The poem’s call-out “Hey Joe” became the first notes of the bass line via the DNA method. Everything else built upon that dub foundation. The flute lines are all DNA’s from the vocal.

John Trudell’s ode to Elvis (Baby Boom Che) and the dub poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson were key references and inspirations, in addition to the punk godfather himself.

Hey Joe Strummer

Hey Joe Strummer

I was reading Sylvia Plath on the day you died

Cold and gray outside

No techno deejay, no ragga fm

Just dead winter air (then: “late news breaking, this just in . . .”)

Joe Strummer dead and gone? Say it ain’t so

Hey Joe

Back in ’79 I enrolled in Telecaster University

and took your course

on Urban Planning

and Geopolitics 101 (call us the 101-ers)

Joe Strummer, Instructor

first assignment:

plot the Global a Go-Go and locate the map of the soul

“ok punk rockers, can you find these cities on the map?

Clash City Rockers

the lost city

the forbidden city

the reggae city

the new city

the city of nerves

the city of the dead

Ho Chi Minh city

bummed out city

& the inoculated city

in the nefarious zone”

second assignment: find

london, brixton

& third millennium britain

“this is england”

mid-term exam: travel

the sweetheart highway

and drive a brand new cadillac on the road to rock ‘n’ roll

and punk rock’s what it’s all about

(back when punk meant freedom)

final exam: know

your rights

& walk down the highroad

Hey Joe,

we’re your students, your little brothers & sisters

ten thousand bands

a hundred thousand gutter poets &

a million ghetto prophets

lingo graffiti and western spaghetti

punk rock ph.d’s

Hey Joe, you always took the highroad

even when you skipped out to Paris

and we

forgave you for cut the crap, everybody goes crazy sometime

chalk it up to cigarette butts & earthquake weather

Hey Joe,

human typewriter, lyrical link between lee dorsey and lee perry,

between allen ginsberg and zach de la rocha,

between long-gone rockabillies and the next shake-it-up rastapunk

Where you going with that revolution in your head?

Hey Joe,

Where you going with that revolution in your head?

Mensforth Hill

Willesden to Cricklewood

Hammersmith Palais to Garageland

Grenada, Andalucia

& Kingston

Costa Rica, El Salvador

oh ma corazon

(and why didn’t my professors tell me about the Sandinistas?)

Hey Joe, Mescalero

Where you going?

Grooving, you cut out of the scene

&

I was reading Sylvia Plath on the day you died

I was reading Sylvia Plath on the day you died

 

–Jr. James