Redemption Song Quotes

“I tell her how sorry I am, and as I speak my words feel inadequate and pathetic.”
― Chris Salewicz, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer

“talk to Rat Scabies, former drummer with the Damned. He tells me he and Joe had been working together in 1995 on the soundtrack of Grosse Pointe Blank, but that they fell out over that hoary old rock ’n’ roll chestnut—money. “I was stupid,” he admits. “I thought I knew everything from playing with the Damned. But working with Joe was like an entirely new education. He understood how to trust his instincts and go with them every time. I couldn’t believe how fast he worked.”
― Chris Salewicz, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer

“I’ve got a big problem: Mick was right about Bernie [Rhodes].” He had finally realized he had been manipulated. He caught a plane to the Bahamas, where Mick Jones was on holiday: an ounce of grass in his hand, he sought out the guitarist’s hotel, and presented him with this tribute, asking to get the Clash back together. But it was too late: Jones had already formed a new group, Big Audio Dynamite; although Joe Strummer ended up coproducing BAD’s second album, his own plans came to nothing.”
― Chris Salewicz, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer

“one of his first creative contributions on linking up with Mick Jones was to change the title of a love song called “I’m So Bored with You” to “I’m So Bored with the USA.”
― Chris Salewicz, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer

“Strummer’s father’s profession of career diplomat didn’t arise from any position of privilege—quite the opposite, in fact. “He was a self-made man, and we could never get on,” said Strummer. “He couldn’t understand why I was last in every class at school. He didn’t understand there were different shapes to every piece of wood, different grains to people. I don’t blame him, because all he knew was that he pulled himself out of it by studying really hard.”
― Chris Salewicz, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer