Re: No JDS content

Malcolm Lawrence (malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Mon, 09 Mar 1998 00:20:43 -0800 

Brendan McKennedy wrote:

> It's always amazing to me when I discover that there are other Clash
> lovers out there...like when I saw Grosse Point Blank...I nearly had a
> heart attack.  We should start a listserv like this, but focused on the
> Clash.  Strummer's lyrics, luckily, aren't high school curriculum--it'd
> be nothing but pure beauty.

Funny you should say that.

I was Class of 81 at a 1500 student high school in Renton, Washington, a
very blue collar town where the band AC/DC ruled. A town which wouldn't be
there if it weren't for Boeing, and the 20 miles away from Seattle it was
(is) may as well have been 100 miles for all it's cultural claustrophobia.

The year that I graduated I had only just gotten into the Clash. I had the
first album (the US version of the first album, that is) and I got Give 'Em
Enough Rope shortly before graduation. God, that album sure helped me get
up in the morning. Anyway, we didn't have any sort of a formal
valedictorian speech at my high school's graduation, we just had an
"audition," if you will, for speeches. That year censorship was the hot
topic in our school district and I decided to go above and beyond simple
letters to the editor to the local newspaper (which I'd already done) and
use my graduation speech as a very topical soap box. (Of course, CITR was
namechecked in my speech). My speech was chosen as one to be given, and, of
course, since the speech had already been okayed, I realized that I could
basically say anything I wanted while I was up at the podium.

The speech went down well and I even got a standing ovation after it was
over. Not to mention I was interrupted with an ovation halfway through.

(My humanities teacher, the one who always let me borrow her Dylan, Stones,
Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Doors, Paul Butterfield, etc. even used my speech as
an example of what a graduation speech could be to future classes for at
least 12 years. I think she stopped using it a few years ago.)

But the personal highlight of the evening for me was, at the very end of
the speech, without telling anyone, I simply added the last verse from the
song "Stay Free."

The one that goes:

Cos years have passed and things have changed
and I move anyway I want to go
and I'll never forget the feeling I got
when I heard that you'd got home
and I'll never forget the smile on my face
cos I knew where you would be
and if you're in the Crown tonight
have a drink on me
But go easy...step lightly...stay free