“For­eign Win­dow” and “One Irish Rover”:

On a sum­mer day in 1989, Van Mor­ri­son and Bob Dylan met up in Greece and brought their acoustic gui­tars to the place in Athens where the ancients believed the mus­es lived. Philopap­pos Hill, tra­di­tion­al­ly known as the Hill of the Mus­es, ris­es high above the Athens Basin and has a com­mand­ing view of the Acrop­o­lis. It was June 29. Dylan had just wrapped up a Euro­pean tour the night before at Panathi­naiko Sta­di­um, and Mor­ri­son was trav­el­ing with a BBC crew for an Are­na doc­u­men­tary that would be broad­cast in 1991 as One Irish Rover: Van Mor­ri­son in Per­for­mances. The two leg­endary singer-song­writ­ers played sev­er­al of Mor­rison’s songs: “For­eign Win­dow” and “One Irish Rover,” above, and “Crazy Love,” below. A fourth song, “And It Stoned Me,” was appar­ent­ly cut from the film.

“Crazy Love”:

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Won­drous Night When Glen Hansard Met Van Mor­ri­son

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

For all their left­ist polit­i­cal fer­vor, musi­cal rich­ness, and fierce­ly uncom­pro­mised deliv­ery, The Clash still suf­fered accu­sa­tions that they sold out when they signed what looked like a rel­a­tive­ly lucra­tive deal with CBS records in 1977. Those charges came from grass­roots fans and crit­ics like Mark Per­ry, who wrote in his sem­i­nal British punk fanzine Snif­fin’ Glue that “Punk died the day The Clash signed to CBS.” A a cou­ple years lat­er, they were grandiose­ly billed as “the only band that mat­ters,” a quote then CBS employ­ee and NYC-based gui­tarist Gary Lucas takes cred­it for.  While they would come to regret the CBS deal, even after their breakup in 1986, it’s also undoubt­ed­ly true that their uncom­fort­able tenure with the cor­po­rate giant helped their ear­ly, career-defin­ing work reach a much wider public—and, as one writer argues,  may even have bro­ken bar­ri­ers for the rise of inde­pen­dent punk labels.

But enough about commerce—I’ll let the music speak. In video above, the band per­forms at Sus­sex Uni­ver­si­ty Brighton on May 25, 1977. This show, part of the White Riot Tour, marks the begin­ning of their time with CBS, short­ly after the release of debut album, The Clash. In very washed-out, grainy black and white, watch them play “Cap­i­tal Radio,” “Pro­tex Blue,” “Cheat,” and “Remote Con­trol.” Joe Strum­mer begins the set with a nod to the band’s own sense of how much they “mat­tered,” mum­bling “Okay, ‘Cap­i­tal Radio’… with words that mean some­thing” before they tear into the track.

In the sec­ond part of this footage (above) the band bangs out “White Riot” and “Police and Thieves.” It’s hard­ly a qual­i­ty edit­ing job, here, and the audio is most­ly boomy reverb (despite the major label deal), but it’s still some pret­ty amaz­ing archival footage. One thing to note is that this 1977 film doc­u­ments the band after a cru­cial line­up change.  While drum­mer Ter­ry Chimes played on record­ed ver­sions of these songs (cred­it­ed as “Tory Crimes” on record), he left the band soon after, to be replaced by the excel­lent “Top­per” Head­on (Chimes returned in 1982 when Head­on was over­come by his hero­in addic­tion). Their head­lin­ing White Riot Tour includ­ed sup­port­ing bands The Jam, The Buz­zcocks, and The Slits.

If debut album The Clash was most­ly raw, grit­ty punk rock with sprin­klings of reg­gae, and the fol­low-up Give ‘Em Enough Rope a lit­tle too pol­ished for some fans (at CBS’s insis­tence), the dou­ble album Lon­don Call­ing sure­ly marks the band’s writ­ing and record­ing apex. It tops so many crit­ics’ “top” lists that I hard­ly need say more about it to intro­duce the high-qual­i­ty film above of a Feb­ru­ary 27, 1980 Paris show. The con­trast between the White Riot tour footage and this is stark: we get full-col­or, well-lit video and fair­ly decent live sound, and the band is much tighter, hav­ing worked a full three years at this point with drum­mer Head­on. The above set includes Lon­don Call­ing clas­sics like the title track, “Wrong ‘Em Boyo,” “Jim­my Jazz,” and “Train in Vain.” Part of what the con­trast between these two sets of footage sig­ni­fies is the increas­ing con­fi­dence and pol­ish of The Clash as they made their way from their first gig at the Black Swan open­ing for the Sex Pis­tols in ’76 to the world­wide punk phe­nom­e­non they became by 1980. If it’s true The Clash sold out, they most­ly did it with more style and integri­ty than pret­ty much any­one before or since.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Clash Live in Tokyo, 1982: Watch the Com­plete Con­cert

The Clash: West­way to the World

Mick Jones Plays Three Favorite Songs by The Clash at the Library

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness