“Lost In The Supermarket” by The Clash

Tucked eighth on London Calling, the Clash's third album, from 1979, "Lost in the Supermarket" carries the Strummer/Jones credit and a twist in the telling: Joe Strummer wrote it, but it's Mick Jones who sings lead. The supermarket was a real one, the International on the Kings Road, down beneath the World's End Estate, from the days when Strummer was living on Whistler Walk with his girlfriend Gaby Salter, her mother and her two younger brothers.

The sound is a long way from the punk blitz. Paul Simonon's bass rolls with a loose, almost disco bounce, Topper Headon's drums and percussion tick along crisp and tidy, and Jones's and Strummer's guitars chime rather than slash, all of it framing a wistful, slightly adrift vocal. Guy Stevens produced, with Bill Price engineering, and the song keeps finding new ears, most recently on the Apple TV+ series Loot.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.