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Know Your Rights
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Know Your Rights" | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Single by The Clash | ||
| from the album Combat Rock | ||
| Released | April 1982 | |
| Format | 7" vinyl | |
| Genre | Punk rock | |
| Length | 3:51 | |
| Label | CBS Records | |
| Writer(s) | Joe Strummer/Mick Jones | |
| Producer(s) | Glynn Johns | |
| Chart positions | ||
|
||
| The Clash singles chronology | ||
| "'This is Radio Clash" (1981) |
"Know Your Rights'" (1982) |
"Rock the Casbah " (1982) |
Know Your Rights was a song by The Clash released as a single that was eventually released on their penultimate album, Combat Rock. The song was the first single off the album that was released, and it was a modest success, but it was not as successful as the album's major successes, Rock The Casbah and Should I Stay Or Should I Go.
The song begins with the words "This is a public service announcement...with guitars!" The structure of the song revolves around the rights held by the poor and disenfranchised, in which the speaker of the song, presumably a villainous civil servant (whose identity is assumed in the song by vocalist Joe Strummer), is only able to name three rights, which are all provisional anyway. At the end, the notion that more rights should be granted is rebuffed by the speaker.
The three are:
- The right not to be killed (unless done by a policeman).
- The right to food money (provided you are willing to submit to harassment).
- The right to free speech (unless you actually try it).
This song is one of the most overtly political by The Clash, and it remains reasonably popular. It has been criticized by Marcus Gray, among others, in The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town for being "tunelessly one-dimensional".