Spanish Bombs

song's about the spanish civil war. here's a little breakdown (incomplete)...

"Spanish songs in Andalucia The shooting sites in the days of '39 "-----the spanish civil war. 1936-1939. Franco's fascist troops invade spain while an Anarchist and Proletariet spain who just ousted it's monarch tries to keep them away. Franco starts taking spain by force. Andulacia is in spain

"Fredrico Lorca is dead and gone " an andulacian poet. andulacia was the first part of spain to fall to franco. franco then started to cleanse andulacia of leftist advocates. this included lorca who's plays had such themes as democracy.

"The black cars of the Guardia Civil"- black is an anarachist color. the guardia civil were troops protecting spain from the fascists, they were of anarchist/proletariat/communist affiliation.

"I'm flying in a DC 10 tonight " Us gov't plane.

"Spanish bombs, yo tequierro y finito Yote querda, oh mi corazon" literal spanish translation = spanish bombs oh i want them to end, oh my heart!!!

"The freedom fighters died upon the hill" the freedom fighters were the coalition of the Popular Front including the Socialist UGT, the Trotskyite POUM, the Anarchist CNT and FAI, the Communist PSUC. these were the government of spain under attack. fighting against franco, they most likely died due to overwhelming arms from the other side.

"They sang the red flag They wore the black one", the coalition of the spanish government against the threat of franco were a mixture of communists and anarchists. the red flag is a symbol of communism, while the black flag is a symbol of anarchism.

"Back home the buses went up in flashes The Irish tomb was drenched in blood" the Clash are from the UK. this is relating to the incidents of the IRA (something having to do with pissed-relgious-irish folk).

"The hillsides ring with "Free the people" Or can I hear the echo from the days of '39?" The spanish people cry for liberation, Franco ruled spain until his death in 1975. Spain was under a fascist dictatorship until then. echos from the start of the spanish civil war, the war that they lost.

"With trenches full of poets" poets fought in the war too. could be a reference to frederico lorca

"The ragged army, fixin' bayonets to fight the other line". the ragged army were the people's militia that formed in towns to combat franco. they had no aid from their own government, they were all using their own guns. so if they broke, they must fix them themselves. they were tired and fatigued, and poor. thus in rags.

"Spanish bombs rock the province". eh, maybe not spanish bombs. but Guernica was in the province. it's a small hamlet bombarded with bombs for no particular reason, only to cripple the morale of spain.

"Spanish bombs on the Costa Brava I'm flying in on a DC 10 tonight Spanish songs in Andalucia, Mandolina, oh mi corazon Spanish songs in Granada, oh mi corazon" a hitlist of bomb sites.

.....I have no life. lol

For anyone interested in the Spanish Civil War, I highly recommend "Homage to Catolonia" by George Orwell for a factual account of the conflict, and Hemimgway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" for a fictional one. Hemingway isn't super friendly to the anarchists in his book, but it's still a great read.

I am sorry to belittle those people that said that the song has nothing to do with ETA, but you are so very very wrong.

This song was written during a period of the 1970s when ETA was planting bombs on the Spanish holiday resort areas, principally the Costa Brava (hence that reference). The DC-10 reference is part of this as well as it was the type of plane so commonly used by tour operators (that cant be a reference to the Civil War as of course the DC-10 did not exist in 1939). He is saying that like the many non-Spanish (including for example George Orwell, also referenced in the song) he (as a British tourist) is flying into the war zone.

In a nut-shell, the song is about passion. Passion for a lover (Joe Strummer had a Spanish lover at the time), and passion for your country, drawing parallels between the Spanish Civil War and the ETA struggle for basque separatism, with a dollop of Irish indepenence fighting via the 'back home and buses' reference which is a namecheck to the IRA campaign.

You have to appreciate that Joe Strummer had a certain fascination with all things Spanish (don't think he got the Spanish lyrics wrong, it is just the poor writing down of the lyric by others) and also the song was written during the 1970s a time of fear and unrest in the UK with the IRA bombing our towns and cities (don't get me started on that or the US funding of their terror campaign) and the ETA bombings in family holiday resorts.

its "yo te quiero infinito, yo te quiera corazon" means I will care and love you infinitely, I will love you sweethart. Let's recall that later the Clash attempted to sing in Spanish "Should I stay or Should I go?" and they sang Spanish just as horribly then. They translated everything literally word-by-word.

I just got my hands on London Calling. It's my first album by The Clash. This song is probably the one I listen to the most. It's so catchy and up-beat despite the depressing subject matter. Anyway, London Calling is, in my opinon, the closest any album has come to perfection.

That DC10 -- maybe it's Joe heading to the Spanish coast on a low-cost flight to enjoy himeself, like millions of other Brits, and feeling a little guilty about the people who suffered there in the past. Joe Strummer loved Spain but didn't ignore its dark side in the old Franco days. What a great song.

Just so it is known "corazon" translates to heart but with an implication of courage sort of meaning, how it hurts how much longer he can stay brave.

oh and they fucked up the song..." yo tequierro y finito" its nonsense. it tranlates to "i tequierro (made up word) and end" and then "yo te querda" doesn't have any meaning. now i know this is what it sounds like in the song but those guys have english accents and english pronounciation, so...there ya go

Quoting Tsk8rKFF: ""Back home the buses went up in flashes The Irish tomb was drenched in blood" the Clash are from the UK. this is relating to the incidents of the IRA (something having to do with pissed-relgious-irish folk)."

Bit of an ignorant (not to mention offensive) summary of the Northern Irish problem of the 70's. It wasn't religious it was political. It began in the late 60's when Irish Catholics (more an ethnic than a religious term) started a peaceful campaign to secure equal civil rights to the protestant population. Previously a catholic vote was worth only half a protestant one and catholics weren't allowed seats in the Northern Irish parliament. The protests led to a violent reaction from the working class loyalist areas. The British army, sent in to control the situation, and understanding little about Irish affairs, were seen to take the side of the loyalists. the population became radicalised and the bloody IRA (a paramillitary organisation that sought a united Irish republic and which had long been dormant before the start of the troubles) swelled with new angry young members. A horrible bombing campaign followed which frequently stretched to London. I think the clash's reference to it here is more a call to watch the situation carefully. Up to now the British Army had handled it disastroulsy exacerbating the problem more than helping it (Bloody Sunday). I also think that ETA is implicitly present within the song. Perhaps Strummer saw some relevance in the that period in Spanish history and the contemporary issue of violent paramilitarianism that was growing in different areas of Europe. "Can I hear the echo from the days of 39".

Also German fascists and English ones were known as Blackshirts. The reference to flying in on a DC10 is probably not about the US gov't at all, but about foreigners rallying to the cause of the socialist alliance... basically a whole load of idealists came over to fight the fascists. George Orwell and Laurie Lee are a couple of poets from England who went along. Federico Lorca lived near Granada, I think he lived in the hills around there. The hilly Alpujarras region near Granada has a history of revoluts, from the Moorish uprising in the 16th century under Philip II to the 79 Greanda revolution. There probably are some references to Basque seperatism, but it's not true to my knowledge that ETA are active in the South of Spain... in the South of the Basque region they certainly are, but this is in the North of Spain. Barcelona and particularly San Sebastian are places where tehre've been ETA bombings. I'm wondering whether "they sang the red flag they wore the black one" is actually supposed to criticse the communists. Maybe not. But certainly the communists were generally a bunch of backstabbers in the Spanish civil war, they were shipped out from and totally attached to Russia's Stalinism. They decimated the otehr parties fighting fascism in a series of purges. If this is a lonve song it's not a bout a woman but about nationalism, or perhaps just love of peace. Reading the lyrics in the album they do seem to be asaebassist has them down, and this does kinda translate to wanting the bombs to end. I'd neevr noticed the references to the IRA but this is a good point, cheers. Anyway whatever this song is about... and there are lots of cryptic lines like the one about "my disco casino... it's bloody brilliant.