London Calling

[Ted Alkins]

Bill Millard said: "In the late '70s, at least in the U.S.A. (with which we
were all So
Bored)..."

There was a cute story in the BBC's recent Clash documentary about how the
song ''I'm So Bored With the USA" came about. It was originally about a
girlfriend (Mick's) and went "I'm So Bored With You". The bit about America
was stuck in to make it more political. Maybe someone else who saw it can
remember more of the details.

In another BBC documentary about punk rock (I think it was in the "Dancing
in the Street" series -- I have it on tape somewhere), one of the guys out
of Television (Richard Hell?) complains bitterly about how pissed off he was
doing a tour of the UK as support band for the Clash. Television drove
around in a tiny car while the Clash had a tour bus. What really annoyed
him, however, was the way that (in his view) the London boys had plundered
Television's visual and musical style, only to turn round and sing about how
bored they were with all things American.

I have to admit, though, that as a teenage English kid I found the song
totally thrilling. Someone did a survey on British youth in the late 70s and
found that a massive proportion of us were convinced we were going to die in
a nuclear war. US defence analysts had recently started to talk about
"winnable nuclear war" -- i.e. only Western Europe would be annihilated
before the US prevailed.

So, America might well get us all killed, but at least songs like "I'm So
Bored With The USA", "Airstrip One" and any number of "51st State of the
USAs" might fleetingly piss off a handful of Americans...

Ted Alkins
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