TS: "Complete Control" vs "I'm So Bored With the USA"

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"CC", rock and ROLL! As punk as a Winger/Damn Yankees encore at some Rhode Island firetrap, and all the better for it! However much I hate to say it tho I think these opportunists stumbled upon the World National Anthem for the Next Century with "USA". Why don't more people write songs like that? Worried about not getting US distribution, or green cards? Why don't bands write songs nowadays like "Quit Your Fuckin' Whining, We Have Terrorist Explosions All the Time and You Don't See Us Flailing About Spraying Tears and Snot Everywhere and Displaying Your Pain and Hardship on Every Fuckin' TV Channel in the World 24/7"? Why didn't Primal Scream retitle that single "Bomb The Pentagon Again! And This Time Finish The Job!" Oh well by 2050 everybody in America'll probably be behind bars anyway

― dave q, Friday, 1 August 2003 11:22 (twenty-two years ago)

"But what can I do?" Well if I was in the country of my birth I'd just SMOKE A BIG BAG OF WEED RIGHT OUT ON THE STREET! Sounds good huh Yanks? Oh sorry I forgot, you're not allowed!

― dave q, Friday, 1 August 2003 11:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I was never really rated Complete Control; I always felt it was Strummer & Co. whining because, before the ink had even dried, CBS had started doing exactly what people like Mark Perry had warned them they'd do before they signed a (lest we forget) eight-album C-O-N-tract complete with label-only termination clauses which effectively gave the label "Total Control".

As it tuned out Strummer wasted half his life waiting to be "artistically free" again after he "signed that bit of paper".

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 1 August 2003 11:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Both great, but gotta go with "Complete Control." The opening riff? C'mon!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 1 August 2003 12:36 (twenty-two years ago)

"Complete Control" -- all politics is local. With guitars!

― JesseFox (JesseFox), Friday, 1 August 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Stewart - did you hear the song before or after you knew the whole story (or any of it)?

― dave q, Friday, 1 August 2003 15:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Both are great musically (riffwise I probably prefer "Complete Control"), and I can understand someone prefering "I'm So Bored With The U.S.A." (especially if they're bored with it, which I most certainly am NOT thanks to my oh-so-obvious solipsism - Hey I'm gonna vote against Bush and tell anyone who votes for him to DIE so leave me alone until I get the chance November after next).

I'd be embarassed if "Remote Control" (almost all the Jones-sung numbers on the album sound relatively dinky) was released as a single of mine without my permisison too, so I don't mind the mild amount of naivete in the lyrics. I'm gonna go with "Complete Control"

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 1 August 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

that dubby bit on the bridge, in the last minute of "Complete Control," the whole "I don't trust you--why should you trust me? Eh?!" part to the end--that's one of my favorite bits of any song evah. "Complete Control" it is.

― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 1 August 2003 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

"Complete Control" is so great, they recycled the riffs for "Safe European Home." Search: brilliant (albeit truncated) version in "Rude Boy."

― Chris Clark (Chris Clark), Friday, 1 August 2003 20:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Both are *gasp* INCREDIBLE. Well, fudge, they ARE my favorite band. Tee hee. And I don't want to go into details, because I'll get all emotional and pussified, but the first time I saw a live performance of "Complete Control", it moved me to tears, not as in an intemperate outburst of weeping all emo like (and shit), but a genuinely beautiful moment, reasserting my faith in humanity by confirming the unbreakable nature of the wide-eyed, quixotic spirit.

Ok, so it is breakable, but for 3 mins., maaaan...I believed...

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 1 August 2003 22:03 (twenty-two years ago)

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