Alarming Female

Just got home from seeing this film with my son a little while ago. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, The Future is Unwritten is the biography of Joe Strummer, lead singer of The Clash.

When you spend your teen years in a small town in a huge state hours away from any large city, you don’t have much chance to be exposed to punk music. Where and when I grew up, there was one AM radio station–KOAL, in Carbon County, Utah. All I ever knew of The Clash up until the last few years was Rock the Casbah. Not even London Calling.

Lyricist Joe Strummer was a race traitor. His contention that his freedom meant nothing if everyone wasn’t free was a common motif ribboned through many of his lyrics. The song White Riot, often confused as a song about White power, is a call to arms for White youth to step up and take responsibility for radical social change.

White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own
White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own

Black people got a lot of problems
But they don’t mind throwing a brick
White people go to school
Where they teach you how to be thick

And everybody’s doing
Just what they’re told to
And nobody wants
To go to jail!

All the power’s in the hands
Of people rich enough to buy it
While we walk the street
Too chicken to even try it

Everybody’s doing
Just what they’re told to
Nobody wants
To go to jail!

Are you taking over
or are you taking orders?
Are you going backwards
Or are you going forwards?

In the first US/Iraqi war, American bombs were serenaded with The Clash’s Rock the Casbah as they were aimed at Iraqi targets. When Joe Strummer heard this, he was distraught. He wrote the song to celebrate the liberating influence of music, and to learn that his song was used in conjunction with war and destruction moved him to tears.

This film is currently showing at The Tower, but ends tomorrow night. Catch it if you can. It’s beautiful.