name, name

I tried to join a ping-pong club
Sign on the door said "all full up"
I got nicked, fighting in the road
The judge didn't even know

What's my name, name, name

Dad go pissed so I got clocked
Couldn't hear the Tannoy so he lost the lot
Offers mum a bribe through the letter box
Drives you fucking mad

Now, I'm round the back of your house at night
Peeping in the window, are you sleeping tight?
I laugh at your locks with my celluloid strip
An' you won't know who came

What's my name, name, name

What's my name, name, name

Writer/s: STRUMMER, JOE / JONES, MICK / SIMONON, PAUL / HEADON, TOPPER
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

What's My Name

This is the one writing credit that original guitarist Keith Levene got from The Clash on the first album. He claimed to "have a hand" in every song on the first album, but this is disputed by the rest of the band. Joe Strummer always claimed that Levene was too busy doing drugs (heroin and speed, allegedly) to rehearse and hence his subsequent sacking from the band.

Levene claims to have written most of the song with his fellow guitarist Mick Jones in May 1976, and showed it to Sex Pistols singer John Lydon (with whom he would later form the post-punk band Public Image Ltd.). Strummer however remembers that "the only parts the song had when it came was, 'What's my name?' That's all the song was. I put in a few verses to keep the choruses apart."

Judging by early live bootlegs from 1976 to mid 1977, the lyrics were still being worked out (an early version featured a chilling coda about breaking into a house with a flick-knife).

The final lyrics to "What's My Name" are a brutal look at rejection and domestic violence ("Dad got pissed, so I got clocked") and depersonalisation to such an extent that the narrator is literally asking "what's my name?" - he can't even join a ping-pong club ("I went to join the ping-pong club, sign on the door said 'all full up'").

A live favorite from the first Clash album, this is one of the most raw punk tracks from the set when played in a live context; others being "White Riot," "Janie Jones" and "I'm So Bored With The USA." As such, the song remained in the Clash live canon from 1976 till around 1980, before being revived with the rejigged lineup in 1984 with Paul Simonon inexplicably promoted to lead vocals.

The version on the From Here to Eternity live compilation is taken from a Camden show in July 1978 and is the same one as seen in the Rude Boy movie, featuring extensive overdubs from the original scratchy sound take.