it's hard to explain what i'm feeling and why it's so intense.

part of it is history. the clash have been with me for as long as i can remember. i remember buying combat rock with my allowance when i was 8. i bought it because i fell in love with joe strummer and his mohawk when i saw 'rock the casbah' on mtv. even though i was too young to get the politics of the songs, the words still are ingrained into my mind and like a lot of the music i listened to growing up, it shaped me.

but it was london calling, a tape i got when i was 10, that is really my album. it was so forceful, so beautiful, positive, amazing. i remember a trip my family took to mammoth when i was 11. it was horrible. no one could stand each other for the 5 hours of the drive. my mom and dad were fighting and in the back my brother and sister and i were terrorizing ourselves to the point where my father screamed so loud that we actually thought the veins in his forehead were going to burst for real.

i grabbed my walkman from my backpack and fished out the only tape i brought with me for the week stay: london calling. it was the only thing that saved me. "i'm not down", "spanish bombs", "lost in the supermarket", all of them. i sat with my forehead pressed against the window of the van and watched the scenery fly by, the clash loud in my ears, shielding me from my nightmare of a family.

and i loved them for it, for saving me. i bought tshirts and posters, stickers and cds and cds and cds.

i'm not writing this very well, because it's hard for me to articulate what the music that is most important to me really feels like. and it's so fucking personal.

but i loved them before i loved the smiths, or radiohead, or juno, or sonic youth, or the cure, or even joy division. before any of the other bands that have meant so much to me, there was the clash.

and i know it's been 20 years they first entered my life. and i know they went from being a band to jump around to, to a band that saved me, to a band that informed me, back to a band that saved me, and all all all over again.

but

jesus fuck

what the hell do you say when someone like that leaves?

i'm just going to sit here with my headphones and remember joe and the clash.

because what the fuck else can i do?