Bankrobber Lost In The Supermarket The Clash

Bankrobber Album: Black Market Clash (1980)
Lost In The Supermarket Album: London Calling (1979)
by The Clash

Bankrobber describes a boy whose father robs banks, but refuses to harm anybody in the process; he simply loves to live life as a criminal. Unfortunately many people took these lyrics literally, prompting sniffy critics to point out that Joe Strummer's dad was a foreign office diplomat and not actually a bankrobber.
Joe Strummer's dad was a foreign office diplomat.
Joe Strummer's dad was a foreign office diplomat.

The lyrics to Bankrobber aren't meant literally - instead they are a continuation of the themes of dead-end jobs and escaping oppression by 'the man' that run through so many Clash songs, starting on the first album with "Career Opportunities."

What started out sometime in 1979 as a jaunty ska tune demoed as "The Bank Robber's Song" became what was supposed to be: the first in a long line of singles released through 1980. Except record label CBs hated it, calling it "all of David Bowie's records played backwards." Harsh criticism for one of the band's best charting singles, and another move away from the traditional sound of the band after the already fairly radical-sounding "London Calling."

A reggae version of Bankrobber by Audioweb went to #19 on the UK charts in 1997. The song has also been covered by The Pistoleers (in a rockabilly style) and by The Soul Merchants.

Bankrobber was recorded in Pluto Studios in Manchester in early February 1980. It was the first time the band would work with Mikey Dread, a man they would collaborate with a lot over the next year (he would produce their 1980 triple-album Sandinista!). Another longtime Clash collaborator, Mickey Gallagher, says that "Mikey got a great vibe going in the studio - he made rhythms by shaking a matchbox, or using a squeaky toy."

The video, featuring two masked robbers (roadies Johnny Green and Barry Glare) holding up a bank in Lewisham, South London, was rejected by the popular UK TV show Top of the Pops. So instead the resident dance troupe of the time, Legs and Co, had to dance to it when the song appeared on the show in August 1980.

"'Bankrobber is an interesting one," Clash guitarist Mick Jones told Daniel Rachel, author of The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters. "I think my dad was a bankrobber's assistant. There was talk of him driving getaway cars. He was a cab driver but he drove for other people. Joe wrote the words. The songs are like folk songs. They've become like traditional songs. A lot of it was based on truth. We made it so everybody could relate to it. It wasn't exactly the truth, for instance in 'Lost in the Supermarket' I didn't have a hedge in the suburb. I lived in a council flat. A lot of the time it got mythologized."

Even in 1979, musicians were bemoaning the increased commercialization and information overload that was pervading society. That's apparent on Lost In The Supermarket.

Joe Strummer of The Clash wrote the lyrics and Mick Jones sang lead. In the DVD Making of 'London Calling': The Last Testament, which came with the 25th anniversary edition of the album, Strummer said he wrote the lyrics to Lost In The Supermarket imagining Jones' life growing up in a basement with his mother and grandmother.

Interestingly, it also includes personal references to his own life growing up in a heavily suburban middle-class family ("We had a hedge back home in the suburbs, over which I never could see").

The Afghan Wings covered Lost In The Supermarket for the Burning London tribute compilation in 1999; this version includes singer Greg Dulli ad-libbing lyrics from other songs over the outro, including another Clash song "Train in Vain (Stand By Me)" and Ben E. King's "Stand By Me". Ben Folds also recorded a cover for the movie Over The Hedge.

"Lost In The Supermarket" was first conceived and written in an actual supermarket under the block of flats Joe Strummer was living in at the time with his girlfriend Gaby Salter. While it was too small for Strummer to literally get "lost in the supermarket," he did note in a 1999 interview that the song "occurred to me as I stumbled around dazed by the color and the lights." This would certainly explain the heavy themes of commercialism in the lyrics ("I'm all tuned in, I see all the programs, I save coupons from packets of tea").

Discussing the recording of the song, drummer Topper Headon mentioned in a 1991 interview that the night before, he saw the Blues guitarist Taj Mahal play. "His drummer played a lot of snare beats on the floor tom," said Headon. "When I went in the next day I thought that sounded good last night, I'll use it on this song."

Although the multi-layered production on the record (including layered funk basslines from Paul Simon) made the studio track a lush piece, it made Lost In The Supermarket difficult to play live, and only a handful of performances in exist from the few times they played it in 1983.