“Lose this Skin” by The Clash

"Lose This Skin" is buried among the 36 tracks of Sandinista!, the Clash's fourth album, a triple set released on December 12, 1980, and the voice up front isn't Joe Strummer's or Mick Jones's. Tymon Dogg wrote it, words and music, sings the lead and saws away on violin, with the Clash producing.

That makes it an odd one out on a record that, for the first time, put the whole band's name on the songwriting instead of Strummer and Jones's. It suits the album's everything-goes spirit, though: Sandinista! roams from funk and reggae to gospel, rockabilly, calypso and rap, and the band took a royalty cut to keep the three-record set cheap. It was their lowest-charting album at home, yet the Pazz & Jop critics' poll in The Village Voice named it the year's best album.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.