The Clash Songs - Revolution Rock Lyrics

The Clash - Revolution Rock

The Clash - Revolution Rock Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: London Calling
Released: 1979

Revolution Rock Lyrics

Revolution Rock, it is a brand new rock
A bad, bad rock, this here revolution rock

Careful how you move, Mac, you dig me in me back
An' I'm so pilled up that I rattle
I have got the sharpest knife, so I cut the biggest slice
But I have no time to do battle

Everybody smash up your seats and rock to this
Brand new beat
This here music mash up the nation
This here music cause a sensation
Tell your ma, tell your pa everything's gonna be all right
Can't you feel it? Don't ignore it
Gonna be alright

Revolution rock, I am in a state of shock
So bad, bad rock, this here revolution rock

Careful how you slide, Clyde, all you did was glide
And you poured your beer in me hat
With my good eye on the beat, living on fixation street
And I ain't got no time for that

Everybody smash up your seats and rock to this
Brand new beat
This here music mash up the nation
This here music cause a sensation
Tell your ma, tell your pa everything's gonna be all right
Can't you feel it? Don't ignore it
Gonna be alright

Revolution rock,
Everybody smash up your seats and rock to this
Brand new beat
This here music mash up the nation
This here music cause a sensation
Tell your ma, tell your pa everything's gonna be all right
Can't you feel it? Don't ignore it
Gonna be alright

Revolution rock,

To the cruellist mobsters in Kingstown,
With the hardest eyes and the coldest tongue
Is your heart so made of rock
That the blood must flow 'round the block?
Are you listening mobsters? Hey!
All people grow old, gotta die,
While those kinda fools go rolling by
It's food for thought, mobsters
Young people shoot their days away
I've seen talent thrown away
All you loan sharks!

The organ plays
And they're dancing to the brand new beat
This here music mash up the nation
This here music cause a sensation
Tell your ma-ma-ma-ma, tell your pa-pa-pa-pa everything's gonna be all right
Can't you feel it? Don't ignore it
Everything's gonna be alright
I say, revolution rocks

There's that old cheese grater
Rubbing me down
This must be the way out

Here's the cheap bit
OO la oo la oo la

Any song you want
Playing requests now on the bandstand
El Clash Combo
Paid fifteen dollars a day
Weddings, parties, anything
And Bongo Jazz a speciality

Writer/s: J. EDWARDS, D. RAY
Publisher: CONEXION MEDIA GROUP, INC., NEWMAN & COMPANY CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Revolution Rock

This song was originally recorded by the Jamaican group Danny Ray and the Revolutioneers in 1976. Danny Ray sampled the Jackie Edwards song "Get Up" on the track, so Edwards and Ray are the credited songwriters of "Revolution Rock."

When The Clash recorded the song, lead singer Joe Strummer changed some of the original lyrics, inserting a reference to Bobby Darin's "Mack The Knife" ("Careful how you move, Mac, you dig me in me back") and to the Punk craze of smashing/ripping up seats in venues with seating instead of standing room ("Everybody smash up your seats, and rock to this brand new beat").

First recorded at Wessex in July 1979, an instrumental version of this song features over the end credits of the Rude Boy movie taken from these early sessions. The song was then re-recorded with Guy Stevens for London Calling, with new instrumental parts by the Irish Horns.

Always a fun song to play live, often becoming quite a rave-up, "Revolution Rock" was a live fixture from it's introduction at The Clash's 1979 Christmas shows in London until it was dropped in mid-1981.