You Are The Last Of The Buffalo

There are records on my mental wishlist which I've been looking for for years and this is one of them- Burning Lights by Joe Strummer. It was released on the soundtrack to the film I Hired A Contract Killer in 1990, deep into the midst of Joe's wilderness years. The 7" is said to be the rarest of Joe Strummer records (said by the people who know these things). The B-side is Afro Cuban Bebop, with Joe backed by The Pogues (hiding as The Astro Physicians).

Burning Lights is one of Joe's best songs of any period, and recently I found a download of it. Isn't the internet great? I was stupidly pleased to get this and at least now I own an mp3 of it, if you can actually own a string of digital code. It's taken directly from the film with Joe performing it in a bar, just voice, guitar and congas with some film noise leaking in at the start and the end, and it's a wonderful little song with a heart wrenching vocal, by a man who knows his time has gone.

'Some dreams are made for children
But most grow old with us
And when the air can hope to hold on
To the ground from dust to rust

Burning lights in the desert
Such a sign only you would know
Your running tyres, they're out of pressure
Such a sign only you would know

I've been a long haul driver
Moving things but the cops don't know
Now I can see the writing
You are the last of the buffalo

Burning lights in the desert
Such a sign only you would know
Your running tyres, they're out of pressure
Such a sign only you would know

Now I've been to California
And I've been to New South Wales
Sometimes I pull over
When I realise I've left no trace

Burning lights in the desert
Such a sign only you would know
Your running tyres, they're out of pressure
Such a sign only you would know'

I think, ladies and gentlemen, those words are honesty, beauty and poetry.

burning-lights.mp3#1#1