“Complete Control” by The Clash (1977)
Dad’s Song of the Day #85, Nov. 22, 2025
There’s a neat mini-genre of artists telling their corporate overlords to shove it. In addition to the raw human satisfaction of throwing a middle finger at a micro-manager, it can have the side-effect of being good P.R. Legendary examples include:
Prince…who, from 1993 to 2000, protested his contract with Warner Bros. by changing his name to a symbol (yes, literally a symbol) and was hilariously called The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. He also wrote “Slave” on his face during this period, which…um…yeah.
Neil Young…who sarcastically recorded three non-commercial, largely unsellable albums in the early 1980s to fulfill a contract commitment with Geffen Records: one (“Trans”) was electronic/vocoder-based, one (“Everybody’s Rockin’”) was rockabilly, and one (“Old Ways”) was country.
Sex Pistols…who recorded “EMI” on their first album to blast their former label (“I can’t stand those useless fools…EMI”), which had fired them before they ever produced a record.
John Fogerty…who got revenge against Fantasy Records mogul Saul Zaentz—who had control of Fogerty’s song catalogue—by recording “Zanz Can’t Dance,” a song about a pig that tries to dance, with a chorus that claims, “Zanz can’t dance but he’ll steal your money.” Legal hijinx ensued…and now the song is called “Vanz Can’t Dance.”
But nobody does fury as furiously as the Clash’s Joe Strummer, and he magnificently skewers his bosses at CBS Records in “Complete Control.”
The Clash had not fully established themselves, and so it took massive cajones to send a giant “eff you” to their new bosses…but Joe and his boys were seriously pissed!
The band felt betrayed because CBS had released a 7” single of “Remote Control” without The Clash’s input or approval: they believed that—not only was “Remote Control” a weak song—but the whole act of marketing album singles was against the Punk ethos, and diluted the impact of the album as a complete statement.
So they wrote “Complete Control” as a non-album single and a direct response to CBS’s unilateral actions…and they pulled no punches:
They said we’d be artistically free
When we signed that bit of paper
They meant “Let’s make a lots of money
And worry about it later”
CBS eventually waved a white flag (determining that losing The Clash was bad business), and “Complete Control” eventually made it onto re-releases of The Clash’s first album. Their point had been made, and they summarized it succinctly: “I don’t trust you, so why should you trust me?”
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This series is for my two 19-year-olds, who moved off to school with the misguided belief they’d escaped their dad’s relentless nostalgia and monopolization of the car stereo. I’m very happy for anyone else to come along for the ride.
The Spotify playlist for Dad’s Song of the Day is located here: