Where Is England?

Sometimes unreleased songs are unreleased for a reason. The promise of unreleased tracks isn't always that much of a treat in the end, curios played once or twice and then filed away. The second cd of the new Joe Strummer album 001 has some buried treasure on it though. The Swede posted a lost Joe Strummer-Mick Jones song on Monday, the ten minute long U.S. North. This one is a revelation, especially for those of us who could tell that the post-Mick single This Is England had a great song hidden inside it. The album the five man Clash recorded, Cut The Crap, is best avoided apart from the lead single, a record hijacked by Bernie Rhodes who plastered it with tinny production, cheap synths and badly programmed drum machines. Joe's demo for This Is England, called Czechoslovak Song/Where Is England shows what could have been- Joe singing an early version of the song that would become This Is England, backed by Pete Howard on drums and Paul Simonon playing a wonderful dub bassline.