“Police On My Back” by The Clash

"Police on My Back" wasn't a Clash original: Eddy Grant wrote it, and his band the Equals cut it for their 1967 album Explosion. When the Clash got hold of it for Sandinista!, their fourth album, in 1980, they took what had been a mid-tempo slice of soul-pop and cranked it into a flat-out rock tune, all adrenaline.

Mick Jones takes the lead vocal, and he sings it on the run, like a man glancing over his shoulder, while the band, producing themselves, pile on guitars that never let up. The song has its roots in Jamaican rude boy culture, and in the Clash's hands it became a punk anthem for a period of political and social crackdown. Some have called it their most full-throated rocker since "I Fought the Law", and in the middle of the sprawl of Sandinista! it lands like a jolt of pure energy.

It did come out as a single, but only in Australia. Everywhere else it has lived on as one of the Clash's most bracing deep cuts, the one rock radio keeps pulling out of the Sandinista! grab bag.

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