(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover / Alamy)
Fri 24 October 2025 15:45, UK
When it comes to nominating the biggest icons of the UK’s post-punk and new wave explosion in the late 1970s, it’s hard to look beyond the achievements of The Clash.
Fusing together the angstiness of the punk records that had come before them and elements of the ska, reggae and two-tone movement that was also happening concurrently, the London foursome were regarded as one of the first acts to take punk in a more adventurous direction, hence their frequent categorisation into other burgeoning subgenres. From their self-titled debut album and onto Give ‘Em Enough Rope and London Calling, the band were on an incredible run in the final years of the decade, and the amount of acts they would influence with their alternative take on punk is astronomical.
Despite having initially dismissed their debut upon first listen, one artist who became enamoured with the work of The Clash was Elvis Costello, who would cite his eventual change of heart on the record as the main inspiration for his 1977 single, ‘Watching the Detectives’. Incorporating the same fusion of punk attitude and syncopated reggae riffs and rhythms, this single would set the tone for a large amount of Costello’s future work, with him exploring this blend of genres further in his output and through his work as the producer for The Specials.
This admiration for the work of The Clash was something that didn’t wane over time for Costello, and he continued to eagerly follow their output as they both continued to expand their audiences concurrently. While Costello’s career would last considerably longer than The Clash’s would, with the band choosing to go their separate ways after the disastrous release of their 1985 album, Cut the Crap, his love for them was still going strong into the new millennium, and in a 2000 interview with Vanity Fair, he named two tracks of theirs as being among his favourites of all time.
Their 1978 single, ‘(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais’, is another that adopts this fusion of punk and reggae that Costello was so taken by, and its embrace of both British and Caribbean culture is something that marks a step forward from their earliest material, which was still quite rudimentary in its exploration of these themes. Taking an anti-violent stance and critiquing the UK government’s questionable position on racial integration, these themes are something that Costello would further explore in his own work, and therefore, its importance to him is understandable.
Similarly, ‘Rudie Can’t Fail’ is the other track that Costello named as one of his two favourite Clash songs, and sees Joe Strummer and Mick Jones take turns to praise the ‘rude boy’ movement that was a key part of Jamaican culture that was seeping into the UK at the time. Still fusing punk and reggae in adventurous fashion, this is a highlight of London Calling that has been cited as one of the band’s best works, and Costello’s recognition of it is further evidence of its impact.
Of course, these aren’t the only examples of tracks by The Clash that have influenced Costello, and it’s clear that they’ve remained important to his identity and ethos as an artist throughout his career, and have had the same measure of influence on countless other contemporary acts in the years since.
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