Some of the great­est rock and roll songs are also dire apoc­a­lyp­tic warn­ings. When rock stars pull their heads out of their hedo­nis­tic you-know-whats and look around, things can look pret­ty grim indeed. Think, for exam­ple, of The Stones’ “Gimme Shel­ter” or CCR’s “Bad Moon Ris­ing.” Nei­ther is either band’s scari­est song, but they’re both chock full of dis­as­ter, nat­ur­al and oth­er­wise, speak­ing to the sense of doom most every­one seemed to feel in 1969 when both tracks were released.

Fast for­ward ten years and rock and roll is most­ly dead, punk has peaked, and The Clash are try­ing to make it all new, inject­ing their music with reg­gae and rock­a­bil­ly and a lot of right­eous out­rage (tem­pered by a healthy sense of humor). In 1979, the band released their sem­i­nal dou­ble album Lon­don Call­ing, with its dire, apoc­a­lyp­tic title track (above), warn­ing of an ice age, the sun’s end, and a “nuclear error.” (Read the lyrics here.)  No longer are we just deal­ing with ho-hum war and mur­der or Bib­li­cal plagues. Joe Strum­mer and com­pa­ny took on the end of the world, ini­ti­at­ing the late cold-war nuclear anx­i­ety in 80s punk and new wave lyrics from The Dead Kennedys to The Smiths.

In a recent inter­view with the Wall Street Jour­nal, the three sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the band, all near­ing 60, looked back on the writ­ing and record­ing of that anthemic song, dis­sect­ing the line about “pho­ny Beat­le­ma­nia” and recall­ing the eco­log­i­cal and eco­nom­ic crises that angered and fright­ened them into inspi­ra­tion. Co-writer and gui­tarist Mick Jones dis­cuss­es the influ­ence of six­ties rock on the song’s com­po­si­tion, say­ing, “As musi­cians, you take the past with you, don’t you? The Bea­t­les, Stones, Kinks and Small Faces had done some­thing new and dif­fer­ent and I want­ed us to do that, too.” Bassist Paul Simonon, whose icon­ic bass-smash­ing pho­to graced the cov­er of the album, talks about the band’s his­to­ry and con­text:

In the ’70s, when we formed the band, there was a lot of ten­sion in Britain, lots of strikes, and the coun­try was an eco­nom­ic mess. There also was aggres­sion toward any­one who looked different—especially the punks. So the name the Clash seemed appro­pri­ate for the band’s name.

Drum­mer Top­per Head­on talks tech­nique, and all three mem­bers are open about their influ­ences and inspi­ra­tions for the song. The inter­view comes along just as the band pre­pares to release a 13-disc box set, Sound Sys­tem that Mick Jones—in a Rolling Stone interview—promises will be the band’s final state­ment. “This is it for me,” says Jones, “and I say that with an excla­ma­tion mark.” Read about his inten­tions for the col­lec­tion and more Clash his­to­ry in that excel­lent short inter­view here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rare Live Footage Doc­u­ments The Clash From Their Raw Debut to the Career-Defin­ing Lon­don Call­ing

“Joe Strummer’s Lon­don Call­ing”: All Eight Episodes of Strummer’s UK Radio Show Free Online

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

Mick Jones Plays Three Clas­sics by The Clash at the Pub­lic Library

The Clash Star in 1980′s Gang­ster Par­o­dy Hell W10, a Film Direct­ed by Joe Strum­mer

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

One day Lenny Kravitz was sit­ting with some friends on a ter­race in New Orleans when he heard a famil­iar sound. A group of high school stu­dents from a bap­tist church in Texas was per­form­ing his hit “Fly Away” on the steps across Decatur Street from Jack­son Square in the French Quar­ter.

Kravitz decid­ed he want­ed to join in. One of his friends went down and asked the group’s direc­tor if that would be alright. He said yes, it would. So when the famous musi­cian arrived, the group start­ed play­ing the song again from the top. “It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever expe­ri­enced,” Kelvin Reed, direc­tor of the Voice of Praise choir from the First Bap­tist Church in Lewisville, Texas, told the Dal­las Morn­ing News after­ward. “All of my stu­dents said, ‘Kelvin, did you plan that?’ That was just one of those unique expe­ri­ences.”

The inci­dent hap­pened on June 25, 2010. Back then, Kravitz owned a Cre­ole cot­tage in the French Quar­ter and lived in New Orleans part-time. “It was prob­a­bly one of the most incred­i­ble things that’s ever hap­pened to me,” choir mem­ber and lead gui­tarist Michael Smeaton told the Morn­ing News. “This is a famous musi­cian. He just comes down and wants to jam with us. It makes you real­ize as a musi­cian you have this sense of kin­ship, and you all come from the same expe­ri­ences.”

via That Eric Alper

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Paul Simon Feelin’-Very-Groovy Moment

13,500 Sing “Hey Jude” in Trafal­gar Square

Blind Gui­tarist Lives Out Dream at U2 Show

Between 1979 and 1981, the Cana­di­an pianist Glenn Gould col­lab­o­rat­ed on a series of doc­u­men­tary films with the French vio­lin­ist, writer and film­mak­er Bruno Man­sain­geon. In the scenes pre­sent­ed here, Gould plays a pair of move­ments from Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach’s The Art of Fugue.

Gould was near­ing the end of his life when he gave these per­for­mances. He died of a stroke on Octo­ber 4, 1982, only a few days after his 50th birth­day. Sim­i­lar­ly, The Art of Fugue was one of Bach’s final projects. He worked on it over the last decade of his life, and the unfin­ished man­u­script was pub­lished after his death, per­haps also from a stroke, in 1750 at the age of 65.

The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, is made up of 14 fugues and 4 canons, each explor­ing the con­tra­pun­tal pos­si­bil­i­ties of a sin­gle musi­cal sub­ject. Gould plays “Con­tra­punc­tus I” in the video above. Below, he plays “Con­tra­punc­tus IV.”

via @SteveSilberman

Relat­ed con­tent:

Glenn Gould Explains the Genius of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach (1962)

The Genius of J.S. Bach’s “Crab Canon” Visu­al­ized on a Möbius Strip

A Big Bach Down­load: The Com­plete Organ Works for Free

“When you’re drown­ing,” John Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, “you don’t say, ‘I would be incred­i­bly pleased if some­one would have the fore­sight to notice me drown­ing and come and help me.’  You just scream.”

“Don’t Let Me Down” is Lennon’s anguished scream to his lover, Yoko Ono. When he and the Bea­t­les record­ed the song dur­ing the Let It Be ses­sions in late Jan­u­ary of 1969, Lennon asked Ringo Starr to hit the cym­bal very hard at the begin­ning, to “give me the courage to come scream­ing in.”

The Bea­t­les were in the process of break­ing apart when Lennon wrote the song. It was a dark time in my ways, and he was becom­ing more and more depen­dent upon Ono for per­son­al and cre­ative sup­port. As Paul McCart­ney told writer Bar­ry Miles in Many Years From Now:

It was a very tense peri­od: John was with Yoko and had esca­lat­ed to hero­in and all the accom­pa­ny­ing para­noias and he was putting him­self out on a limb. I think that as much as it excit­ed and amused him, at the same time it secret­ly ter­ri­fied him. So ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was a gen­uine plea, ‘Don’t let me down, please, what­ev­er you do. I’m out on this limb, I know I’m doing all this stuff, just don’t let me down.’ It was say­ing to Yoko, ‘I’m real­ly step­ping out of line on this one. I’m real­ly let­ting my vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty be seen, so you must not let me down.’ I think it was a gen­uine cry for help.

You can get a strong sense of Lennon’s anguish and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty when you lis­ten to the iso­lat­ed vocal track above. And for the full arrange­ment, includ­ing Star­r’s cym­bal-crash near the begin­ning and Bil­ly Pre­ston’s bril­liant elec­tric piano play­ing, see below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mick Jag­ger Tells the Sto­ry Behind ‘Gimme Shel­ter’ and Mer­ry Clayton’s Haunt­ing Back­ground Vocals

Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury and David Bowie on the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track for the Queen Hit ‘Under Pres­sure,’ 1981

Kurt Cobain’s Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track From ‘Smells Like Teen Spir­it,’ 1991

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig Filmed in Jan­u­ary 1969