Retro Video of the Week: "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" by The Clash

Forty years ago this week was a big one for punk pioneers The Clash.  On May 10, 1982, drummer Topper Headon got kicked out of the band, as his heroin addiction was taking over.  Four days later, the band released their fifth studio album, Combat Rock, which would be the band's most commercially successful album, going double platinum in the U.S.  The album went to #2 on the UK album chart and #7 on the Billboard album chart -- the band's highest-charting entry on both charts.

Two of the band's most well-known songs are on Combat Rock, "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay Or Should I Go."  I like both, but I like the latter better, so that's what I'm going with.  Rumored to be written about guitarist/co-lead vocalist Mick Jones's mercurial relationship with Ellen Foley (who sang the female part on Meat Loaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" and would later play Billie Young on a season of Night Court) or about Jones's impending departure from the band, but Jones has denied both of those rumors.  

Whatever inspired the song, it worked, and the song has been an enduring anthem since then.  My favorite part is Joe Strummer and Joe Ely singing the backing vocals in Spanish -- and Ecuadorian Spanish, in particular, as their tape operator's mom was Ecuadorian and translated the lyrics for them.  The song has been featured in various TV shows, movies, and commercials.  It was ranked #288 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.  When it was released in 1982, it only reached #45 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #17 on the UK pop chart, but then it was re-released in 1991 on the heels of being used in a successful Levi's jeans commercial campaign in the UK.  The re-release topped the UK pop chart (the band's only #1 in the UK) and reached the Top 10 on 16 other international pop charts.

But most importantly, the song title has been in everyone's head at one point or another when you're trying to make a late-night drunken decision, be it staying at the bar or going home early, staying at one bar or going to another bar, staying the night or ghosting from a random stranger's apartment after you just hooked up with them, or fessing up or leaving the scene of a triple equinicide before the village constables arrive at Headmaster Worthingham's stables.