Your Friday Clash Song: Yahrzeit Edition

So, today we’re going to do something a little different with the Friday Clash Song feature, because it happens to be two years to the day since Margaret Mary Durkin von Ebers made the return trip across the Western Ocean, as the Irish once called it. Metaphorically speaking, of course. She’s actually in Section 36 at Queen Of Heaven Cemetery, where many of the tribe are laid. But that’s not quite as lyrical.

But, so, anyway, given that it’s My Sainted Irish Mother’s yahrzeit (and how’s that for mixing your cultural metaphors?), I give you Joe Strummer performing “London Calling” with the greatest Irish rock ’n roll band of all time, from The Pogues: Live at the Town and Country DVD (1988):

What could be better than that? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe Joe Strummer and the Pogues doing “I Fought the Law”:

Damn, son. That’s fine.

Okay, because it’s a Pogues kind of day, here’s one of my all time favorites: “Dirty Old Town,” also from the Live at the Town and Country DVD … with special commentary from Joe:

Heard a siren from the docks


Saw a train set the night on fire


Smelled the spring on the smoky wind


Dirty old town


Dirty old town …

Not altogether unlike the Moms’ hometown, Waukegan, Illinois, when she was growing up:

Genesee Street, February 1939

Rest in peace,  mo chuisle.

And the rest of you … well, you know what to do.

Turn. It. Up.